What Were The Similarities And Differences Between The Spanish And American Settlers In 1492

Improved Essays
As it has become known, in 1492, Spaniards arrived and settled on islands in the Caribbean inhabited by the natives referred to as Indians. Furthermore, each roughly had approximately five hundred thousand people living there at the time. The Spanish traveled and settled on several of the islands, thus noticing that the Indians lived a simple kind of life. What astonished the settlers were several different customs including the garments they wore, their bed substitutes, as well as their lack of religion. This left Spaniards to have mixed reactions, some reacted in delightful shock as they wanted to introduce them to the religion of Catholicism, and having a closer relationship with God. Other Spaniards reacted more malevolently towards the

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    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…

    • 931 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Due to the different resources available in the colonies along with the European’s primary goal, the patterns of interactions greatly varied between the European settlers and the Native Americans depending on the location. In New York, the interactions centered primarily around trading war products and fur while, in New Spain, the settlers mainly focused on spreading their religion and starting missions. The interactions in the two regions developed in similar way since every group wanted to strengthen their regions politically and economically by creating alliances and increasing trade; however, they did differ due to how the Europeans in the west mainly came to North America in pursuit of independence while the settlers of New Spain wanted to spread their religion. Both New York and New Spain were heavily populated by native groups before European colonization. For instance the Iroquois villages varied in population, from several hundred to two thousand.…

    • 1264 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This quote, taken from the writings of a Dominican priest, only scratches the surface of the relationship between the Natives and the Spanish. “The Indians [of hispaniola] were totally deprived of their freedom and…

    • 708 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Within section 1 of chapter 3, I have chosen two people to compare and contrast. I chose Christopher Columbus and Hernán Cortás because when they first discovered new land, they both acted the same way towards the natives. When Christopher Columbus sailed west in 1492, he sailed into the now known West Indies. When he arrived he met people, the Taínos, who he called indians.…

    • 333 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    The extent religion played in Spanish settlements was significant, as it was one of the key parts of their lives. The Catholic Church is stated to be “...the primary agent for the introduction and transmission of Catholic belief as well as European language and culture” (Colonies in North and South America, 495). Since the everyday life of a civilian in a Spanish settlement was…

    • 1380 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As colonization in the New World broke out, many Spanish and English settlers wanted in. These explorers both had the intention of exploring and expanding their colonies, but with different reason. From different viewpoints, you can clearly see differences with the economic structures, government, and religion motivation that these colonies have. With the English explorers and settlers, they were looking forward to settling throughout the east coast with the Parliament to allow local governments to regulate rules. When the Spanish arrived, their goal was to expanded their empire and find as much gold as possible with the Native Americans guiding them to it.…

    • 1264 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Native Americas and Europeans developed independently for many years before they experienced direct contacts with one another. Christopher Columbus, a European voyager set out to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia but instead found the Americas. When Columbus reached the Americas he wasn't too found of them, he was surprised by their living conditions as he mentioned it as crude. He must of thought of the Americas as dull minded people as he would describe them as "easy to be made Christians" which made them even more of an easier target (Page 28). While Columbus didn't find any wealth at first, the Spanish soon did find gold and acquired slaves which would leave the Americas as a symbol of wealth and hope for the Europeans.…

    • 345 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Zinns chapter, He questions that all the deaths of the Indians was necessary for human progression and for the progression of the new world. The killing of Indians continued for years upon years and the only thing the Englishmen and Conquistadors got out of the killing was land. The search for the “gold” became a way for Conquistadors to become selfish and kill the people who welcomed them with hospitality. Disease will end many lives and the Indian population will diminish.…

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While Latin American colonies and North American colonies differed in indigenuos peoples and their interactions, they were similar in their need for slave labor. Interactions between the natives, slaves, and Europeans were also different. In Latin America, many men had relations with native and slave women, eventually some married the natives. This caused a new social order to develop between the people in Latin American colonies, dividing everyone based on race, with titles such as mestizo, mulattoes, and zambos. In North American colonies, such relationships were frowned upon and were rare, but some mixing of the cultures occurred.…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The native Indians were instrumental in their survival both in north and south America during their early days of settlement. Peace between colonist and Indians was brief. Although, their religions differed, both settlements were escaping religious persecution. While some settlers may be looking for new land to earn a living and provide for their family, others migrated to America for a new beginning. In the Chesapeake colonies, Catholic’s and Protestants prevailed the region.…

    • 1848 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In our conflict between the Mexicans and the Settlers, neither side was right on who owned the land. The Mexicans believed that the border of their country and the U.S. was the Nueces River. But, the U.S. believed that it was the Rio Grande. Both of them were fighting for extra land by marking where the border should be. But neither side was right, as both the Mexicans and American settlers had taken the land from the Native Americans without their consent.…

    • 287 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To get a better understanding of today’s racial inequality, people may want to look at the past, reaching as far back as 1500 and 1600. This issue did not happen overnight but instead, evolved from the early settling of the Europeans. Firsthand accounts from times of exploration in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries suggest that rapidly expanding colonization played a key role (large or small, differing from one perspective to another) in people’s stereotypical ideas of skin color and race. Documents from the explorer Prince Henry “the Navigator” give us not just evidence of European stereotypes of other races, but also stereotypes towards Europeans from another race’s point of view. Bartolomé de la Casas’ accounts do suggest that while…

    • 1138 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Directly following the start of the Commercial Revolution in the 1400s, Spain and England began to colonize the Americas, which was often referred to as the New World. The Spanish and English colonies were both similar and different in several ways. The Spanish and English colonies were slightly alike in the poor and unfair treatment of indigenous people and substantially different in religion and economic base. The Spanish and English were slightly comparable in terms of treatment of indigenous people because of enslavement of native people and taking their land.…

    • 1632 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer, initiated colonization by Europe in the New World when he sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. English and Spanish colonies grew to become very different from one another with frequent similarities. The Spanish colonies and New England greatly differed in terms of control by a European government, were both vastly similar and extremely different in terms of religion, and were largely similar in terms of treatment of indigenous people. The Spanish colonies and New England were slightly similar and greatly different in terms of control by European government due to supporting their European country and their acceptance of European religion.…

    • 2387 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As soon as they discovered the Indians, they made a significant push towards Christianity and what it had to offer. “The Indians might become Christians and inclined to love our king, queen, princes, and all the people of Spain, and they may be eager to search for, gather, and give to us what they abound in and that we greatly need (Christopher…

    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays