Zinn Chapter 2

In this chapter, Zinn explains the enslavement of African blacks as a part of American development. He starts with the beginning and why the Puritans needed to look for sources of free labor, to the ways that they kept their slaves from rising up against them or running away.
Zinn explains that early America was plagued with starvation as the new settlers did not know how to use the land as well as the Natives did. However, the Native Americans were not a usable source of labor because they were at home and knew the land too well. Any Native that wished to escape could easily take off into the woods and disappear among the lands features that they grew up around. Then to explain the harsh laws that were passed in early-American, Zinn produces excerpts from the Virginia Assembly and Virginia House of Burgesses. Also, by using accounts of slaveholders he shows us these men’s’ true concern that the enslaved Africans were capable of terrible revolts.
At some points in this chapter of Zinn’s book he seems to take the side of the European settlers when making statements about how they needed slave labor to produce sufficient food supplies or how easily enslaved and controlled the Africans were. I wonder if Zinn did this as a way to continue his looking at history from the view of the not commonly supported. No one usually wants to support the malicious treatment of other human beings and therefore most historians chastise the actions of the early-Americans. However, Zinn seems to be a special case when it comes to recounting history. He doesn’t seem to mind being different or even being disagreed with or saying something controversial.
I didn’t enjoy this section of Zinn’s book as much as I liked the first chapter. Maybe that’s because I didn’t really learn anything new from this part. My senior year of high school I took an African-American History course and most of this information was covered. Regardless, I still enjoy Zinn’s alternative look at history and can’t wait to read further works by him in this course.