American History

Howard Zinn in A Peoples History of the United States creates a unique type of analytical framework for recounting and for assessing important periods and events in American history.  The unique feature of his approach is that it is extraordinarily inclusive, looking at events as they unfold from the diverse people experiencing those events, rather than from an elitist academic or dominant economic perspective.  What emerges from such an approach is a more nuanced view of American history to be sure, rather than passively accepting conclusions advocated by elite and narrow interests, Zinn compels the reader to think about the conflicting interests and the competing options underlying American decision-making processes as it developed from a young nation to an eventual superpower.  This is especially true in the case of certain military conflicts.  Zinn carefully attributes a number of military decisions to elite decision-makers responding to specific types of political and economic interests.  To this end, the conventional notions of an oppressed group of colonialists acting purely in pursuit of ideals such as freedom and liberty become more questionable.  In order to illustrate how Zinn accomplishes a more nuanced point of view regarding American history, specifically with reference to political decisions made to engage in military conflicts, this paper will examine the origins of the American Revolution, the underlying causes of the Mexican American War, and how diverse people viewed these causes which were eventually relied upon to engage in military conflicts.

The American Revolution, as an initial matter, is frequently portrayed as a legitimate uprising by an oppressed group of colonialists against an authoritarian British monarch.  This type of characterization tends to result in oversimplications to the effect that there were simply two sides to the conflict, the pro-British and the anti-British, and that choosing sides was as easy as picking one of the two forces.  Zinn argues that loyalties were not so neatly divided into two camps and that the conflict was rooted in an economic competition between the British elite and certain ambitious colonialists.  Indeed, with respect to the highly revered Founding Fathers, Zinn argues that Around 1776, certain important people in the English colonies made a discovery that would prove enormously useful for the next two hundred years. They found that by creating a nation, a symbol, a legal unity called the United States, they could take over land, profits, and political power from favorites of the British Empire (1980).  Superficially, at least, the American Revolution was to a certain extant spurred on by a competition between British elites and newly established colonial elites.  The British elites would most likely be against a large-scale outbreak of military hostilities.  The British elites, for example, were dependent to a certain extant on commerce and taxes derived from the American colonies and maintaining these benefits would be best served by maintaining social stability.  Some of the British elites might favor a selective type of military operation in order to impose order in a particularly rebellious area.  The colonial elites, on the other hand, probably favored a large-scale military conflict because this would serve several goals toward independence.  First, a large-scale military conflict would disrupt British trade while simultaneously imposing substantial war-related costs on the British.  Second, because the British were not willing to grant independence, a military conflict was the only feasible way to pursue full independence.  Finally, as Zinn notes, the colonial elites were busy pursuing their own political and economic goals and a military conflict would divert the poor in the cities and in the countryside from their grievances against members of the colonial elite.  It would seem fair to argue, in terms of the respective elites, that the British would have favored resolving disputes under British law in a non-violent way while the colonial elite would have view a large-scale military conflict as the wisest course in pursuit of independence.

There were many other interested parties, as Zinn notes, and some of these interests seem more difficult to assess with precision.  The Indians, for example, probably would have preferred a large-scale war that so damaged both sides that they could reassert their previous dominance.  The problem with such a statement, however, is that the Indian tribes were quite diverse and they had their own ambitions and territorial disputes with other tribes.  To some extant, they may have been against the American Revolution because of the perception that the British authorities could control the colonial settlers and prevent them from continuously expanding into Indian lands.  This type of thinking is evident in Zinns description of British efforts to constantly make strategic alliances with different Indian tribes indeed, he states that The British, wooing the Indians, had declared Indian lands beyond the Appalachians out of bounds to whites (1980).

The Indians had witnessed the British victory against the French and very well may have considered the British the superior force and the best means for controlling colonial settlement in the short run.  They were probably against the war to the extant that it posed a threat to British dominance and for British force to the extant that it was used to control the colonialists.  The views of the middle class and the lower classes are also quite diverse.

Zinn argues that the middle class was effectively co-opted by the higher classes primarily because of economic interests.  The economic interests of the middle class were as they are today precarious.  It would have been in the interests of the middle class merchants to avoid a conflict in which their commercial interests were threatened on the other hand, as groups such as the Boston caucus demonstrate, independence offered the possibility that these middle class merchants could ascend the socioeconomic ladder if the British were removed from the commercial calculus.  These conflicting considerations, between stability to maintain middle class status and military conflict to open up the possibility of social and economic mobility, probably explain why the middle class was at times in favor and at times against a full military conflict.  The lower classes, hardly sharing in the aforementioned economic benefits, were less enthusiastic about war than the colonial elites.  First, they would most likely be the soldiers dying in the greatest numbers if a war developed.  Second, they were treated quite poorly by the local colonial elites and did not share in the benefits of liberty in the same way as the colonial elites and the middle class.  Zinn notes this reluctance to support the war, discussing military service, he states that The rich, it turned out, could avoid the draft by paying for substitutes the poor had to serve This led to rioting, and shouting Tyranny is Tyranny let it come from whom it may (1980).  The poor therefore had compelling reasons to be against the war.  Women were not treated well and could lose husbands and sons in a war and slaves were being traded by the British and increased in umbers as plantations spread and developed.  Women would probably have generally been against the war and slaves might have tilted toward war in the false belief that the colonial elites references to freedom and liberty might somehow apply to them. In short, it would appear that the American Revolution was primarily desired by a small group of colonial elites while most other interests had some or many reasons for being against the war.

An additional example of an American military conflict that was primarily motivated by a comparatively small group of elite decision makers was the Mexican-America war.  This was a military conflict initiated by the American elite, most notably President Polk and his advisors, and it was primarily concerned with expanding American territory and power rather than more idealistic motives such as freedom and liberty.  From a Mexican perspective, this was a painful war because Mexican territory was effectively annexed and incorporated into America while other traditionally Mexican territories were at risk of being lost.  While the Mexican people were probably not enthusiastically in favor of war with America, it is likely that many Mexicans viewed the Texas dispute as the first step toward more American incursions into Mexican territory indeed, as Zinn notes at the end of the war, There were calls among Americans to take all of Mexico (1980).  Many Mexicans probably viewed this as a war of necessity.  American opinions again were heavily class-dependent.  A wealthier American elite sought new territories for business expansion and as a geopolitical buffer to European expansion in what is today the American west.  Securing these territories would create a demand for transportation, increased trade, and would yield substantial financial benefits.  For the poor, they probably had more incentive to support the Mexican American war than the American Revolution.  This is because the settlement of these new territories offered opportunities to improve their lives that were no longer available in the East.  Despite these new opportunities for the poor, however, they would still be against the war to a certain degree given the fact that they would be the primary source of the soldiers fighting and dying in the war.  The slaves may have had mixed feelings as they probably distrusted American intentions and at the same time the creation of free American territories might have suggested future lives as free men in the American west.  Indians were probably in favor of the war from a Mexican perspective because they knew that American expansionism would most likely mean more marginalization of Indian lands.  In some, this was primarily a military conflict favored by the elite, but it is likely that more people supported this conflict than was the case in the American Revolution because of the potential opportunities to make new lives and money in the new territories.

In conclusion, the decision to go to war is most frequently made by elites.  Dissenting opinions among other citizens are not nearly influential as elite opinions and this is clearly evidenced in both the case of the American Revolution and in the case of the Mexican American War.