A People's History of the United States
Reading Guide and Assignment
Chapter 7: “ As Long as the Grass Grows or Water Runs”
Directions: As you read the chapter, think about and answer the following questions.
What is the major theme in this chapter? The major theme was Native American survival and the effects of Americans taking their land, raiding their communities, and spreading diseases.
What evidence does Zinn cite to illustrate the overall impact of Indian removal? He uses the story “Fathers and Children” to show the overall impact. The book talked about how the Native Americans were treated horrible. They were kicked out of their home and their homeland and as the horrors went on the Native population began to decrease majorly.
How do Jefferson’s views concerning Indian policy differ when he served as Secretary of state and as President? Why did his views change? When he was Secretary he believed that the Indians should be left alone, but when he became President he believed the Indians should be forced out because this allowed for vast open lands for the Americans to occupy with ag, market, commerce, and develop a good economy. He also wanted to gain more respect from the American citizens (majority of population)
How does Andrew Jackson’s early political/military career foreshadow his Indian policies as President? Before he was President he had a hatred for the Indians and had battled many of them at war. When he became President he had more power to allow him to try to get rid of the Indians permanently.
How does Zinn’s view of the War of 1812 contrast with traditional histories? Zinn believed that war was unnecessary. Zinn thought that we were trying to expand our land but the histories say that we were just fighting the war to get away from England.
Why does Zinn juxtapose the Nullification Controversy of 1832 and the enforcement of Worcester v. Georgia? He is trying to show the reader that people still believed the Indians should be left alone and that they were willing to fight for the Indian’s rights. Some states tried to abolish federal tariffs to help out, but those on Jackson’s side outnumbered these people.
What is the significance of the phrase: “As long as grass grows or water runs”? I believe this is saying that the situation between these two different civilizations will always remain the same, which was on bad terms. So as long as the grass continues to grow and the water still runs, things between them will continue to stay that way.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
1) The Vietnamese complaints against the French both in the letters to President Truman and the 1945 Declaration of Independence, were based on the levying of unjust taxes, increasing the poverty of the rural populace, exploitation of mineral and forest resources, massive starvation, and imprisonment of those who would rebel or question their colonial power. In the long list of grievances against the French stated in the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, “They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty”. Ho Chi Minh stated in his letter to Truman, that it was strictly for humanitarian reasons he need to revolt, and that “two million Vietnamese died of starvation during winter of 1944 and spring 1945”, and that it was “because of starvation policy of French who seized and stored until it controlled all available rice”. These seem like these conditions were a common occurrence at the time in Southeast Asia, where native people under the domination of French colonialism were not treated with dignity and not even given sufficient bare human necessities to live their lives. (Zinn Ch. 18 Pg. XXX)…
- 1126 Words
- 3 Pages
Better Essays -
Jefferson wanted the interactions with the Indians to be civilized and no violence. In a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis on June 20, 1803 Jefferson wrote, “In all your interactions with the natives, treat them in the most friendly and conciliatory manner.” Jefferson basically wanted to make friends and peace with the Indians to make trading down the road easier and maybe make a more civilized society with knowing their morality, religion, and knowledge.…
- 705 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Nor is it “history from the bottom up” when the vantage point is clouds of narcissism (Conlin, Review of A People’s History).” Many well respected historians of the time had similar viewpoints to Conlin’s. Compared to most historical texts, Zinn takes a different approach to history by not being objective. He was one of the first authors to publish a book that did not portray the stereotypical picture of history from the standpoint of the victors. For example, many textbooks of the time described Christopher Columbus as a hero and did not expose the brutality that occurred between the Spaniards and the Native Americas.…
- 1028 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
Where to begin with the multitude of facts left out? Such hints equating material inequities with injustice abound in Zinn’s history. Zinn banks on the fact that schools produce graduates with only “a smattering of knowledge about the American past” at best—and almost no understanding about the foundations and intellectual history of our government. Other questions come up in regards to the rationale of our system of government. Zinn, in what has now become standard practice, indicts the founders for leaving out of the idea of all men being “created equal” black men, property-less men, and women. Then he preempts the reply that such exclusions have since been corrected by claiming that The problem of democracy in the post-Revolutionary society was not, however, Constitutional limitations on voting. It lay deeper, beyond the Constitution, in the division of society into rich and poor. For if some people had great wealth and great influence; if they had the land, the money, the newspapers, the church, the educational system—how could voting, however broad, cut into such power? There was still another problem: wasn’t it the nature of representative government, even when most broadly based, to be conservative, to prevent tumultuous change?20 Indeed, this sets up the basis for the rest of Zinn’s critique through over 700 tedious pages. All of Zinn’s analyses of succeeding events and developments follow from the flawed premise and the unwillingness to acknowledge the fact that his question had already been answered by the founders. Differences arise also from Zinn’s goals. Zinn is after “tumultuous change.” He seeks to overthrow the government rather than reform it. And he will display this view in his academic activities, especially when it comes to the civil rights movement. The need for “tumultuous” change will inform like-minded radicals who will keep raising the bar even as…
- 4694 Words
- 19 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Jefferson really wanted to move westward and begin to gain all of that land. He was willing to work with the Indians but, they did not want to work with him. They had one way of viewing what they had and the way that they were suppose to live. That was to have as much land as possible so that they could hunt and properly provide for the tribe. Jefferson had the solution of trying to expand their thinking. He wanted to teach them how to be farms and grow things. They did not need all of that land to live. If they would begin to plant things and raise stock they would not have to hunt. It may be nice for them to hunt every now and then but, at that point there was still no need for a lot of land. Jefferson was thinking if he could convince the…
- 257 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
In 1838 and 1839 Andrew Jackson from Tennessee was forceful on Indian Removal, and from 1814 to 1824 jackson was instrumental in negotiating nine out of 11 treaties, which had devastated the southern tribes of their eastern lands in the west. So the Cherokee indians were tired of it so they went to the supreme court. The n in 1830 Jackson pushed a whole new piece of legislation called the “Indian Removal Act”. Jackson’s attitude towards the Native Americans came off as rude because he did not like the Indians and he wanted them gone.…
- 335 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Andrew Jackson was an impactful president whose strategies and actions transformed the country. He was a controversial figure in American politics, due to both his empowerment of the “common” American man, his ruining of the economy, and his deplorable acts he subjected the American Indians to.…
- 285 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
In the late 1780’s the US began urging the Cherokees to stop hunting and their traditional ways of life and to instead learn about how to live, farm, and worship like Christian Americans. Despite everything the white people in Georgia and other southern states that abutted the Cherokee Nation refused to accept the Cherokee people as social equals and urged their political representatives to take the Cherokees land. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 gave Thomas Jefferson the chance to relocate the eastern tribes beyond the Mississippi River.…
- 726 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The First World War was a very gruesome event in history. “Indeed, as the nations of Europe went to war in 1914, the governments flourished, patriotism bloomed, class struggle was stilled, and young men died in frightful numbers on the battlefields-often for a hundred yards of land, a line of trenches.” (Page 359) Before the war, the United States was not in a healthy condition. Socialism was growing and the IWW was everywhere. “In the summer of 1916, during a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco, a bomb exploded, killing nine people; two local radicals, Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, were arrested and would spend twenty years in prison.” (Page 359)…
- 403 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
“Shingas asked General Braddock, whether the Indians that were friends to the English might not be permitted to Live and Trade among the English and have Hunting Ground sufficient to Support themselves and Familys....”…
- 429 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The Late Howard Zinn is a very respectable historian. He is very bold and is willing to state things that cause quite a bit of controversy. Throughout one’s youth we go on learning history in anecdotes and learning important facts such as dates and memorization of legal documents; however Zinn takes a very crucial look at small events and also takes note of who the founding fathers were and what they really wanted.…
- 597 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
"It seems not to be an established fact that they can not live in contact with a civilized community and prosper." Andrew Jackson believed that Indians were savages, incapable of any "civilized" intercommunication between themselves and whites. Through this belief Jackson declared that Indians need not be in contact with white settlers. Throughout Jackson's life he had fought Indians, beginning with his campaign against the Northern Creek Indians of Alabama and Georgia. He led the Tennessee militia to fight Seminoles in Florida in a war known as the "First Seminole War" just seven years before his election into the presidency . Jackson's land policies, which he…
- 1476 Words
- 6 Pages
Powerful Essays -
5. Zinn, Howard. "As Long as the Grass Grows or Water Runs " A Peoples History of the United States: 1492 to Present. New York City: Harper Collins, 1999…
- 1854 Words
- 8 Pages
Powerful Essays -
But within that land was Indian Territory that wasn’t Jefferson’s to purchase. Movement for the revitalization of the Indian life and culture arose from the Creeks, Cherokees, Shawnees, Iroquois, and other tribes. War against the whites were heavily encouraged by two Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (a prophet who called for complete separation from the whites).…
- 505 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Thesis: Modern Native American traditions reflect the history of struggle, strife and triumph they experienced in history.…
- 1021 Words
- 5 Pages
Powerful Essays