Christopher Columbus sailed the blue Atlantic Ocean in 1492. He was mainly looking for gold to bring back to Europe, a continent concerned with wealth, religion, and royal government. However, on the east side of the Atlantic, the indigenous people were notable “for their hospitality, their belief of sharing”(Zinn, pg 1), as well as their concentration on nature, working with others in their village or tribe, and diversity. Millions of miles of ocean split these two distinct peoples apart, but they would soon collide for the worst. The Europeans sailed to find wealth and land, yet in the process they destroyed the indigenous people’s cultural foundations, their way of valuing the land, and almost their whole population.
To set the scene for …show more content…
These two peoples were likely to come into contact at some time later in history, but the overload of European products in so short a time made their first encounters substantially more devastating. Settlers could have learned to live off the land more like the native people, meaning their livestock would not have exposed the natives to foreign diseases which they did not have antibodies for.
Besides disease, Europeans used massacre as a quick and efficient way to get their desired land, and in the process, they exterminated a majority of the native population. Europeans often would manipulate the indigenous people to feel peace among the two groups before the Europeans would have a sneak attack and kill large numbers of native people. In one instance, many Spaniards felt urged to kill indigenous celebrants at the fiesta of Huitzilopochtli after saying they wanted to learn the …show more content…
European interactions with indigenous people drastically changed a place where “culture was complex, where human relations were more egalitarian than in Europe, and where the relations among men, women, children, and nature were more beautifully worked out than perhaps any place in the world”(Zinn, pg 21). Ever since, these first interactions have influenced the relationship with indigenous people in America and have left them with little voice to be
To set the scene for …show more content…
These two peoples were likely to come into contact at some time later in history, but the overload of European products in so short a time made their first encounters substantially more devastating. Settlers could have learned to live off the land more like the native people, meaning their livestock would not have exposed the natives to foreign diseases which they did not have antibodies for.
Besides disease, Europeans used massacre as a quick and efficient way to get their desired land, and in the process, they exterminated a majority of the native population. Europeans often would manipulate the indigenous people to feel peace among the two groups before the Europeans would have a sneak attack and kill large numbers of native people. In one instance, many Spaniards felt urged to kill indigenous celebrants at the fiesta of Huitzilopochtli after saying they wanted to learn the …show more content…
European interactions with indigenous people drastically changed a place where “culture was complex, where human relations were more egalitarian than in Europe, and where the relations among men, women, children, and nature were more beautifully worked out than perhaps any place in the world”(Zinn, pg 21). Ever since, these first interactions have influenced the relationship with indigenous people in America and have left them with little voice to be