Living in the COVID World ... and Beyond #41: Re-Learning the History of the Americas

I have thought of myself as a student of American history.  History was my favorite subject in high school, and I even helped teach an American History class when I was a high school senior.   In College, I started out majoring in history, taking only American history classes, before switching my major to Government and focusing more on political and social change.   So, one might think I knew quite a bit about the history of the Americas.

Wrong!

I know history of the Americas from the perspective of “the winners”; that is, white Europeans.   The winners write the history.    And I knew almost exclusively about the history of white Europeans only in what became the United States.  This leaves out a whole lot of perspectives as well as vast geographic regions of the Americas.

I have been closing gaps in my own knowledge about the history of African people in the Americas, native people, and the revolutions (like the American revolution) that created Mexico and the countries of South America.   This is by no means complete.   I have not yet begun to learn about Canada or even about some pieces of the United States that have their own unique stories; e.g., Hawaii or Alaska.   There is so much to learn and that has been one of the biggest learnings … to acknowledge how much I did not know and had never been exposed to, formally or informally.

Sure, I had heard of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata but what I knew of them were small bits of myth and not their actual stories.  I had never heard of the reformer Francisco Madero who was democratically elected President of Mexico in 1911 only to be overthrown in a violent conservative-backed coup and then assassinated.  It was his death that led to uprisings which culminated in the formation of a more stable Mexican democracy.

And sure, I knew about many battles between white European settlers and native tribes and how the Europeans had superior weaponry and usually won those battles and took over more and more of what had been native lands.  But I did not know about all the treaties that had been signed between the United States government and various native tribes and how those treaties had been systematically broken by white European settlers, sometimes within only a few years.

And of course, I knew about the history of slavery in the United States and the whole anti-slavery movement.   But I did not know that it all started in 1619 and I did not understand how much of the wealth in the northern states was built through the slave trade and use of slave labor.

I’m currently listening to a series of podcasts about Simon Bolivar.  Again, I had heard the name and knew he was known as the great liberator of what is now South America.   I have learned that he failed in his efforts multiple times – suffering military defeats and being forced into exile.   And that he maintained his vision and passion and it was only after he was in exile in Haiti, and that Haiti committed to equip him for another try at freeing South America from Spanish control in exchange for a promise to end black slavery, that Bolivar was able to muster sufficient forces and win the ultimate battles.  

The gaps in my knowledge of history are far greater than I ever realized.  As I learn more, I realize that there is so much more that I do not know.   I’m enjoying the process of filling in these big gaps.   I believe that doing so better helps me to understand why things are the way they are now and how we might be able to move forward towards a better tomorrow.