Ch 1 "Columbus, the Indians + Human Progress"

1)The author is trying to convince the reader to look at the history of America through the eyes of the Indians instead of the eyes of the conquerors.


2) The author is talking about how on history is viewed through the eyes of the conquerors. He states "The treatment of heroes and their victims - the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress - is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, and leaders." The author continues to argue about how it is inevitable to take sides when deciding what to emphasize in history. He starts out by talking about Christopher Columbus then he moves on to the settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. He also argues about how the Indians were killed because they were viewed as being barbaric in the eyes of the Europeans. He argued about how a group of people was killed so that another group would be able to survive and grow. The author stated "Was all this bloodshed and deceit.... a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization?" The author talked about how even though the Indians were viewed as barbaric they really were not. He proved that they were agriculturally fit, they lived in settled communities, the men and women were equal, and the children were educated.

3) Would society be different if the Indians and the English settlers worked together instead of fighting in a war against each other?
Is it possible that the English settlers could have been the inferior civilization?

4) I agree with the author about how history is viewed in the eyes of the government, and not viewed in the eyes of the victims. From reading this I realized that the Indian tribes were not as barbaric and once believed to be. They were nice to the new English settlers which ended up being their downfall. Their niceness was never repaid. Instead of the English being nice in return, they chose to either kill or enslave the Indians. The Indian tribes could have taught the English settlers a lot about life, and how some of the things the Indians did were better than the English settlers. The two groups of people could have worked together to make a better society for all. The English had the technology while the Indians had the correct views about how a settlement should work together.