There are many different viewpoints that can be taken when writing a history about an event. Some viewpoints paint a situation favorably to a group of people while other paint the same situation negatively. The American Pageant by David Kennedy and Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States both contain chapters about the initial landing of Columbus in the Americas and the aftermath of this event. Zinn takes the viewpoint of both the Europeans and the natives, while Kennedy takes the perspective of only the Europeans, and the result is Zinn having a more clear and full history of the events than Kennedy. Zinn and Kennedy take different approaches to the encounter between Christopher Columbus. Kennedy, on page
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Again it is clear that Zinn tells the story from the Aztec’s position. It is equally obvious that Kennedy tells it from Cortez’s perspective. From pages 17 to 19 Kennedy spends four paragraphs again on buildup and only two on the conflict that resulted from the encounter itself. Kennedy refers to the Aztecs attacking the Spaniards as resulting in “a frantic bloody retreat”, (Kennedy, 19). He uses the words, “The Aztec Empire gave way” to describe the fall of the empire, (Kennedy, 19). The Aztec victory is described negatively as it was bloody and people died. The Spanish victory, on the other hand is more neutral referring to it as a mere fall of the empire. The blame for large death tolls of Aztecs is blamed on diseases introduced by the Spaniards rather than their weapons, as seen when Kennedy writes, “The native population of Mexico winnowed mercilessly by the invader’s diseases, shrank from some 20 million to 2 million people in less than a century,” (Kennedy, 19). In Zinn however, there is a very different story that is told. On pages 11 and 12 Zinn tells of the horrible methods Cortez and his men used to defeat the Aztecs. He describes an army “killing with the kind of deliberateness that accompanies a strategy--to paralyze the will of the population by a sudden frightful deed,” (Zinn, 11). Zinn tells of an instance where the Spaniards led the leaders of the Cholula nation to a square and then massacring them and their men, (11-12). Once again the story told by Zinn gives the full picture of the events, while Kennedy leaves important information
Again it is clear that Zinn tells the story from the Aztec’s position. It is equally obvious that Kennedy tells it from Cortez’s perspective. From pages 17 to 19 Kennedy spends four paragraphs again on buildup and only two on the conflict that resulted from the encounter itself. Kennedy refers to the Aztecs attacking the Spaniards as resulting in “a frantic bloody retreat”, (Kennedy, 19). He uses the words, “The Aztec Empire gave way” to describe the fall of the empire, (Kennedy, 19). The Aztec victory is described negatively as it was bloody and people died. The Spanish victory, on the other hand is more neutral referring to it as a mere fall of the empire. The blame for large death tolls of Aztecs is blamed on diseases introduced by the Spaniards rather than their weapons, as seen when Kennedy writes, “The native population of Mexico winnowed mercilessly by the invader’s diseases, shrank from some 20 million to 2 million people in less than a century,” (Kennedy, 19). In Zinn however, there is a very different story that is told. On pages 11 and 12 Zinn tells of the horrible methods Cortez and his men used to defeat the Aztecs. He describes an army “killing with the kind of deliberateness that accompanies a strategy--to paralyze the will of the population by a sudden frightful deed,” (Zinn, 11). Zinn tells of an instance where the Spaniards led the leaders of the Cholula nation to a square and then massacring them and their men, (11-12). Once again the story told by Zinn gives the full picture of the events, while Kennedy leaves important information