The first Europeans came to South America and the Caribbean searching for the East Indies and stumbled across a new world in which they would ravage and dismantle the Native people’s previous way of life. The explorers came with the goal to spread Christianity, but also sought the fortune that the new land would bring European voyagers stumbled across a vast landscape full of flourishing societies, not just roaming tribes, and they saw nothing more than opportunity for their own greed. This greed would lead to the once self-sufficient people becoming slave workers before eventually disappearing from the region altogether.
Spanish royalty gave explorer Christopher Columbus the power to travel east in exploration to gain wealth for Spain and
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Archeologists Clark Erickson and William Balée studied portions of the Bolivian landscape, for example, where they found remnants of a civilization that left behind “roads, causeways, canals, dikes, reservoirs, mounds, raised agricultural fields and possibly ball courts.” Furthermore, Erickson and Balée discovered massive geoglyphs that these tribes were not only developed but had the labor with the ability to plan and execute these marvels.
Christopher Columbus would encounter many non-sedimentary tribes that did not have the capitalistic mentality that the Europeans did. These Indigenous tribes traded for utility purposes, which is why they had no issue giving their gold to the invaders. The survival mindset allowed for the Natives to make unimaginable advancements. Charles Mann notes how the ancient Indian farmers had taken teosinte, a rather nutritious lacking crop, and turn it into modern day maize. Mann states it is “a feat so improbable that archaeologists and biologists have argued for decades how it was
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Upon Columbus’ first arrival, the Natives brought them parrots, cotton, javelins, etc. and the Spanish traded glass beads and bells in return. According to Chasteen, when encounters that “had begun with trading but rapidly degenerated into slaving.” Unfortunately, disease and abuse would lead to the Caribbean people disappearing, and the slave trade would bring African slaves across to run the newly founded plantations. Disease and death not only ravaged the Caribbean but the mainland as well. In Brazil, the Portuguese had begun colonizing the coastline around 1530 and within years the “Tupi society was swept away by disease and replaced by Brazilian sugar
In Europe during the fourteen hundreds there was a large demand for spices however, by the time the spices had traveled all the way up from India their price had reached large levels. As time went on and merchant empires became prominent in Europe, Europeans became more and more frustrated with the price of spices that had become a large part of daily life. To cut out the middleman they sailed to India to get the spices themselves. Christopher Columbus, who was a long time sailor, claimed that he knew of a shorter way to India. Columbus, an Italian explorer who had a major contribution to the colonization of the Americas, was a persistent, intelligent, and selfish individual.
Also, the Natives that Columbus encountered were not technologically advanced. They did not have anything more than sticks. On the other hand, the Natives that Cortes encountered were technologically advanced. They had several markets and shops that even sold medicine, liquids, and
In the year of 1492, a man by the name of Christopher Columbus sailed the Atlantic Ocean in search of a western sea route to China, India, and the Spice Islands of Asia. While searching westward, Columbus discovered a new world which nobody had ever seen before. This land was large and unexplored. Here, there were natives, and Christopher Columbus decided to take back some of them to England to show the Queen. While at this new world, he murdered and enslaved the natives and took over their land.
Columbus’ initial intent was to find a sea route to India; however, destiny led him to find islands located in the Caribbean. Upon arrival, he found that the islands were immensely beautiful, along with the fact they were very fertile and resourceful. He allowed greed to consume him, and immediately started his conquest. He began to explore surrounding islands, and without consultation of the native tribes residing there, forcefully declared everything on the island as property of Spanish monarchy. It is following his lead that many other Europeans began to imperialize North and South America.
During the late 15th century, Christopher Columbus persuaded Queen Isabella to sponsor him on a trip across the sea in hopes of finding riches. Columbus sailed on his voyage across the sea and eventually came across land which he believed to be Asia. The island Columbus actually landed on however, would come to be known as the “New World”. Even though he had not reached Asia, he was pleasantly surprised with what he had discovered. Columbus discovered land rich in gold and inhabited with people he believed were perfect candidates for slavery.
Indians that couldn’t find any gold got their hands cut off by the Spaniards and bled to death. Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator. Columbus set sail from Spain in 1492, his goal was to find an alternate route to Asia in order to find spices. Thirty-three days after leaving waters known
Columbus and other European explorers had little prior knowledge of the civilizations and people that lived there they would meet when they reached the New World. They were unaware that Mesoamerica had previously hosted civilizations dating back thousands of years. There was so much that they had not known like the large, intricate cities, written languages, and the scientific knowledge within the cities. Many of those great achievements were from the Aztecs, Inca, and Mayas. The soldiers that had seen the amazing achievements reported back to Europe, writing about how amazed they were.
Columbus caused a lot of death in the new lands. He would create systems such as forced labor. Because of his work a lot of death occurred as said, “Native people from other islands to do his work for him, depopulating those islands in turn.” This lead to malnutrition and disease which had the Native people of Haiti almost exterminated one generation (Source 4). Christopher Columbus also caused slavery.
This topic was one of the many topics that I found quite interesting. When Europeans first arrived at the shores of the Americas, their main motivation was to find new land filled with riches, golden cities, and opportunities, and establish ideal communities based on the lives of early Christian saints. Many European settlers each had their own motivation to explore but they ultimately wanted one thing, access to more money. They treated people who were already living on that land as mere means to get what they wanted. The Columbian exchange was the stepping stone for the rise of industrialization in the new
During the late 1400s and the early 1500s, European expeditioners began to explore the New World. Native Americans, who were living in America originally, were much different than the Europeans arriving at the New World; they had a different culture, diet, and religion. Eventually, both the Native Americans and the European colonists exchanged different aspects of their life. For example, Native Americans gave the Europeans corn, and the Europeans in return gave them modern weapons, such as various types of guns. This type of trade was called “the Columbian Exchange.”
When the settlers went to start up the agricultural industry in the rural areas of Latin America, there was obviously a smaller population of both natives and Europeans in that region. Colonisers needed workers and locals needed work; both parties had no choice but to interact with one another. Ortiz states that everybody was “snatched from their original social groups, their own cultures destroyed and crushed under the weight of the cultures in existence here” (Ortiz 1947: 98). As the Europeans needed to raise funds in order to pay for their transportation costs from home, they required gold, silver and sugar for export. For the workers gathering these resources, the indigenous people supplied them food and clothes.
Before Indians had been living there long before Columbus came and even before that Vikings had sailed Greenland and Newfoundland in the 11th century. Christopher Columbus started a new surge in exploration after he went on his expeditions. Columbus’s explorations also took a huge toll on the natives who lived there. They brought diseases that killed off many of the indians and they also had a huge impact on the environment. They started to extract natural resources from the earth.
On October 12, 1492, an Italian merchant by the name of Christopher Columbus landed on an island in the New World. With him he brought three ships and a small crew of Spaniards. After exploring other islands, Columbus came one that he called Hispaniola; here, they found seemingly primitive and naϊve natives that they immediately began to take advantage of. However, little did they know that this first meeting would bring exploration of South and Central America that would wreak havok among the Natives. Throughout the period of European Expansion, Natives were ripped from their home and forced to work day in and day out.
Throughout the late 1400’s and the 1500’s, the world experienced many changes due to the discoveries of new lands and peoples that had been never been visited before. The new-found lands of the Americas and exploration of Africa by the Europeans led to new colonies and discoveries in both areas. It also brought different societies and cultures together that had never before communicated, causing conflict in many of these places. While the Europeans treated both the Native Americans and West Africans as inferior people, the early effects they had on the Native Americans were much worse. Beginning in the late 1400’s, many different European explorers started to look for new trade routes in the Eastern Hemisphere in order to gain economic and religious power.
When Columbus came to the Americas in search of land for his king, he also came to claim land for God” (Spreading Religion in the Age of Exploration). The Europeans spread Christianity, and it became very popular among the colonies of the New World. “Roman Catholicism was the official religion of Spain, so the Spanish conquistadors sought to spread Catholicism throughout their colonies, in addition to accumulating wealth and power” (Spreading Religion in the Age of Exploration). The Spanish missionaries worked very hard throughout the Americas and attempted to evangelize Native American groups.