America Before Columbus Analysis

This week for our essay we had to watch a video titled America before Columbus. I enjoyed this video as it concentrated on the food aspect of the particular time from and before 1491. The introduction itself made it clear that the search for a short cut to India and the accidental 'run in' with the Americas was spearheaded and funded by the Queen of Spain. I believe this is an important fact to remember and to note that Columbus was not simply conquering inhabited lands willy-nilly but rather followed orders and working for the Queen of Spain. The area of the America's that Columbus landed on, and all of the America's, was inhabited by Natives that had infrastructures. In the North America's there was an entire civilization that stretched the

Zinn argues that the perspective of indigenous people should not be omitted and argues that their perspectives are as significant as any other. He provides insight and perspectives of the Indians to describe how the heinous acts of the Europeans were unjustified. He also discusses that the Europeans had a continual motive of exploring during that time which was to increase the power/authority of the Spanish Crown by whatever means necessary, usually leading to violent wars.

In the article Hello Columbus: America was No Paradise in 1492, by Robert Royal, Royal argued that Native Americans, along with Columbus, are portrayed wrongly in society today, from schools to media.

• had a formal language to write, a type of counting system, an correct calendar, and a agri system that was ahead of the time

12 October 1492- Columbus arrives in the Americas- Christopher Columbus had the support of King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. Columbus set sail in April of 1492. It took him nearly six months for him to touch land. Although Columbus was not the first to actually discover the Americas, he has been given that credit despite there being evidence that Vikings actually discovered the Americas around 1000 AD. “Icelandic legends called sagas recounted Eriksson’s exploits in the New World around A.D. 1000. These Norse stories were spread by word of mouth before becoming recorded in the 12th and 13th centuries.” (History.com/Vikings) The significance of Columbus coming to America over the Vikings is that following the voyage of Columbus, is when settlers really began to start traveling to the Americas and “a new phase of civilization began.” (Reference.com)

During the 1400’s, a physical connection was made between Europe and the Native Americans by Christopher Columbus. Today, he is looked upon as a hero for discovering the land that the United States of America currently occupies. Beneath the glorified image of Columbus, there lies something much darker that people often overlook. Although Columbus began the migration of Europeans to America, he did not discover it first. In addition, the new formed connection between the Europeans and the Americas paved way for the genocide of many of the indigenous people.

It has been thought for many years that the Americas were a vastly unpopulated land until Columbus came. However new evidence disputes this previously thought notion. Archeologist, who have been studying the remains of Native American culture, have found evidence suggesting that the Indians were in the Americas for much longer and in greater numbers than what was believed. This new evidence shows us the impact the Europeans had on the New World and gives us insight into what the Americas were like before the Europeans and what they may have been had the Europeans never settled here.

Reading Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress and Lies my teacher told me is really educating. The five things I found quite interesting, strange and of importance in the former is:

In the text Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bigelow and Pearson the authors of the book try to offer an alternative narrative of the story of Columbus. Many schools describe Columbus’s story as the “Discovery of America” and that this critical work make a profound impact in schools. The authors mention how in typical children’s book on Columbus see: Christopher talk, grow up, have ideas, feelings, see Chris plant the flag, but in the books native peoples of the Caribbean, the “discovered,” are portrayed without thoughts or feelings. I feel that this book fits in with a couple of our 5 dimensions that Banks brings up and that we discussed in class according to the books introduction of the text. This text shows why we must implement these Dimensions into our classroom. Using the first topic I discussed about how our text and schools discuss Columbus and the “Discover of America”, the book goes on to explain that their goal “is not to idealize native people, demonize Europeans, or present a depressing litany of victimization, but to encourage deeper thinking and understanding of the European Invasion’s consequences, to honor the rich legacy of resistance to the injustices it created, to convey some appreciation for the diverse indigenous cultures of the hemisphere, and to reflect on what this all means for us today.

For many years, schools have taught us that the Indians were small, uncivilized groups that had little effect on the world before Columbus. Due to unexpected discoveries and evidence that say otherwise, many scholars now question and argue about their time in the Americas before Columbus. In 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Mann uses the latest research, along with his own results from his travels, to provide eye-opening information on the Indians and what they were really like before the Europeans. We learn that they were more culturally advanced and had more of an influence on our world that what is thought.

America has come a long way since Columbus began his voyage in 1492. In “Beyond 1492: Encounter in Colonial North America,” James Axtell explains that when it comes to the Indian-European encounter, there’s more to the story than what the average person grasps. Most people know of how the Natives were mistreated and killed off by the Europeans with biological warfare and that a couple thousands of years later the Pilgrims and Natives had their first feast together known as “Thanksgiving”. However, in chapter four, Axtell’s essay describes that surprisingly, there was a “variety of ways Indians responded to the Europeans that invaded their lands in the wake of Columbus.” Axtell chronologically recapitulates the history of the Indian reactions to the European encounters up until the 1700’s and categorizes them into 5 strategies.

Have you ever wonder who discovered America before Columbus? Three regions that were founded before Columbus even arrived in America are California, the Plateau and the Eastern Woodlands. There were different tribes in these regions and they each had different cultures and survival methods because of the different environments. Although there are lots of differences between these regions there are also a lot of similarities. The environment, the indigenous groups, and the culture and survival is what I will be talking about today.

In modern America, we often take for granted the natural world that surrounds us and the American culture which is built upon it. For many of us, we give little thought to the food sources that sustain and natural habitats that surround us because when viewed for what they are, most people assume that they have “simply existed” since the country was founded. However, the documentary ‘America Before Columbus’ provided this writer an extremely interesting record of how the America we know came to exist. In the documentary, one of the most interesting discussions centered on the fact that it was not merely the arrival of conquistadors and colonists that irrevocably changed the landscape of the Americas, but that it was also the coined term known as the “Columbian Exchange” that afforded these travelers the ability to proliferate so successfully. The basic definition of the Columbian exchange is one that defines the importation of European flora and fauna. It could also loosely represent other imports, both intended and unintended, such as tools, implements, and even disease. Armed with this definition, it takes little imagination to envision how differently the Americas might have developed had any significant amount of the native European flora, fauna, or other unintended import not been conveyed to the Americas through the Columbian Exchange. Beyond the arrival of explorers, settlers, and colonists to the New World, the breadth of what the Columbian Exchange represented to

When Robert Kuttner from Goodbye, Columbus? stated that “Unless we all want to “return” to Europe or wherever our ancestors came from, America is our home and Columbus was among the first European explorers.” The fact that “Last week in Baltimore, some far-lefties took a sledgehammer to a statue of Christopher Columbus…” is an actual issue is absurd. Arguably, if Christopher Columbus never came here, we as an American society would not be here today, and everything would be different. For this reason, I guarantee if you went and asked an American Citizen if they would rather live in another country or in the United States, majority would choose the United States. Consequently it’s because we have luxuries that most people can’t even obtain,

Why do we divide the history of the Americas into eras either before or after Columbus?