Thursday, January 10, 2013

F Jan 11 "Reflections of Europe in the New World": all extracts from Christopher Columbus's 1492 Journal and Sir Walter Raleigh's 1595 The Discovery of Guiana

    Both sources seem to show that the motive for exploration was for the discovery of gold and other various riches for the king and queen to have. Their exploration also being for knowledge and expansion, in other words colonization. Their description of the people as they move through the islands seems to show that the people are primitive compared to them and weak if they should attack them.

      "I do not, however, see the necessity of fortifying the place, as the people here are simple in war-like matters, as your Highnesses will see by those seven which I have ordered to be taken and carried to Spain in order to learn our language and return, unless your Highnesses should choose to have them all transported to Castile, or held captive in the island. I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased."

     The importance of this, is to show how different they were compared the indigenous people of the islands they passed by. The intentions of the colonizers is to, one, find and discover land suitable for the king and queen, two, discover untold riches and bring it back to their king and queen, and finally although indirectly, suggest changes for the king and queen to infer onto the indigenous people of the islands to make them more civilized like converting them to Christianity, and making them learn their language. General rules of colonization.

     On a side note, we don't really see anything from the perspective indigenous other than the fact that they are in awe of the explorers and willing to trade for things although they seem ignorant of their values.


1 comment:

  1. I loved the quotes you chose because they reflected the reading very well. I agree that there was no perspective from the indigenous's point of view, and that the main goal of both explorers was to colonize through Christianity, and to find gold for their home countries.Great work!

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