10th Grade Humanities Name: ________________________________

Unit 2: First Contacts

Lesson 2: It’s a Small New World
Habit of Mind Essay: “Who’s Speaking?” or “What Causes What?”

BACKGROUND
Mr. Fussiner and Mr. Schneider are editing a new high school American history textbook.
Part of our job is selecting the author for each chapter. Professors Howard Zinn and Jared
Diamond are competing to write the section "Spanish Conquest: It's a Small New World.” We
have received their proposals (below) and must hire one author and decline the other.

THE ISSUE
Howard Zinn and Jared Diamond both see the world in terms of conquerors and the
conquered. They understand that history is usually written by the victors, yet they go about
honoring history’s “losers” in very different ways. Professor Zinn models one of our habits of
mind—the search for multiple perspectives—by telling history from the point of view of the
conquered and oppressed. Professor Diamond, on the other hand, searches for patterns and
connections by zooming out and looking for the ultimate causes of inequality thousands of
years back in human history. Which habit of mind is more important to use when learning
about the conquest of the Americas? By attempting to answer this question, you are
conducting historiography, or the history of history.

YOUR TASK
Read each proposal, then write a letter to your teacher (Mr. Fussiner or Mr. Schneider) in
support of the author who you believe will make a better contribution to the textbook.
Remember to quote BOTH READINGS in your letter.

GRADING CRITERIA
o Position – Do you take a clear stand?
o Comprehensiveness – Do you use enough of the available evidence?
o Support – Do you logically present your evidence in support of your position?
o Organization – Is your argument clearly organized in intro, body, and conclusion
paragraphs?
o Clarity & Fluency – Is your writing polished? Do you transition clearly between
ideas?
HABIT OF MIND ESSAY READINGS

1) Howard Zinn (from Cortes/Malinche lecture):

Habit of Mind: The search for multiple perspectives—“Who’s speaking?”

The Spanish conquest of the Americas is best explained through the history and experience
of native people. The story of any country includes fierce conflicts between conquerors the
conquered, masters and slaves, people with power and those without power. For example,
Tlaxcalans bitterly and violently opposed Aztec rule despite being totally surrounded by the
Aztec empire. Similarly, The Inca empire was a fractious world of barely-clinging alliances
won by native-on-native conquest. Writing history is always a matter of taking sides. For
example, I choose to tell the story of the conquest of Mexico the perspective of the
Tlaxcalans, a native group that allied with the Spanish against the Aztecs. The Spanish
would never have been so successful without Malinche, a Tlaxcalan woman who was
Cortes’s translator and mistress. The patterns of native peoples in conquest repeats itself:
Pizarro never would have survived the Inca rebellion without the intervention of Quispe Sisa,
his Inca mistress who called in native warriors from her hometown to fight off the Inca
siege of Cuzco. Which side were these native people on? Why were some willing to join the
Spanish in genocide? Why do most textbooks leave out the tragedies native people had to
endure and the choices they had to make during this time? The fate of the Aztecs and
Incans reminds us to look at history as something more than just a story of the glorious
"progress" of European conquerors and leaders.

2) Jared Diamond (from the Guns, Germs, and Steel movie):

Habit of Mind: The search for connections and patterns—“What causes what?”

The Spanish conquest of the Americas is best explained by factors of geographic luck that
began to shape human history after the last Ice Age. Europeans were much more
geographically lucky than Americans: they had more productive and resilient native crops,
they had nearly all of the large domesticable mammals, and the east-west orientation of the
Eurasian continent provided for the easy spread of crops and animals. These advantages
gave European (and Asian and North African) people a head-start on farming, which we
know is a crucial precursor to civilization. These ultimate causes shaped the world over
millennia before the Spanish arrived in Mexico. Geographic luck is the reason that the
Spanish had guns, germs, and steel, while the Aztecs and Incas did not. While some people
might argue that European people had innate or cultural advantages, I know too many
smart and adaptable people from places like Papua New Guinea for that to be true. Others
might say that native people played the pivotal role by assisting the Spanish, but the
differences that emerged between Americans and Europeans by the 1500s only did so--
ultimately--because of geographic luck.
HABIT OF MIND ESSAY ADAPTED READINGS

1) Howard Zinn (from Cortes/Malinche lecture):

The Spanish conquest of the Americas is best explained through the experience of native
people. The story of any country includes people with power and those without power, so
writing history is always a matter of taking sides. For example, I choose to tell the story of
Cortes and the Aztecs from the perspective of the Tlaxcalans, a native group that fought
against the Aztecs. The Spanish never would have been so successful in Mexico without the
Tlaxcalans, such as Malinche. Which side were native people on? Why were some willing to
join the Spanish in genocide? Why do most textbooks leave out the tragedies native people
had to endure and the choices they had to make during this time?

2) Jared Diamond (paraphrased from the Guns, Germs, and Steel movie):

The Spanish conquest of the Americas is best explained by factors of geographic luck that
began to shape human history after the last Ice Age. Europeans were much more
geographically lucky than Native Americans: they had more productive native crops, nearly
all the world’s farm animals, and they were geographically connected with Arab and Asian
countries, who were developing advanced farm tools, guns, gun powder and weapons-grade
steel. By the time Europeans and American Indians met in the 1500s, Europe was already
off to a huge head start because of their geographic luck.