Exploring The New World

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In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the movements to explore the new world increased rapidly. Among them was the arrival of the early Europeans on Americas. Only in a few decades this arrival has changed the land and the people of the Americas both on the physical the non-physical outcomes.
On the physical outcomes, within a few decades after the arrival of European Ships on October 12, 1492, successive waves of explorers and colonists slaughtered, raped, and exploited indigenous populations who were poorly equipped to resist the bearded, white strangers invading their bays, inlets, and high plateaus. As mentioning in “The Second Voyage: The Cannibals” of Columbus: “Having her in my room and she being naked as is their custom, I began to want to amuse myself with her. Since I wanted to have my way with her and she was not willing, she worked me over so badly with her…To get to the end of the story, seeing how things were going, I got a rope and tied her up so tightly that she made unhearding how things were going, I got a rope and tied her up so tightly that she made unheard of cried which you wouldn’t have believed.” Spears, arrow, wood, and human agility proved no match against guns, cannon, steel, and horses. Many native communities were wiped out. As a result, a large number of people were killed, European as well as Native American. As mentioned In the King Philip’s war, “one in ten soldiers on both sides was injured or killed and it took many years for Plymouth and the other colonies to recover from damage to property.” (Ms. Hamidah’s lecture notes)
In addition, the Spanish would soon rely on slave labor to send profitable supplies of gold, sugar, coffee, and tobacco (new human “necessities”) to European markets. Hundreds of Natives who fought with Philip were sold into slavery abroad; others, especially women and children were forced to become servants locally. Columbus had this idea as soon as he came to the New Land: “They ought to be good servants and of good skill, for I see that they repeat very quickly whatever was said to them.”
In many ways, the arrival of whites was tragic disaster for Native Americans. “In the 1700s, about two thirds of the native population in Michigan died from diseases whites brought such as smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, measles, influenza, and even the common cold.” The combina...

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...of the two cultures (The European’s and Native Americans). The Navaho were a nomadic tribe. In winter they lived in earth-covered lodges and in summer in brush shelters called hogans. They farmed (corn and beans), hunted (deer, elk, and antelope), and gathered wild vegetable products. After sheep were introduced (early 17th cent.) by the Spanish, sheep raising superseded hunting and farming. Thus the Navaho became a pastoral people.
In summary, there are many differences in culture and ideology between the Europeans and the Native Americans. The conflicts on both the physical and the non-physical outcomes are the result that we can not get rid of. And the result for those conflicts is that a completely new and different labor, religious, economic, and social regimes were imposed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Christopher Colombus, The First Voyage: The West Indies, The Second Voyage: The Cannibals.

• The Harper, American Literature

• http://artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/sos/

• http://www.imsa.edu/edu/ecology/frames/contentframe/intecology/classexample/folklore.htm

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