"Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond started off asking us one question. "Why did history unfold differently on different continents? Why has one culture—namely that of Western Europe—dominated the development of the modern world?" Diamond proceeded by telling us that the answer to that question was geography. We watched a portion of this small movie and at the end of class we were asked to compare the movie to chapter 3: Invisible Warriors: The Myth of the White Conquistador. I had to sit down and really think about it. The movie was based on agriculture while chapter 3 was focused on war- so I decided to make my main focal point to be: What is the link between agriculture and war? Along the years farming has made it possible to …show more content…
I finished reading chapter three: Invisible Warriors: The Myth of the White Conquistador, and in the first few paragraphs, Restall sets a scene fairly related to what I was taught to believe . “Thousands of native warriors swarm like bees upon the vastly outnumbered conquistadors, who against all odds fend them off and survive to fight another day” (44). But, as Restall intrigues, “what has so often been ignored or forgotten is the fact that Spaniards tended also to be outnumbered by their own native allies. Additionally, the ‘invisible warriors’ of this myth took an additional form, that of the Africans, free and enslaved, who accompanied Spanish invaders and in later campaigns equaled or exceeded them in number” …show more content…
During this period people excluded roles of native allies and black Africans in recording the conquest. In 1760 an Italian man Friar Ilarione Da Bergamo doesn't mention Africans and contributes the Spanish victory to "superior weaponry , handicapping superstitions of the 'wretched Indians' and the interventions of the providence" (45). They had a war similar to the one in the movie in which they were outnumbered. "The Incans were charging us in such a number that only by miracle of swordplay were we able to drive them back and reform our ranks." (45) Because Europeans were ranked higher than Indians/ blacks they were barely mentioned. We only see a few rare times that they were. For instance, Alvarado mentions native allies once to his letters to Cortes during his invasion of highland Gaugamela in 1524. He says that he wrote two letters to Cortes. "The first making no reference to the native allies, the second mentioning just once, in parentheses, that his force compromised 250 Spaniards "and about five or six thousand friendly Indians". " Cortes basically claimed the support from the natives were a result of his own devised
Jared Diamond begins Guns with a prologue which sets the stage for the rest of the book. Approached in New Guinea by his friend and local politician Yali, he is posed a question: "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" Yali's question flared a nerve in Diamond. This question brought about the thesis of his book, that environment is more persuasive on development of civilization than people may have once thought.
The source of the first passage that I read was History of the Indies written by Bartolome de Las Casas written in 1528. Bartolome was a 16th century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar/priest, who condemned the treatment of Indians in the Spanish empire. Bartolome widely disseminated History of the Indies and helped to establish the Black Legend of Spanish cruelty (Give Me Liberty, 28). The source of the second passage that I read was the “Declaration of Josephe” which was created by Josephe on December 19, 1681, and Josephe was a Spanish-speaking Indian questioned by a royal attorney in Mexico City investigating the Pueblo Revolt, which is the revolt of the indian population, in 1680, which temporarily drove Spanish settlers out of present day New Mexico
War is a complicated event. Many different factors are considered in the strategic planning during a war. The number of troops, ammunition supplies, and the lay of the land are just three of the considerations that must be given when fighting a battle. Such considerations were made during the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. In The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, Shaara uses geography throughout his recounting of the event. His use of geography is seen in his descriptions of the people involved, his description of the climate, and his superb outlining of the natural landscape.
...ything and everyone that were there. At times they would work with the Natives at other times they would be at war with the natives. The Spanish had been engaged with the natives longer and over time felt the best way to control them would be to convert them or put them into same locations where they could “keep an eye on them”. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was proof that no matter what they tried, when one man, country, or society tries to oppress another, war is almost always inevitable.
6. Love, Edgar F. “Negro Resistance to Spanish Rule in Colonial Mexico.” The Journal of Negro History 52, no. 2 (1967): 89-103.
What he and his men did to the Indigenous people is told in horrifying detail by the Dominican priest Bartolome de Las Casas, “whose writings give the most thorough account of the Spanish-Indian encounter.” Las Casas witnessed firsthand Columbus’ soldiers stabbing Natives for sport, dashing babies’ heads on rocks, and sexually abusing Indigenous women. His testimony was corroborated by other eyewitnesses, such as a group of Dominican friars, who addressed the Spanish monarchy in 1519, hoping to bring an end to the atrocities. At the very least, Columbus was complicit in the actions of his men. He cared so little for the welfare of the Indigenous people that he let his soldiers commit reprehensible acts that would be considered crimes against humanity in the present day. Christopher Columbus’ actions suggest he had no issue with serving as an enabler of the horrifying actions committed by his men against the Indigenous
I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel in the Fall 2003 based on a recommendation from a friend. Many chapters of the book are truly fascinating, but I had criticisms of the book back then and hold even more now. Chief among these is the preponderance of analysis devoted to Papua New Guinea, as opposed to, say, an explanation of the greatly disparate levels of wealth and development among Eurasian nations. I will therefore attempt to confine this review on the "meat and potatoes" of his book: the dramatic Spanish conquest of the Incas; the impact of continental geography on food production; and finally, the origins of the Eurasian development of guns, germs, and steel. In terms of structure, I will first summarize the book's arguments, then critically assess the book's evidentiary base, and conclude with an analysis of how Guns, Germs, and Steel ultimately helps to address the wealth question.
In Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, the author is trying to find out why New Guineans are not as developed as Europeans are. Yali’s people do not have the same complex societies as others because of the location and culture the New Guineans have. Diamond writes in chapter 15, “New Guinea’s population is not only small in aggregate, but also fragmented into thousands of micropopulations by the rugged terrain: swamps in much of the lowlands, steep-sided ridges and narrow canyons alternating with each other in the highlands, and dense jungle swathing both the lowlands and the highlands” (Diamond, 293-294). New Guinea is an island with a small population. This makes it so that the people of New Guinea separate themselves amongst the
In chapter six, Rodan a spear maker heard the sound of gold in his bag and wondered who to invest in his gold, He went to get help from Mathon a gold lender. He explained to the lender how his sister had asked to borrow gold for her husband of his new business. He says if you want to help then help but don't bring tension to yourself by doing it. Mathon says he has a token chest that he has a token for every unpaid loan. He then decides he will not lend the money to his brother in law and take the risk.
... (Schweikart 5-6). The Aztecs’ greed for sacrificial hostages turned these Indian neighbors against them (Kingfisher 196-197). The Aztecs were defeated, partially because they had been weakened by smallpox, but also because the Spanish fought together as a single force, while Aztecs fought as individuals (Schweikart 6-7).
The downfall of the Aztec Empire was a major building block of the Spanish colonial empire in the Americas. Spain’s empire would stretch all the way into North America from the Southwest United States all the way up the Pacific Coast. The unfortunate side effect of this was the elimination of many nations of indigenous people. The three major themes shown in this conquest really give deeper look into the anatomy of this important historical event. Without context on the extent of native assistance given to Cortez in his fight with the Aztecs, a reader would be grossly uniformed. The Spanish conquest was closer to a civil war than an actual conquest. Until reading detailed personal accounts of the fighting it is difficult to judge the deadly effectiveness of the Spaniards technological superiority. Without it is difficult to imagine 500 conquistadors holding thousands of native warriors at bay. Once the greed of Cortez and greed in general of the Europeans one understands that if it wasn’t Cortez if would have just been a different man at a different time. Unfortunately fame and prosperity seem to always win over cares about fellow human beings
In schools, students are being taught wrong information. “Our gods were vanquished after the fall of Tenochtitlan as were our traditions. Our warriors and nobles were eradicated, our children starved and our women ravished by the white conquerors and their allies.” (157). In books across America, the Spaniards were said to be good people, but the way that Huitzitzilin described what happened, shows the complete opposite of how the Spaniards actually were.
Victors and Vanquished by Stuart Schwartz attempts to explore differing perspectives of the conquest of Mexico as the historical narratives are from both the outlook of the Spanish conquistadors as well as the Nahua peoples. In these primary sources, there was a fundamental focus on the encounters between the Spaniards and the Mexica. The first source is an excerpt from The True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a Spanish conquistador, who participated as a foot solider in the conquest of Mexico with Hernán Cortés. Although Díaz del Castillo was a witness of the conquest, he wrote his account of what he had witnessed decades after the Spanish victory, in 1521. In his account, Díaz del Castillo concentrated on the ways in which the Spanish viewed the Nahua peoples. The second source is taken from the Florentine Codex and is one which was collected twenty
...eeded in enjoying themselves without going to extremes. Perhaps the Indians did not go to extremes because they were fearful of the rulers, of the Gods and did not have dominance as their first priority. As Columbus stated in his article, “They are not from any deformity of the body, but they are timid and full of fear. “(Columbus, 4) Maybe the Indians did not fight back because they already had all the treasures they wanted and didn’t crave any more. The Indians did not deserve the dreadful treatment during the plagues and daily life during the conquest, just as the Jews did not deserve the maltreatment in the concentration camps that Hitler held. However, the conquest was not as strategically planned to kill indigenous people as Hitler’s plan was but they still carried on with the mass murders therefore Cortez is just as in the wrong as Hitler in that sense.
Geography is a branch of science that seeks to learn about the physical aspects of the earth, and how human activity is having an impact on it. War, on the other hand, is a militaristic conflict between two opposing parties, where violence and strategic thinking plays a big part. War relies on several aspects in Geography to help win battles such as using maps to have an overview of a battlefield, understanding how the land can be used to a commander’s advantage, and so on. Wars or other kinds of militaristic conflicts can sometimes occur due to the nature of Geography in many ways: expanding the territory of a country, conquering another nation for its resources, or for other reasons. Geography matters very much in warfare because the types