Week 4 Reading and Question Assignment

Weekly Reading Assignment (Quiz 4)

For the week Four reading listed below, fully answer the following questions:
Week Four Reading
S & A Chapter 3 (Second Half)
http://ready4itall.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/A-Patriots-History-of-the-US-Ytsewolf.pdf
ZINN Chapter 4
https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncolorline.html

1. a. Give me one example of Whig History from S & A (include the page number)
b. Explain in as much detail as possible why you believe this is Whig (avoid terms like positive and negative).
2. a. Give me one example of Marxist History from Zinn (include the page number)
b. Explain in as much detail as possible why you believe this is Marxist (avoid terms like positive and negative).
Turn your answers into “Canvas” by the due date.

Example An “A” Assignment:
1.)
a. “Columbus continued to Cuba, which he called Hispaniola. At the time he thought he had reached the Far East and referred to the dark-skinned people he found in Hispaniola as Indians. He found these Indians “very well formed, with handsome bodies and good faces,” and hoped to convert them “to our Holy Faith by love rather than by force” by giving them red caps and glass beads “and many other things of small value.” (13)
b.) I believe this passage from chapter 1 of S & A is an example of Whig history because it is an optimistic narrative, from the viewpoint of Christopher Columbus’s leadership, of the beginning of the new world. It portrays Columbus as a hopeful explorer that stumbled upon Hispaniola, and that came to admire and to yearn to bring enlightenment to the natives of the land through gifts. This passage, in Whig fashion, lacked the grim details and hid Columbus’s plan to enslave the natives and pillage their land for gold. Its use of the adjective holy, similar to other Whig terms such as virtue and enlightenment, accentuated its Whig style.
2.)
a.) “The Indians’ attempts to defend themselves failed. And when they ran off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las Casas reports, “they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for help.” (6)
b.) I believe this passage from chapter 1 of Zinn is an example of Marxist history because it is a gloomy and anti-leadership narrative, from the viewpoint of the subordinate Hispaniola natives, of the beginning of the new world. It takes the side of, and it empathizes with the natives’ struggle of pain and isolation caused by their Spanish rulers. This passage highlights the cruelty of the leadership, detailing their persecution and enforcement of labor for gold on the natives. Giving it a Marxist feeling, it pairs the adjective desperate, similar to other Marxist terms such as victims and tragedy, with silence to depict the natives’ suppression and oppression under Spanish rule.