After reading the first chapter in A People\u2019s History of the United States<\/i> by Howard Zinn, I was intrigued by the slew of new information that I had not previously known about Christopher Columbus, his crew, and his true intentions behind exploring the New World. The thing that I don\u2019t entirely understand is, why is it that conflict between humans always arises? When Columbus and the other explorers such as Pizarro, Cortes invaded the New World, why did they have the urge to start a conflict with the Native Americans? I understand that the explorers were there to make money, find gold, claim new land, and seize glory for themselves but could there have been a way for them to achieve these things without destroying the Native American population throughout North America?<\/p>\n
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About three pages into the first chapter, I read an excerpt from one of Christopher Columbus\u2019 trip logs. The excerpt stated that Columbus had the intention of subjugating the Natives so that he could have a large workforce. My question regarding this is that why would something like this immediately come to his mind? I know that he, Columbus, needed to fulfill his promise of bringing back gold and other resources to Spain but why did he feel the need to assert his power over a community of people who welcomed him with open arms? This and other stories such as the one regarding Rodrigo, a deckhand, who was the first to spot land; however, Columbus claimed that he did and not Rodrigo. Because of this, Columbus earned a 10,000 maravedis yearly for the rest of his life as a pension instead of Rodrigo. After fulfilling his promise to the Spanish throne, he returned to Spain and earned his new title of \u201cAdmiral of the Ocean Sea\u201d. <\/i>After analyzing this, I recognized that this new title gave Columbus referent power. He could then use this title to request more funding and voyage resources because the new title proves that he is a successful explorer and that he has experience.<\/p>\n
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Another quote from the text that caught my eye was, \u201cHow certain are we that what we destroyed was inferior?\u201d This quote, regarding the Natives Americans, is a question posed towards the explorers and other mass murderers of the Christopher Columbus era and beyond. Were the Native Americans truly inferior or did they have information and technology that we hadn\u2019t invented yet? That is a question that we are still asking ourselves today\u2026 what would have happened technologically, culturally, and socially if we hadn\u2019t destroyed the Native American population? A similar genocide event that was mentioned in the book was the failed attempt to get rid of the Jewish people. The Spaniards expelled the Jewish people from their land, alongside other nations as well. Even the Roman Empire expelled the Jews from their land. Then both the Soviet Union and the Hitler attempted to fulfill a genocide. Throughout history Jews have been picked on and shoved aside. This same concept that was applied to the Native Americans was also applied to th Jewish people. Other people regarded both the Native Americans, the Jews, and others as inferior. Luckily the Jewish population was not completely killed. The Jewish community ended up giving the world people like Albert Einstein, Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google), Adam Sandler, and more. We were able to see what the Jewish population could bring to the world but we weren\u2019t able to see what the Native American population could have given us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After reading the first chapter in A People\u2019s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, I was intrigued by the slew of new information…<\/p>\n