The History of the USA I

1492: Christopher Columbus discovers land beyond the Atlantic Ocean: America. He is soon to be followed by emigrants from many parts of Europe. Initial conflict between the settlers and the Native Americans leads to war and genocide of the Indians. African slaves are also brutally oppressed and exploited on the large plantations. At the same time, the USA bases its independence on the premise that all men are created equal. The USA - a land full of contradictions, inspired by great ideals, powerful and inventive like none other - but also ruthless against any who stands in its way of advancement. At the end of the 19th century, the United States had become an industrial super power, yet failed to resolve the fundamental conflict between its three dominant cultures - with marked consequences to this day.

1620: English Puritans, the Pilgrim Fathers, land in Massachusetts Bay on their ship the Mayflower. The new arrivals only survive the first hard winter with the aid of the Wampanoag and their chief Massasoit. But the immigrants soon claim more land and the expulsion and destruction of the indigenous cultures begins. Only the Quaker William Penn takes a different path in Pennsylvania, forbidding any settlers to forcibly wrest land from the natives. African slaves, too, become victims: abducted and transported to North America, where they must toil on the plantations. The Europeans secure the profit - through the lucrative triangular trade between Europe, Africa and North America.

Since the 1760s, the colonists have been increasingly protesting against the tax hikes of the British parliament - especially since they are not represented there themselves. The demand “no taxation without representation” becomes the slogan of the American revolutionaries. The conflict escalates after such actions as the Boston Tea Party, fueled by the Common Sense paper in which Thomas Paine demands independence for the colonies and on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is adopted. The colonies have long been at war with the motherland, which ends in 1781 with an American victory, led by George Washington. 1789: the American Constitution comes into effect - the first modern constitution, which establishes the separation of powers, sovereignty of the people and their inalienable basic rights.

The Native Americans must yield to the USA’s territorial expansion. Expelled, they are forcibly relocated to reservations. Decimated by imported disease and costly wars against the US troops, the Indian population is reduced from several million to about 500,000. In the south, about four million slaves toiling on the plantations create a huge economic boom. When Abraham Lincoln - a moderate opponent of slavery – becomes president in 1860, 11 southern states successively secede from the Union. In the American Civil War, the South fights for independence and the preservation of slavery as the Confederate States of America. After the decisive battle of Gettysburg, the Union ultimately wins and slavery is forbidden by law in 1865.

With industrialization, the major industries in the north and north-east of the USA grow increasingly significant: oil, coal and steel. The urgently-needed workforce comes from Europe. A hard life awaits the immigrants: low wages, brutal working conditions, miserable housing. The exploitation of the workers benefits such entrepreneurs as railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt. Ever more often, the workers must fight for their rights, even with strikes. But nothing can stop the USA on its rise to becoming the world’s leading industrial power. New systems of work and production techniques are also causing industrial production to grow enormously. In the second half of the 19th century, the USA surpasses all other countries in the world.

The documentary film Scenes from American History was produced in 1953 by the United States Information Service (USIS), which was responsible for promoting the USA’s public image, especially during the Cold War. The aim was to present a global audience with an explicitly positive image of American politics, history, society and culture – to counter the threat of communism. The six selected film excerpts can be well compared with the interview extracts by Howard Zinn (Module 6) and the differing perspectives on American history can be presented in detail.

Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was a renowned US historian and peace activist and winner of numerous awards for his work. Zinn owed his fame to his book A People's History of the United States, published in 1980, where he describes American history from the perspective of ordinary people outside the political and economic establishment. Workers, Native Americans, slaves, African Americans, women, populists and others, whose struggles often remained unrecognized and undocumented. The elective interview extracts can be juxtaposed with the filmed sequences from Scenes form American History (Module 5) to illustrate the different perspectives in student classes.