Personal Narratives of Exploring the New World, America

Personal narratives are often written when the author feels compelled to tell their story, usually they write them about a significant event. Going back to Columbus, the early explorers and settlers took to writing personal narratives to tell their story of what they found in the New World. The New World has a geography that is unique to each area. One thing all of the early explorers and settlers to the new world had in common was that they all had to deal with the Indians. In each area there are differnat tribes of Indians, it is for that reason the personal narratives written by the explorers and settellers are different from each other. The result of which meant that all of them had different experiences to write about in the narratives they wrote. Some of them written to convince more expeditions like Columbus did in The Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America, 1492-1493. Later to tell their story of survival amongst the native population, as in the case of de Vaca’s The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca and Mary Rowlandson’s The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. Finally, more written to tell how the first permanent settlements survived and later thrived as in Bradford’s narrative Of Plymouth Plantation. Upon the first discovery of the New World by Columbus, the leaders of the early expedition used the personal narrative to tell their story. Even though all three of them used the personal narrative, all four had a different purpose for writing it.

Upon reaching the shore, Columbus, we know that he made contact with the Indians. Of the early explorers first contact with the Indians, his is both the most contenous and well known. His reaction to the way they treated them gave the impression that he and his men and th...

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