Nordic Presence In The Americas Essay

When Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492, he thought he reached Asia. He has made himself believe that he has found the New World and that he was the first to inhabit the land. This was not the case as an Indian Tribe, the Arawaks, was swimming to their boats with excitement. As Columbus’s crew arrived on the shores, he was shocked from the Indians hospitality. Columbus was carrying iron swords as the tribes brought gifts, food and water.

Assess the Impact of European commercial activities in the Atlantic Islands and West Africa from 1415 to 1600.

During the age of exploration and colonization, Portuguese mariners first found success in establishing trade along the African coast. They set up trading posts on offshore island using a new ship design, planting a variety of crops and trading commodities with people along the coast. Additionally, Vasco da Gama travelled around the tip of Africa to trade with East Africa and India. While their most of their goods were seen as inferior, da Gama returned with fighting vessels and established trading posts in the Indian Ocean by using force.

These nomads continued moving all the way to South America. By the time Europeans arrived in America, there were already at least forty to fifty million indigenous people inhabiting the land (Faber 4-5). Other explorers, from Norway, Greenland, and Iceland reached America centuries before Columbus (Faber ix). Although these people attempted to live in this new land, they didn’t stay long, and failed to create a lasting historical impact (Faber 20-26).

Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence- The authors contend that 1492 was a “fateful year” in North American history when the “land and the native peoples alike felt the full shock of the European ‘discovery.’” As you read this chapter, what relevant historical evidence can you find to support, modify, or refute this assertion?

During the sixteenth century European pilgrims migrated across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in North America. North America had just been introduced to the Western Civilization. The America’s were home to the indigenous people, that were made up of several tribes that were called Indians by the early settlers. Together the Indians and settlers began to thrive. Growth and development in the new world was made possible by the abundant amount of natural resources.

Even though Columbus was not the first person to step foot in the America’s, he was the first person, from the Eastern Hemisphere, to discover it. For example, when we discover a new species on an island, we may not have known that it existed, but the other living creatures there knew that it did. While Rebecca Dobbs in Document B is right that the Americas were not empty by any stretch of imagination and people lived there and knew about this part of the world, others did not know about it. However, in a letter to Queen Isabelle, Columbus states that they have landed on an island and the people there

1) The book, 1491, by Charles C. Mann gives readers a deeper insight into the Americas before the age of Columbus, explaining the development and significance of the peoples who came before us. Moreover, Mann’s thesis is such; the civilizations and tribes that developed the Americas prior to the discovery by Europeans arrived much earlier than first presumed, were far greater in number, and were vastly more sophisticated than we had earlier believed. For instance, Mann writes, regarding the loss of Native American culture:

“In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” One of the first things we learned in primary school was that Christopher Columbus discovered America, they also made us read Christopher 's Journals (1493) such as: “ They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks ' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” Here he was describing what he encountered with the “Taino indigenous peoples of Hispaniola.” However, we as students never questioned how is it Columbus “discovered” America. In his journals (1493) he states that he encountered people that lived there before he arrived, even though it wasn 't really America. The word discover is defined as “ to obtain sight or knowledge of for the first time.” There is evidence that validate Columbus did not discover America. One evidence that validates Columbus did not discover America is the inaccuracy in his studies. Columbus and his cohorts believed and

In the book They Came Before Columbus written by Ivan Van Sertima, chapter twelve, “Mystery of Mu-lan-pi”, there is a reoccurring theme of disproving the notion that Columbus brought over many different things and products from his expeditions to American to the Eastern parts of the world when in reality there is factual evidence that Africans made contact with America far before Columbus did. The author of this book, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, has his undergraduates degree in African languages and literature from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Van Sertima also worked as a journalist in Great Britain and did broadcasted to the Caribbean and Africa. With and extensive knowledge and work experience in African American Studies it is clear why he chose to wrote this book. The idea that Columbus was the first to bring things like maize from America is widely believed to be true but Van Setima saw that this was false and published They Came Before Columbus to show the facts and evidence that Columbus was not the first person to accomplish this. After writing this book Van Sertima went on to complete a master’s degree in African Studies at Rutgers University and even became a professor of African Studies at the same university. In this essay I will be going deeper into the theme and its relationship to African American history and discussing three other articles that can be related back to chapter twelve of They Came Before Columbus.

After the discovery of two entire continents by Italian Christopher Columbus, Europeans encountered the native people living among the vast territories. As Europeans continued to spread out along the Atlantic Seaboard, relations and contact with natives became more frequent. During the time period of the 1600s, the relations had a wide range depending on circumstance and tribe. The pale strangers were suspicious to the natives as some welcomed and supported as other tribes warred and attacked. Eventually after another 100 years later, Natives were largely endangered due to war, disease and even deportation. Ultimately the Europeans would become dominant among the vast territories that had once been occupied by Native Americans.

Eastern Woodland peoples around the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 clustered into which three major

Most history textbooks take Christopher Columbus and put him on a pedestal. These textbooks make Columbus the fantastic hero who was the first person to discover the Americas. These textbooks were wrong in idolizing Columbus. One text called The Lies my Teacher Told Me contradicts these textbooks. The text states that there were already many different groups of people that landed in, explored, or colonized the Americas. The first group of people was the ancestors to the Native Americans that were living there when Columbus came in 1492. Also the Norse established a colony in Greenland for 500 years (Loewen, 8). While there, the Norse explored parts of North America (Loewen, 8). This evidence proves that Columbus was not the first person to discover the Americas. Columbus began the demise of the current Indian cultures in the area. While Christopher Columbus and the

Whenever you hear about the European Exploration, or ‘The Age of Discovery’’ you hear a lot about what the Europeans gained from it, while they did learn a lot from this and gather a lot of new resources they were not the only ones affected. The Age of Discovery affected more areas that just Europe, it also affected the Americas and Africa. To prove this we must first know what European Exploration is.

The “new world” that Columbus boasted of to the Spanish monarchs in 1500 was neither an expanse of empty space nor a replica of European culture, tools, textiles, and religion, but a combination of Native, European, and African people living in complex relation to one another. »full text