Lies My Teacher Told Me

Public consensus, similar to politics, varies greatly when it comes to American history, especially as it pertains to the classroom. Views about the content and historical interpretation included in history texts have reached a heightened polarization in recent years. This can be seen in the vast differences between the diatribes of Howard Zinn’s, A People’s History of the United States, and Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen’s, A Patriot’s History of the United States. While both books, prescribed by this introductory course into American History, cover many of the same topics, they clearly paint different pictures. I feel that any text seeking to represent a responsible survey of a

Thomas King’s chapter “Forget Columbus” surrounds the idea that the preconceived notions that Americans have about their own history, and the Native Americans who have resided here for centuries, are wrong. Columbus never discovered America. The

Columbus has always been portrayed as an enlightened, peaceful explorer who “discovered” a new world, and became friends with the native people. Howard Zinn’s view on Columbus’s encounter with the natives is an entirely different perspective. Zinn describes Columbus as a man who is willing to torture and kill others to be able to accomplish what he wants; in this case he wanted to obtain gold and other resources to take back with him to Spain.

Later on in A People’s History of the United States, Zinn questions whether “all this bloodshed and deceit – from Columbus to Cortez, Pizarro, the Puritans – [was] a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization.” Zinn

Throughout recorded human history, authors, leaders, and researchers, have documented the past from many different perspectives, and viewpoints. Not every historian has the same stance on a certain issue, therefore, differences in point of view occur in almost every writing. In the textbook The American Pageant, A People’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart, and Michael Allen, and Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, the reader can see many different perspectives throughout each reading. The infamous explorer known as Christopher Columbus, has been documented in many different ways. Depending on the reading, Columbus has be called everything from a “[...]symbol of the new age of hope”, to an inhuman tyrant who captured Indians and turned them into slaves.

All history comes with contradictions. With every moment in history comes a corresponding moment which can take the accuracy and understanding and change them forever. Throughout time people add small pieces of information to great events in our past. This is where we get the misinterpretation of history. In chapter five of the book Lies My Teacher Told Me, these contradictions are brought into light and force us to look at them again. As I have learned in my history courses we can always question the accuracy of a story but we may never fully understand the truth. There have been three important times I have been through that have shaped my understanding of history today, specifically the part of history dealing with slavery and racism.

Christopher Columbus is commonly known as the “discoverer” of the Americas. From a young age students are taught all the wonderful things he did for our land and how well he interacted with the Natives. Although the truth is disregarded and as students grow, they come to learn that Columbus was not a hero in fact. Columbus came close to causing a genocide of the Native Americans, and basically began the “white power” movement that America is forced to deal with today. The truth of what Christopher Columbus did makes him no better than Hitler, yet America still praises him as an important figure in our history. The actions of Columbus has impacted all Americans lives since the 1400’s when he first landed on American soil. Although it did make America into the super power it is today, the structure within the borders will never be equal because of his abuse of power back then. Christopher Columbus is not the hero American students are taught from a young age and does not deserve any of the praise or recognition that we as American citizens continue to give him on a daily basis.

High school history textbooks are seen, by students, as presenting the last word on American History. Rarely, if ever, do they question what their text tells them about our collective past. According to James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, they should be. Loewen has spent considerable time and effort reviewing history texts that were written for high school students. In Lies, he has reviewed twenty texts and has compared them to the actual history. Sadly, not one text measures up to the author's expectation of teaching students to think. What is worse, though, is that students come away from their classes without "having developed the ability to think coherently about social

In 1492, Italian cartographer and explorer, Christopher Columbus, set off on a mission from Spain in order to find a quicker, alternative route to Asia. With him, Columbus brought eighty-seven men and three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María, to sail across the large and vast Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately for Columbus, a new route to Asia was never discovered by Spain that year because he had arrived in the Caribbean, which was found in North America. Thinking that he had just entered the Indies, he started to call the people of this land, “Indians”. These Indians were actually Native Americans who had lived on these lands for thousands of years prior. Immediately, letters from Columbus to the King and Queen of Spain were sent by boat back to Europe and soon Columbus was seen as the man who helped create a bridge of prosperous trading and riches between Europe and “Asia”.1 While this discovery proved that Columbus was a hero-like figure to Spain, it’s what he did within the new land that actually makes him one of the biggest villains to ever set foot on Earth. But what classifies this explorer as a villain? Columbus captured thousands of natives, many of which were sent back to Spain to live and work as slaves. Along with that, Columbus also forced the Christian religion onto them, spread diseases that killed thousands of lives, and used violence as a means of persuasion and control.2 Corrupted by his pursuit of riches,

In the article Hello Columbus: America was No Paradise in 1492, by Robert Royal, Royal argued that Native Americans, along with Columbus, are portrayed wrongly in society today, from schools to media.

Jack Weatherford, professor of anthropology at Macalester College, describes the misconceptions of Christopher Columbus and who he was as a person in his essay, “Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus”. Through his writing, Weatherford is able to show readers that Columbus was not the hero he is made out to be. Weatherford uses tools such as negative diction, juxtaposition, and facts in the form of evidence to support his claim.

"It would be better not to know so many things than to know so many

In his novel, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present, Howard Zinn offers readers a new and unexpected take on American history. First published in 1980, A People’s History is often received with much controversy and criticism, as Zinn does something that historians rarely do: he openly rejects the narrative of American history as told by a European perspective. The first chapter of the novel mainly serves to illustrate two of Zinn’s most fundamental ideas: one, that he, as a historian, chooses to write from the lesser-known perspective of groups whose voices have been suppressed; and two, that it is necessary for people to ask themselves to what extent is it ‘right’ to justify atrocities in the name of human progress. Although

Although the feats of Columbus were significant and greatly beneficial to society, the question may be raised at this point on why the controversy surrounding Columbus even exists, seeing the substantial contributions Columbus made to society, both of then and now. The

Even in small matters, the historical Columbus had a way of demonstrating his true character, which was quite different from that portrayed in this film or in popular culture in general. In the movie, Columbus did offer a bounty to the first sailor who sighted land, but in reality when he returned to Spain he claimed it for himself. Indeed, he wrote an entire book asserting that he was not