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THINKING OUTSIDETHE TEXTBOOK

ZINN EDUCATION PROJECT

SAMPLE TEACHING ACTIVITY

THE PEOPLE vs. COLUMBUS, et al.


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Dear Friends,

At the Zinn Education Project, we are pleased tooffer this free sample teaching activity. It’s a livelylesson that prompts students to think deeply andcritically about the so-called discovery of America.

Tere are lots more resources where this camefrom—about every period of U.S. history.

At www.zinnedproject.org, we are committed tooffering teachers the best resources to help thembring a people’s history to life in the classroom. We feature more than 80 free, downloadable lessonplans and teaching activities for middle and high

school classrooms. Te site also lists hundreds of recommended books, films, and websites. Te teachingactivities and resources are organized by theme, time period, and grade level.

Te Zinn Education Project is the only collection of its kind for educators. Visit www.zinnedproject.organd register today.

Te Zinn Education Project was inspired by the work of historian Howard Zinn(1922–2010). Trough his books and lectures, Prof. Zinn taught that history is madenot by a few heroic individuals, but instead by people’s choices and actions. HowardZinn insisted that the study of history must focus on what matters: war and peace, civilrights, economic justice.

Join us at www.zinnedproject.org. Let’s think outside the textbook.

Sincerely,

Deborah MenkartCo-directorZinn Education Project

REHINKING SCHOOLS

Launched in 1986,Rethinking Schoolsis a nonprot publisher working for equity and justice in public schools and the broader society.Rethinking Schools publishes a quarterly journal,special publications, and award-winning books. www.rethinkingschools.org

EACHING FOR CHANGE

Since 1989, eaching for Changehas provided teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world. www.teachingforchange.org

Coordinating Organizations


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HINKING OUSIDE HE EXBOOK | Sample eaching Activity: Te People vs. Columbus, et al.2

Materials Needed:

• Some construction paper suitable for

making name placards.

• Colored markers.

ime Required:

he time needed for this activity can vary consid-erably depending on the preparation and defensesmounted by students. eachers should allocate atleast two 50-minute periods for the role play.

Suggested Procedure:

1. In preparation for class, list the names of allthe “defendants” on the board: Columbus,Columbus’ men, King Ferdinand and QueenIsabella, the aínos, and the System ofEmpire.

2. ell students that each of these defendantsis charged with murder—the murder of the

aíno Indians in the years following 1492. ell them that, in groups, students willportray the defendants and that you, theteacher, will be the prosecutor.

Explain that students’ responsibility will betwofold: a) to defend themselves against the

charges, and b) to explain who they think isguilty and why.

One rule: hey may plead guilty if they wish, but they cannot claim sole responsi-bility; they must accuse at least one otherdefendant. At this point, students sometimesprotest that it’s ridiculous to charge the

aínos for their own deaths, or they mayshow some confusion about the “system of

empire.” ell them not to worry, that it’s your job as prosecutor to explain the charges.Each group will receive a written copy of thecharges against them.

3. Explain the order of the activity:

a. In their groups, they will prepare adefense against the charges contained inthe indictments. It’s a good idea forstudents to write these up, as they will bepresenting these orally and may want toread a statement.

b. Before the trial begins, you will chooseseveral students, who will be sworn toneutrality. hese people will be the jury.

c. As prosecutor, you will begin by arguingthe guilt of a particular group.

d. hose in the group accused by the pros-ecutor will then defend themselves and

with the premisethat a monstrous crime was committed in the

years after 1492, when perhaps as many as threemillion or more aínos on the island of His-paniola lost their lives. (Most scholars estimatethe number of people on Hispaniola in 1492 at

between one and three million; some estimatesare lower and some much higher. By 1550, veryfew aínos remained alive.) Who—and/or what—was responsible forthis slaughter? his is the question studentsconfront here.

The People vs.

Columbus, et al. B Y B ILL B IGELOW

Teaching Activity


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More free teaching activities online at www.zinnedproject.org 3

will state who they believe is guilty and why. [One option is to require thateach group call at least one witness. Forexample, in one class, the group repre-senting the King and Queen called oneof the aínos to the stand and asked,“Have you ever seen me before?” No.“Did I ever kill any of your people?” No.“Did I ever hurt any of your people?”No. “We have no further questions.”]

e. he jury will then question that group,and others may also question the groupand offer rebuttals.

f. his process is repeated until all thegroups have been accused and havedefended themselves. he jury will thendecide guilt and innocence.

4. Ask students to count off into five groups ofroughly equal numbers. o get things mov-ing quickly, I like to tell students that the

first group to circle up gets first pick of whothey’ll represent. Go around to each of thegroups and distribute the appropriate “indict-ment” sheets. Remind students to read theindictment against them carefully and discuss

possible arguments in their defense. As they discuss, I wander from group to

group, making sure students understandtheir responsibilities—at times playingdevil’s advocate, at times helping themconsider possible defenses. Also, at thispoint, I distribute a placard and marker toeach group so that they can display whichrole they are portraying.

Sometimes students want to see the

indictments against the other groups. Iencourage them to read these because it

will help students develop additional argu-ments. Also, students may want to useother “evidence.” [See the first chapter ofHoward Zinn’s A People’s History of theUnited States and information includedthroughout the Rethinking Schools book Rethinking Columbus —for example, fromColumbus’ diary (p. 96), the timeline (p. 99),or the aínos (p. 106).]

5. When each group appears ready—after per-haps a half hour, depending on the class—choose a jury: one member from each group(in a big class), or a total of three students ina smaller class. Publicly swear them to neu-trality; they no longer represent the King andQueen, the aínos, or anyone else.

6. he order of prosecution is up to you. I pre-fer: Columbus, Columbus’ men, the Kingand Queen, the aínos, and the System of

Empire. I save the System for last as it’s themost difficult to prosecute, and depends onhaving heard the other groups’ presentations.

As mentioned, the teacher argues the indict-ment for each group, the group defends, the

jury questions, and other groups may thenquestion. hen, the process repeats itself foreach indictment. he written indictments


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should be an adequate outline for prosecu-tion, but I always feel free to embellish.

7. After each group has been charged and hasmade its defense, I ask the jury to step outof the classroom and deliberate. hey can

assign “percentage guilt,” e.g., one party is 25percent guilty, another 60 percent, etc. heyalso need to offer clear explanations for whythey decided as they did. As they deliberate,I ask the rest of the class to step out of theirroles and to do in writing the same thing the

jury is doing.

8. he jury returns and explains its verdict andthen we discuss. Here are some questionsand issues to raise:

• Was anyone entirely not guilty? Did theprosecutor convince you that the aínos

were in part responsible for their owndeaths?

• Why didn’t the aínos kill Columbus onhis first voyage?

• How did you weigh responsibility

between the “bosses” and the men theyhired?

• Can you imagine a peaceful meeting

between Europeans and aínos?Or did European life—the “System ofEmpire”—make violence inevitable?How would Spain and other Europeancountries have had to be different tohave made a more peaceful outcomepossible?

• What more would you need to know

about the System of Empire to under-stand how it affected people’s thinkingand behavior?

• If the System of Empire is guilty, what

should be the “sentence”? You can’t put asystem in prison.

Bill Bigelow ([email protected]) is the curriculum editor of

Rethinking Schools

magazine.

This article is offered for use in educational settings

as part of the Zinn Education Project, a collabora-

tion of Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change,

publishers and distributors of social justice educational

materials. Contact Rethinking Schools directly for

permission to reprint this material in course packets,

newsletters, books, or other publications.

For more information:

Rethinking Schools Teaching for Change

www.rethinkingschools.org www.teachingforchange.org

800-669-4192 800-763-9131

Tis article was previously published in

Rethinking Columbus , a publication ofRethinking Schools. o order RethinkingColumbus , visit www.rethinkingschools.orgor call 800-669-4192.


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Handout

Y “discovered” was to take possession ofanother people’s territory in the name ofan empire thousands of miles away.

From the very beginning of your

time in the Indies you kidnapped aínoIndians. Even when they attempted toescape, making it clear that they wantedto leave, you refused to release them.

Your journal shows that your only wish in the Indies was to find gold. heonly reason you showed any kindness tothe aínos on your first trip was so they would agree to show you the source oftheir gold.

On your second voyage to the Indies, you ordered your men to round up aí-nos and had more than 500 shipped toSpain as slaves. You told your men tohelp themselves to the remaining aínocaptives, which they did. his act alonekilled several hundred aínos.

In 1495 you started the policy of forc-ing aínos, age 14 and older, to collectgold for you. hose who didn’t return

every three months with the amount ofgold you demanded were punished byhaving their hands chopped off.

You ordered your men to spread “ter-ror” among the aínos when there wasrumor of resistance.

he list goes on. When you arrived onHispaniola there may have been as manyas a million or even three million aínoson the island. According to one Spanishpriest, by 1542 there were 200 aínos

left. here is no one to blame but you. You were Admiral, you were Viceroy,

you were Governor of the island.

— from the role play he People vs. Columbus, et al.

Columbus

he Indictment: You are charged with the mistreatment and

murder of thousands, perhaps millions, of aíno Indians.


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Handout

W , C’ enslave and kill aínos would have beenempty words.

here is no evidence that Colum-bus personally captured slaves or killed

anyone with his own hands. You are theones responsible for the enslavement offirst hundreds, then thousands, of aínoIndians.

You did the dirty work. You raped women. You set dogs on infants. You cutthe hands off aínos who didn’t deliverenough gold. You whipped aínos if theydidn’t work hard enough in the mines.

Without you there were no crimes.

You may try to blame your superi-ors, Columbus or even King Ferdinandand Queen Isabella. But because someoneorders you to commit a crime does not free you of the blame for committing it. Youcould have said no. here were Spaniards,like the priests Antonio de Montesinosand Bartolomé de las Casas, who refusedto mistreat Indians and spoke out on theirbehalf. Why didn’t you?

Without the soldier there is no war. Without you there would have been no

genocide.


Columbus’ Men




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Handout

W , Ccouldn’t have launched his plan to find theEast Indies by sailing west. Without you,he was an unemployed sailor.

You hired him to “discover” and claim

new lands. hus you are guilty of con-spiracy to steal the territory of people youdidn’t even know, who had never botheredor harmed you.

When Columbus returned after hisfirst voyage with several Indian captives,and you rewarded him, you became guiltyof kidnapping. You could have orderedColumbus to stop kidnapping Indians. You could have punished him for this

illegal act. By not doing anything to stopColumbus and his men, you legalizedevery crime they committed.

In his first letter to you, Columbus wrote that the Indians would make excel-lent slaves. Right away, you could haveordered him to take no slaves. You did nosuch thing, and thus became accomplicesin all future slave taking. rue, after a while you discouraged Columbus from enslaving

people—they mostly died, anyway—but

you never punished him for these crimes, which killed hundreds of human beings.

Really, you didn’t care what Columbusdid, so long as you got rich. At times, you would order that the aínos should be

treated humanely. But you took no actionto stop the aínos from being forced to work in the mines. hey were slaves ineverything but name. Had you wanted thecruelty to stop, you could have ordered all your subjects home. But then you wouldn’thave gotten any more gold. And that was what you wanted, right?

Because Columbus was unpopular with other Spaniards, you replaced him

as governor. But you never punished himfor the crimes committed against aínos when he was governor. And these crimescontinued under the next governor.

Because you were the bosses andbecause you paid the bills, you have moreguilt than had you been the ones wieldingthe swords and hangmen’s nooses.


King Ferdinandand Queen Isabella




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Handout

A this crime, you are also guilty of commit-ting it. You failed to fight back against theSpaniards. his meant that you broughtthe fate of slavery and death upon your-

selves.From the very beginning you must

have known what Columbus meant todo. He took aíno captives from otherislands and held them against their will.He claimed your land as his own. He wasinterested only in finding gold. When your people were cut by Spaniards’ swords,Columbus and his men showed no con-cern. All this you must have known.

ragically, you let this greedy, violentman get away, so he could return. On hisnext trip, however, he brought 17 shipsand between 1,200 and 1,500 men, allheavily armed. You allowed, even invited,this invasion.

Foolishly, your cacique (leader),Caonabó, killed the 39 men Columbusleft behind. Why didn’t Caonabó andthe aínos kill all the Spaniards—includ-

ing Columbus—before they had a chanceto return to Spain? Imagine the differ-ent outcome had the aínos been smartenough to stop Columbus before hecould launch the invasion.

Who knows why the aínos of His-paniola did not unite to throw out all the

Spaniards? Had aínos worked togetherthey might have beaten the Spaniardseven after Columbus returned. After all,the Spaniards numbered fewer than 2,000; aínos numbered in the hundreds of thou-

sands, possibly as many as three million.However, as a result of this aíno fail-

ure, all the Native peoples of the Americassuffered.


Taínos




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Handout

. Y a person, but a system. We like to blamecrimes on people. But in this case, thereal criminal is not human.

rue, Columbus’ men did the killing,

Columbus gave the orders, and KingFerdinand and Queen Isabella paid thebills—and took the profits. But whatmade them behave the way they did? Were they born evil and greedy? hereal blame lies with a system that valuesproperty over people.

European society was organized sothat an individual had to own property tofeel secure. he more property one owned,

the more security, the more control overone’s destiny. here was no security without private ownership of property.If you were poor, you could starve. he aínos were not perfect, but they had no“poor” and no one starved. Indians com-mented that Europeans’ love of gold waslike a disease. In fact, this attitude was aproduct of a diseased system.

In order to get more wealth, Colum-

bus and his men took aínos as slaves,terrorized them into searching out gold,and forced them to work on their farmsand in their mines. hey justified all thisby telling themselves that the aínos weren’t Christian, so “we” can control“their” land and labor. he European

system saw only white Christians as fullhuman beings.

It was life in a system that valuedprivate property (especially gold), andapproved of violence against foreigners

and non-Christians to get it, that madeColumbus and his men enslave and kill.Sane people do not kill hundreds of thou-sands of other human beings. It was arotten, insane system that led Columbusand the others to behave the way theydid. You, as the representatives of thissystem, are guilty for the genocide com-mitted against aínos.

As a final test to see who is guilty for

the mass murder of the aínos, ask your-self these questions:

• If it had been some other “explorer”besides Columbus to “discover America,” would he have let the aí-nos keep their land?

• Would he not have enslaved people?

• Would he not have made them searchfor gold and work in the mines?

You know the answer: Any Europeanconqueror would have been every bit asbad as Columbus. Why? Because thesystem of empire was to blame, not anyparticular individual.


The System of Empire




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What are people saying about the Zinn Education Project?

“Te People vs. Columbus isthe most interactive lessonthat my class has ever used. Te students love it and

become enlightened about aperspective on history theyhave never heard of before.”

—Larry Johns, social studiesteacher, Denman Junior High, McComb, Miss.

“Tis is a wonderful website, giving teachers of students from middleschool up terric resources for engaging the next generation. What a

splendid way to make the past come alive.”

—William H. Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at DukeUniversity and past president of the Organization of American Historians

“I thoroughly enjoy the Zinn Education Project website as a

tool for teachers. I have long wanted to teach U.S. history, andafter reading Howard Zinn’s A Peoples History , I vowed to teachstudents through his words. My classes just completed theConstitutional Convention lesson. It was a fantastic way to enrollstudents in history and its inequalities. Tank you for giving meback some of the meaning of my job.”

—rey Branch, high school social studies teacher, New HanoverCounty School District, Wilmington, N.C.

“I always begin my U.S. historycourse with Te People vs.Columbus, et al. It is amazinghow engaged students become

to not only learn the truthbut also be able to defendthemselves using the evidenceprovided. Students lovecreativity and this case allows students to come totheir own conclusions.”

—Miroslaba “Lili” Velo, U.S. and world historyteacher, ennyson High School, Hayward, Calif.

Te Zinn Education Project is an “outstanding website dedicated tohelping teachers implement the spirit of Howard Zinn’s work in middleschool and high school classrooms.” It offers “resources for teachersdesigned to help students gain complex understandings of U.S. historyand to develop a sense of agency around social issues.”

—Jesse Gainer, Language Arts, September 2010


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“YES! recommends the brilliant ZinnEducation Project and its resources toprovoke and engage your students.”YES! Magazine, May 2010 Education Connection

“When I found the Zinn Education Project website I immediately taught the U.S.-Mexican War role play. It was so wonderful to see a group

of usually unmotivated students engaged thatI called in another teacher to see this group of

students actively involved.”

—Sarah reworgy, middle school social studiesteacher, Lynwood, Wash.

“My reward was seeing my students engaged intheir own learning throughout the unit thanks tothe readings from A People’s History of the United

States and zinnedproject.org…

I was beaming and I think I still am.”

—Esmeraldo ello, 7th-grade American histor yteacher, Mastic Beach, N.Y.

“Te Zinn Education Project website is easy to navigate, thetitles intriguing, and the PDFsspeedy to download. I just

used the lesson on the variousperspectives on the War withMexico with my 8th graderstoday. Fantastic. Tank you for your work.”

—Amy Lake, Kellogg School, Fall Village, Conn.

“Te lessons are easy to ndand I appreciate the optionof choosing them by theme,since I teach thematically.

Tanks for providing a muchneeded curriculum andmaking it available to all.”

—Jeff Fleckenstein, highschool social studies teacher, Sebastian River HighSchool International Baccalaureate, Sebastian, Fla.


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HINKING OUSIDE HE EXBOOK | Sample eaching Activity: Te People vs. Columbus, et al.

Howard Zinn: 1922–2010

Te Zinn Education Project is named for HowardZinn, author of many books including the best-selling

A People’s History of the United States: 1492–Present .Howard Zinn grew up in Brooklyn in a working-

class, immigrant household. His early experiences asa shipyard worker and in the Air Force helped shapeboth his passion for justice and his active oppositionto war. Zinn’s autobiography, You Can’t Be Neutral on

a Moving rain, was made into an award-winning documentary lm with the same title. Shortly before his death Howard Zinn completedproduction of the lm Te People Speak, based on the book he co-edited, Voices of a People’s History of the United States .

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Visit today: www.zinnedproject.org

A People’s History ofthe United States

Voices of a People’sHistory of theUnited States

A Young People’sHistory of theUnited States

Te People SpeakDVD

• Free access to more than 80 eective teaching activities on U.S. history

• Free access to a database of hundreds of books, lms, and websites

• Organized by time period and theme

• Searchable by reading level

• Ideal for middle, high school, and adult social studies and language arts classes

• More resources added every day

• News about people’s history workshops and events for teachers

• Connection to a network of elementary, middle, and high school teachers committed toteaching a people’s history

• Easy to register and easy to use

Why register for the Zinn Education Project?


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Te Zinn Education Project introduces students to a more accurate,complex, and engaging understanding of United States history than is

found in traditional textbooks and curricula.

www.zinnedproject.org

Coordinating Organizations

www.rethinkingschools.org www.teachingforchange.org

“It was only this year that I discovered theZinn Education Project. I cannot imagine

being a teacher without it.”KRIS BECK, CHICAGO, 5th GRADE

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