Oppression and Class warfare Exposed in Dr. Howard Zinn’s...

Dr. Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States might be better titled A Proletarian’s History of the United States. In the first three chapters Zinn looks at not only the history of the conquerors, rulers, and leaders; but also the history of the enslaved, the oppressed, and the led. Like any American History book covering the time period of 1492 until the early 1760’s, A People’s History tells the story of the â€Å"discovery† of America, early colonization by European powers, the governing of these colonies, and the rising discontent of the colonists towards their leaders. Zinn, however, stresses the role of a number of groups and ideas that most books neglect or skim over: the plight of the Native†¦show more content†¦From the Bahamas, Columbus sailed to Cuba and Hispaà ±ola, the present-day home of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. One-hundred fifteen years later and 1,500 miles to the north, the colony of Jamestown was founded by a group of English settlers led by John Smith; shortly after that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by a group of Puritans known to us today as the Pilgrims. Because of uneasy and hostile relations with the nearby Pequot Indians, the Pequot War soon started between the colonists and the natives. Needless to say, the colonists won, but it was at the expense of several dozen of their own and thousands of Pequots. But despite Indian conflict, exposure, starvation, famine, disease, and other hardships, the English kept coming to America. In 1619 they were settled enough that they started bringing African slaves into the middle colonies. Before resorting to Africans, the colonists had tried to subdue the Indians, but that idea failed before it was created. Zinn writes: â€Å"They couldn’t force the Indians to work for them, as Columbus had done. They were outnumbered, and while, with superior firearms, they could massacre the Indians, they would face massacre in return. They could not capture them and keep them enslaved; the Indians were tough, resourceful, defiant, and at home in these woods, as the transplanted Englishmen were not. â€Å"White servants had