Teachers' Guide to Land of Hope

An Invitation to the Great American Story

Wilfred M. McClay, McBride

• Publisher: Encounter Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781641771412
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Minderheitenstudien

America's traditional values of liberty and equality have recently been overshadowed by a new ideal: diversity. This ideal claims that group differences matter more than commonalities, personal freedom, and individual rights. In Diversity: The Invention of a Concept, Wood told the story of how this hitchhiker on the Constitution has gained popularity since the 1970s. Diversity Rules covers what happened after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor bestowed the Supreme Court's kiss of legitimacy on diversity in 2003. O'Connor opened the door to the promotion of identity politics, open borders, global citizenship, and the Green New Deal. More than a legal principle, diversity is a cultural edict that attempts to tell us who we are and how we should live.

CHAPTER ONE

BEGINNINGS

Settlement and Unsettlement

Summary

The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe.

LEWIS MUMFORD

FROM THE TIME of the ancient Greeks, there has been a mystique about the West as a site of renewal, a mystique that would help fuel the European fascination with America. In fact, it is impossible to understand the history of America apart from the history of Europe; America was an offshoot of Europe that grew up during a time when Europe was undergoing large economic, social, religious, technological, and cultural changes. America would prove to be a new land where laws and customs and ideas from Europe would have freedom to develop and flourish.

Initially, though, the European discovery of America was the result of Europe’s growing commercial interest in the East. By the Late Middle Ages (1300–1500), Europe was undergoing continent-wide transformation into a modern age of innovation, exploration, trade, and expansion of its global power. By the late 1400s, France, England, Spain, and Portugal had emerged as wealthy nations with motivation to explore water routes to the Far East (“the Indies”) to expand trade routes and commerce.

The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus became convinced that sailing west would be a faster and more direct way to reach the East, and he persuaded the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella to support him in that endeavor. Columbus began his exploratory voyage westward on August 3, 1492, and on October 12, his party spotted one of the islands of the Bahamas, which Columbus named “San Salvador,” meaning “Holy Savior.” Columbus would go on to command four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas between 1492 and 1503, establishing contact between the Old World and the New World, which would eventually give rise to the establishment and settlement of America. Yet ironically, he never quite understood what it was that he had found. America was hard to see.

Questions and Answers

1. You should assume that the author chose the title and subtitle of the chapter as indicative of its major themes. Look at and read through the portraits and pictures following p. 224 and select the three you believe best embody or exemplify these themes. Consider all the images from the beginning to the present day: which individuals and which pictures most suggest “beginnings” and “settlement” and “unsettlement”? Be prepared to defend your choices in class or in writing.

There are many good choices, such as several self-made men like Lincoln and Douglas. Walking on the moon is a beginning, and unsettling. The ruins of 9/11, immigrants and tenements, African Americans voting for first time – all may suggest “beginnings” and/or “unsettlement.”

2. There are fewer than twenty named individuals in this chapter, of whom two are worldwide religious figures (Christ and Mohammed) and two are modern writers (Mumford and Frost). Excluding those four, which THREE of the remainder seem to you most significant in the story of what will become the United States of America? Be prepared to defend your answers in class or in writing.

Columbus is plainly the most important. There are no clear best choices for the other two.

3. As Question 2 suggests, the most important content of this chapter comprises not particular people nor dates but ideas. Students should be able to explain each in their own words. The relevant pages for each idea are given.

4. “History always begins in the middle of things.” (p. 3)

5. “What we call history is a selection, organized wisely and truthfully.” (p. 4)

6. “The goal [of the book], in short, is to ‘be full members of a society of which we are already a part.’” (p. 4)

7. Who “can truly be called ‘native’ to America”? (p. 4) Why?

Nobody can; even the “Indians” migrated here from Asia.

8. “The lost civilizations of the first Americans, and the explorations of the Norse and Vikings do not play an important role in this book, simply because they had no direct connection with the establishment of the United States.” (pp. 5–6)

9. Yet the two answers above who do not play an important role in the book nevertheless “point to the presence of America in the world’s imagination as a land of hope and refuge.” (pp 6–7)

10. “We will start our history of America in the middle of Europe’s history.” (p. 7)

11. America would be “an unusual kind of offshoot”: unpredictable, unplanned, unanticipated. (p. 7)

12. “The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe.” (pp. 7–8) What did Mumford mean by this?

Europe was rapidly changing, and while many of the new political institutions and economic practices it was generating were disruptive to Europe, they found a home in the newness of America.

13. “A great upsurge in fresh energies and disruptions, converging from many different directions at once, was unsettling a great deal of what had become familiar in the older world.” What were these fresh energies and disruptions, which were economic, social, religious, technological, and cultural? (pp. 8–10)

They were the Age of Discovery; the rise of a commercial middle class, nation-states, and monarchies; the scientific revolution; religious upheavals, including the Reformation; and new technologies like gunpowder and the printing press, all happening more or less together and impacting each other.

14. How did the Crusades indirectly create economic wants among Europeans? What were the barriers to satisfying these wants? (pp. 8–9)

They brought Europeans into contact with riches from the East; the barriers were distance and the hostile cultures that controlled the known overland route (the Old Silk Road) to Asia.

15. What technological innovations aided in overcoming the barriers mentioned above? (p. 9)

New ship designs (ships that could sail against the wind) and improved navigation through things such as compasses and map design.

Teachers may need to explain how sailing ships can make progress even sailing against the wind by angling their sails and “tacking” from side to side. Ships relying on human muscles for power (rowers) might work in confined areas, such as the Mediterranean, but harnessing a natural force (the wind) increased the power available many times over.

16. Trade and exploration empowered but were also enabled by the rise of two new socioeconomic and political groups: a merchant class, who might become merchant-princes, and national monarchies, of which the first four to emerge were in France, England, Spain, and Portugal. (pp. 9–10)

17. Portugal took the lead under the guidance of Prince Henry the Navigator.

What was the goal of this national effort? How, when, and by whom was it achieved? (p. 10)

The goal was to reach Asia by sailing around Africa, if they could. Bartolomeu Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope (the southern tip), and Vasco da Gama took a fleet all the way to India and began establishing a Portuguese trading empire there.

Teachers may point out that until Dias’s voyage, the Portuguese did not even know whether Africa had a southern end that could be sailed around.

18. Why did the success of the Portuguese make them less interested in Columbus’s project but the Spanish more interested? (pp. 10–11)

The Portuguese had the route to the East, around Africa, and held it as a fiercely guarded secret. The Spanish were playing catch-up; Columbus offered an alternate route that avoided Portuguese territory.

19. Examine the Martellus map carefully (p. 2). Is the world depicted as mostly land or mostly water? What was Columbus right about? What was Columbus wrong about? (pp. 11–12)

The earth is depicted as mostly land (it is in fact three-fourths water). Columbus believed the world’s amplitude is much smaller than it is in fact.

Teachers may explain that educated people have known that the earth is round for thousands of years; an ancient Greek (Eratosthenes) even estimated how big around it is. Columbus’s theory was that the round earth was much smaller than believed, and he was mistaken. If there had not been an unknown continent for him to run into, he and his men would have died halfway across an enormous single ocean. None of these considerations, though, should be taken to minimize Columbus’s remarkable gifts of seamanship and navigational skill.

20. Why is Columbus an example of what Frost means, that America is hard to see? (p. 13)

Columbus was unable to see that he had found a new continent. That was finally confirmed when Balboa crossed Panama and saw the “Sea of the South” (the Pacific Ocean).

21. “What we find is not always what we were looking for, and what we accomplish is not always what we set out to do.” (p. 13)

This precisely described Columbus’s predicament – and those of most historical actors.

Objective Questions

Answers are in parentheses.

Put in order:

—— Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean	(3)
—— Columbus discovers America	(2)
—— Dias discovers the Cape of Good Hope	(1)

Match the individual with his nation: (answers may be used more than once or not at all)

—— Bartolomeu Dias	(C)	A. England
—— Columbus	(D)	B. France
—— Prince Henry the Navigator	(C)	C. Portugal
—— Vasco da Gama	(C)	D. Spain

Document

COLUMBUS’S LOG OF HIS FIRST VOYAGE, 1492

NOTE: Columbus was interested in everything. In the interest of brevity, what follows has been edited to remove most of the geographic and botanical information. The entire log is much longer.

Thursday, 11 October. At two o’clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues’ distance; they took in sail and remained under the square-sail lying to till day, which was Friday, when they found themselves near a small island, called in the Indian language Guanahani. Presently they descried people, naked, and the Admiral landed in the boat, which was armed, along with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and Vincent Yanez his brother, captain of the Nina. The Admiral bore the royal standard; this contained the initials of the names of the King and Queen each side of the cross, and a crown over each letter Arrived on shore, they saw trees very green many streams of water, and diverse sorts of fruits. The Admiral called upon the two Captains to bear witness that he took possession of that island for the King and Queen his sovereigns, making the requisite declarations.

Numbers of the people of the island straightway collected together. Here follow the precise words of the Admiral: “As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk’s bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will.

But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse’s tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed.

I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the origin of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent.

It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our ...