Curriculum Framework: The Strange Death Of Silas Deane

“The past is not history, only the raw materials of it” (“The Strange Death of Silas Deane”). Imagine history as art; one must understand that, given the same materials, each artist creates a different piece. As with artists, historians select and mold their materials in different ways. One way in which it is possible to split the different styles is by examining the reason for which they believe change occurs: agreement or conflict. When considering U.S. history, consensus and revisionists have two very different theories. The College Board previously used a revisionist perspective Curriculum Framework: “Students should be able to explain how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S.

The revisionist statement suggests that students learn with, “special attention given to the formation of gender, class, racial, and ethnic identities” (Revisionist statement). Of these there were many, most derogatory. Because consensus historians write from the point of view of the upper class, they tend not to discuss the mistreatment of the minorities; however, the revisionist statement addresses it perfectly. What the consensus statement fails to address is that the slavery of Native Americans and Africans caused the world to develop racial identities, the only relatively positive one being that of the Europeans. Although there was slavery in Africa even before the Europeans, it lacked the racism that developed with the Europeans’ use of African slaves and has plagued us to this day. It began with Cabral’s discovery of Brazil. Once the Portuguese discovered the feasibility of sustaining sugar plantations in Brazil, they immediately turned to slavery for labor. Initially, the native Brazilians provided a viable option; however, that option soon exhausted itself. That is when the Portuguese turned to Africa. The beginning of the transatlantic slave trade was the point of no return, where slavery and racism became an addiction. This would destroy African lives and families to this day. On the other hand, there was one set of only identities formed that could be seen as positive: that of the

The consensus perspective claims that “Europeans and Native Americans adopted some useful aspects of each other’s culture” (Consensus Perspective). In truth, the Europeans forced their culture onto Native Americans to the point of obliterating all other cultures. The main area in which the Europeans forced their own culture onto others was Christianity. It began with Christopher Columbus’s conclusion that the natives of the island he landed on where barbaric, but would be easily converted. The Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I had just completed the reconquista, the centuries-long campaign by Spanish Catholics to drive Muslim Arabs from the European mainland (Henretta 31). Riding on a wave of religious righteousness, the Spaniards wanted to “help” the natives of Columbus’s island by introducing them to their amazing religion, or at least, that was what happened from their perspective. The natives of the island, however, saw it in a different light. They had strangers arriving in boatloads with strange animals, looking for gold. On top of that, they were forcing them to abandon their animism for this religion which in no way celebrated their values and beliefs. The Europeans were not suggesting a trade of information and a compromise, like the consensus statement suggests, but instead, forcing an unwanted change on the Native Americans. This