The novel A People’s History of the United States is about the story of America’s history from the viewpoint of the losers. It shows how the underdog such as slaves, Native Americans, and immigrants felt. It points out the traditional stories of major events in American history and flips them completely around in order to get the reader to question whether we did these things for the right reasons and if we did them properly without hurting the people.
One particular part of the novel that struck me was Christopher Columbus. Our history books portray him as a true hero and a great man who wanted to help people. In reality, all of this was false. Columbus came to America for his personal gain. He knew he could make money off of the new land so he exploited the Native Americans and if any disobeyed, he would kill them. He also attempted to civilize the Native Americans and if any natives disobeyed, he would kill them also. Obviously many disobeyed him because Columbus was trying to rid them of beliefs and cultures that had been in place for hundreds of years.
In the year 1992, the 500 year anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s voyage to America, the ancestors of these Native American tribes began to bring cases to the United Nations claiming genocide took place. They wanted Christopher Columbus’s real identity to be brought out. They wanted everyone to know truly what kind of a horrible person Christopher Columbus truly was.
I believe that the Native Americans did truly have a case because what Christopher Columbus did to the Native Americans was completely and totally wrong. He had no right to invade on their already established culture. It was morally wrong also for him to attempt to force his beliefs upon the civilization. One person does not have the right to change an entire society through violence because he wants to go down in history for being wealthy and spreading his religion to a people who clearly did not want it in the first place. That is wrong in many ways because not only did Christopher Columbus exploit a peaceful people who were kind to him, but he killed them off slowly for no real reason except to demonstrate his power and keep them in line so they would not rebel against his authority.
A People’s History of the United States was a fantastic book. It caused me to look at what I have learned about major figures throughout history and question how the people felt about something that they had an influence on. Also, it has caused me to see how much religion and morality hast to do with some of the decisions that these major figures made throughout history. It amazes me how much of a factor morality has had on the history of the United States. This book has also caused me to question my leaders in government. I now ask myself even more than before if the government truly looking out for what is good for me or more for what is good for business and the economy. It has made me realize how to become a better global citizen also. I have learned that my actions will affect other people and this may end up hurting them in the long run.
This book caused me to remember a few things we covered in this morality course. The right speech experiment came up at the very beginning and stayed the entire way through the book because the book focused on government and other authority figures lying to the people in one way or another. Also the sermon on the mount came up because a lot of what was said by the government went against everything in the sermon on the mount.
I liked this book a lot and I have been wanting to read it for quite some time. It was an amazing book, it altered how I think about government and American history, and I have already recommended it to several people because if we all become aware of the problems, we can fix them.