Christopher Columbus And Beyond: Views From Native Americans

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The Disney movie Pocahontas offers the viewer a stark portrayal of how Englishmen viewed Indigenous American tribes upon their arrival to the United States. The movie features a song titled Savages where Pocahontas and her fellow Powhatan tribespeople are described by the English settlers as “barely even human” and “dirty shrieking devils”. In reality, the first European explorers had much more diverse accounts of their experiences with indigenous peoples in North and Central America. To accurately evaluate early settlers interactions with American tribespeople, the works of Christopher Columbus, Cabeza de Vaca, and John Smith will be examined.
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who landed in the Caribbean islands after a two month
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In her book, Allen calls attention to Columbus and his men and their “obsessive” action of seeking resources like gold and spices, as well as taking advantage of the natives and capturing some as slaves (20). Allen goes on to describe the actions of Columbus and his men, capturing fifteen hundred indigenous people to be sold into slavery upon arriving back in Spain (21). In Columbus’ writing, he depicts himself as arrogant but inquisitive with the native population. However, when analyzing Columbus and his actions from a Native American’s perspective, the descriptions do align with the early European settler image that Pocahontas portrays. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was a Spanish explorer who was involved in the attempt to settle a Spanish colony in Florida. When comparing de Vaca’s writing to Columbus’, the reader can easily grasp the humility and respect that de Vaca feels for the native populations that he encounters throughout his travels. In de Vaca’s The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca, he demonstrates this humility by describing the natives’ cultural norms in a respectful and unbiased language (4). Even when faced with hardship, de Vaca expresses himself respectively through his

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