Manipulating Information and Public Perceptions

Conquest
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Manipulating Information and Public Perceptions
In the book 1984 by George Orwell, there is a quote that has been used for quite some time relative to the deep meaning that it conveys, this is regardless of the fact that the quote only appears twice in the text. ‘Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past’ is a quote of significant meaning (Fuller, 2016). In one of the instances it appears in Chapter Three within Book One, where Winston was thinking about how the party controls memory and history. It also appears in Book Three in Chapter two, when Winston is now a prisoner in the Ministry of Love and he is talking to O’Brien about the past’s nature. Where the past is formulated into a set of idyllist elements that people can then react to and move towards a certain future, this brings out an aspect of manipulation (Fuller, 2016). The party is able to create a past that it claims is one that was filled with misery and has since then helped the people to acquire their freedom. After which the people are convinced that they need to follow the party’s goals. This is display of the phrase in totality, as the party is able to control the past, present and thus the future. This is a phrase that can be used in the elaboration of Howard Zinn’s content and in context. As Zinn indicates at the start of the text, those that have the power to control or in other words dominate in the society, they also have the ability to create our histories. Where they have the power to create our past, they also have the power to create what is to come in the future.
This is a statement that holds significant truths relative to the fact that, the history that is given in most of the books and taught in class is of the dominant in the society. When Columbus first stepped foot in the Americas, he kept a journal, one of which has been very significant in reconstructing the stories of the past and what is today part of Americans history. However, there is another part of history, one that Zinn is trying to bring out in the text. This is the history of the people who were not as fortunate enough to keep a journal, or those that did not have enough time to relate their stories as they were busy trying to survive the horrors of the past hardships. The native Americans were almost wiped out in the few decades after Columbus arrived in America (Zinn, n.d.). Most of their history was passed on to the next generation through the word of mouth. With such a way of maintaining history, it was not incidental that their stories were largely ignored and in some of the cases altered. For most of the history that is taught in class there is hardly any material that has some in-depth information about the past according to the Native Americans. Much of what is available is through the notes such as the ones that Columbus wrote in his journal. His was a detailed journal indicating all the aspects of his encounters with the indigenous people along with the challenges and triumphs that he had along the way.
Among his first encounters with the Native Americans, Columbus described a people that were kind and did not know much about war or even own weapons. According to Zinn, when Columbus arrived, he was greeted and welcomed by the people that he met. At the time, he described them as Indians as he thought that he was in Asia. In his description, Columbus indicated that the Native Americans were kind and peaceful. They did not in any way violate the friendships that they formed with Columbus. If one asked for what they had, they would without objection give it away with a kind heart and gesture to the visitors. Ironically in his letter to his Spanish patrons, Columbus then indicates that the people he found would thus make great servants. This is quite ironic given that, for all the kindness that Columbus was shown by the Native Americans, he regarded them as great servants (Zinn, n.d.). One only needed to tell them what to do and they would do it. To him he had found slaves to exploit regardless of the fact that, he indicated that the people were kind, friendly and most importantly peaceful. He ironically saw a people that were kind enough that he would exploit for their peaceful nature.
In his quest on the land, he sought after the gold reserves. This is then complicated by the fact that, he also wanted to convert the native Americans to Christianity. As such, much of his activities on the land involved trying to convert the native Americans to his religion and at the same time make them look for his gold. There are accounts according to Zinn, where Columbus has resulted to forcing the Native Americans to search and deliver gold in certain quantities to him. Where the Native Americans did not meet their quota, he would hack off their hands, to serve a lesson to the rest of the Native Americans. This was a brutal treatment that was extended to the Native Americans considering that they had been kind to Columbus and his men. More importantly, they did not show any element of hostility. For the natives that ran to the mountains as way of trying to escape the hostile treatment extended to them by Columbus and his men, they were hunted down using hounds. For those that did not get hunted down, there were faced with hunger and starvation (Zinn, n.d.). Others were faced with diseases, which in most of the cases would kill them in the wild. There are some of the cases that have been indicated by Zinn, where some of the people in the villages would take cassava poison as they wanted to end their misery. This was a sad element associated with the arrival and domination of Columbus and his men. They totally disregarded the rights of the natives and treated them like animals. In an estimate, more than a third of the natives’ population was killed off between the year 1494 and 1496. There was an estimated 60,000 only that remained, with some of the figures indicating even worse scenarios. This was a sad turn of events. However, Columbus was not done; he still wanted to impress the king a...