I believe that Zinn chose these passages and placed them according to how they fit in the readings. I also believe he chose these passages because it shows how the communication was between the Indians and Columbus and his crew. The passages go on to talk about traditions of how when someone is soon to die their legacy or power is passed down to his brothers, then to his sisters, then to his children that Columbus learned as they began to build the Virginia colony. The passages tell us of the treatment and lifestyle of the people whether it was the Indians or even the Spanish. Yes, this class the passages paint this picture of how everything we learned about Columbus was not true and that they told us nothing but the positives of Columbus and how he deserves to be credited for the discovery. While just being in college it has changed by perspective of how to look at Columbus and if we really want to get down to it, he really wasn’t the first to discover the America’s because there were people already living here and him and his country came in and took over what really wasn’t theirs. And I believe that as students we should have been told the whole truth Christopher Columbus.
Columbus’s motives were to treat the Indians like savage people and work them like dogs till they were done with one of his projects and then they would have a break then they would work again for forty straight days with no breaks and then repeat that for however long Columbus wanted or until the Indian or Indians would pass away. Though his biggest motive was to find the gold that was believed to be in the America’s and he believed that the Indians knew where it was at. Columbus was willing to do whatever it took to get the Indians to show where the gold was or for them to give him the gold.
What I learned about Christopher Columbus was that he was a type of hero and that he was the one that discovered the America’s and that he wanted nothing more than to be able to taka and spread god’s world and love. Columbus was taught as a good and honest man and that yes there was a bit of fighting when they first arrived there but they got over it and gathered together and made peace with each other. Or the biggest one of how Columbus believed that the world was round and everyone else thought at some point you could sail right off the side of the world because they believed that the world was flat, so Columbus wanted to prove them wrong. We never discussed how cruel he was to the Indians.