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The Arawaks lived in the bahama islands, Where they believed in hospitality and sharing. Cnn's john sutter talks about how he seized some by force so he could get information from them. Sutter: The Arawaks were friendly and helpful, But they were also greedy.
The Arawaks lived in the bahama islands, Where they believed in hospitality and sharing. Cnn's john sutter talks about how he seized some by force so he could get information from them. Sutter: The Arawaks were friendly and helpful, But they were also greedy.
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The Arawaks lived in the bahama islands, Where they believed in hospitality and sharing. Cnn's john sutter talks about how he seized some by force so he could get information from them. Sutter: The Arawaks were friendly and helpful, But they were also greedy.
Авторское право:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Доступные форматы
Скачайте в формате PDF, TXT или читайте онлайн в Scribd
COLUMBUS
POD e Uren Eba
aches, Fl of wonder,
Took at the strange
big boat. When Christopher Colurnbus and his
soldiers came ashore, carrying swords, the
Arawak ran to greet them, Columbus later wrote
about the Indians in is ships lo:
They. rough ala coon ape
dy ote ing. ity xg
bead
and et“The Arawaks lived inthe Babaa Islands. Like
Indians on the American mainland, they believed
{in hospitality and in sharing. But Columbus the
first messenger tothe Americas frm the ciliza
tion of western Europe, was hungry for money. AS
soon ashe arrived in theislands, he seized some
‘Arawak by fore so thathe could gt information
fom them. The information that Columbus wanted
‘was this: Where isthe gud?
Columbus had talked the king and queen of
‘Spain into paying for hs expedition. Like other
Furopean states, Spain wanted gold. There was,
old in the Indies, asthe people of Europe
called India and southeastern Asia, The Indies
hhad other valuable goods too, suchas silks and
spices. But traveling by land from Europe to
Asia was a long and dangerous journey, so the
nations of Europe were searching fora way to
reach the Indies by sea, Spain decided to gamble
‘on Columbus. tn return fr bringing back gold
and spices, Columbus would get to percent of
the profits. He would be made governor of any
newly discovered lands, and he would win the
title Admiral of the Ocesn Sea, He set out with
three ships, hoping to bscome the frst
European to reach Asia by sailing across the
‘Allantic Ocean.
ike other informed people of his time,
‘Columb knew that the world was round, This
rant that he could sal west from Europe to reach
the east. The world Columbus imagined, however,
was smal. He would never have made to Asia,
which was thousands of miles Farther away than he
‘thought. Bute was lucky. One fourth ofthe way
‘here he came upon an unknown land between
Europe and Asia,
‘Thiny-three days after leaving waters known to
Europeans, Columbus and his men saw branches
floating in the water and locks of beds inthe ait
‘These were signs of land. Then, on October 12,
1492, sailor called Rodrigo saw the moon
ing on white sands, and cried out. Ie was an island
inthe Bahamas, in the Caribbean Sea. The first
‘man to sight land was supposed to get large
ewad, but Rodtgo never got it Columbus
claimed that he had seen light the evening
before. He got the reward,‘The Arawaks' Impossible Tsk
THE ARAWAR INDIANS who greeted Columbus
live in villages and practiced agriculture, Unlike
the Buropeans, they had no horses or other work
animals, and they had no iron, What they did have
was tny gold omamnents i their ea
Those litle ornaments shaped history. Because
of them, Columbus started his relationship with
the Indians by taking prisoners, thinking that they
could lead im to the source ofthe gold, He sled
to several other Caribbean islands, inchuding
Hispaniola, an island now divided between two
countries, Haiti and the Dominican Republic
‘After one of Columbus's ships ran aground, he
used wood fiom the wreck to build a for in Fait
‘Then he sailed back to Spain with news of his dis.
cover, leaving thirty-nine crewmen a the fort
‘Their orders were to find and store the god
‘The report Columbus made othe royal
Spanish court was part fact, pat fiction. He
claimed to have veached Asia, and he called the
‘Arawaks “Indian,” meaning people ofthe Indies,
‘The islands Columbus had visited must be offte {2
Gavtof hia esd Theyre flecks teepani mas Mears il pins and
stares a here ei... thro ze
‘uel gpd aa the ae many we sof
Wh he jr contan al. Tee ate may
‘pies nd retin gi ander meals
the king and queer would give him just lit
tie more help, Columbus sai, he would make
another voyage. This time he would come back to
Spain with “as much gold a they need... and as
‘many slaves a they ask.”
Columbus's promises won him seventeen
ships and more than 1,00 men for his second
‘expedition. The aim was lear: slaves and god
‘They went from island toisland in the Caribbean,
capturing Indians. But as word spread among the
Indians the Spaniards feand more and more
empiy villages When they got to Hit, they found
thatthe solos let behind atthe fat were dead,
Te sailors had roamed the island in gangs look
‘ng for gold, taking women and children as slaves,
until the Indians had killd them in a battle
CColumhne's men searched ait for gold with
no success. They had to ll up the ships return:
ing to Spain with sometking, so in 1495 they
went on a great slave ric. Afterward, they picked
five hundeed captives to send to Spain. Two hun-
dred ofthe Indians ded on the voyage. The rest
strived alive in Spain and were put up forsale by
local church offical. Cohumbus, who was full of
religious ak, later wrote, “Let us in the name of
the Holy Tiity goon sending all the slaves that
can be sold”
‘Bt too many slaves died in captiviy, Cohambus
vas desperate to show profit on his voyages: Me
baad to make good on his promises to fl he ships
vith gold. na partof Haiti where Columbus and
his men imagined thete was much god, they
ordered everyone over the age of thirteen to cellet
0d for them. Indians who didnot give gold tothe
‘Spaniards had ther hands cutoff nd bed to death
‘The Indians ad been given an impossible
task, The only gold around was bits of gold dst in
streams. So they ran away. The Spaniards hunted
them down with dogs and killed them. When they
took prisoners, they hanged them or burned them
to death, Unable to fight agains the Spanish sol
ices’ guna, swords, armor, and horses, the
Arawaks began to commit mass suicide with poi-
son. When the Spanish search for gold bega
there were a quarter of milion Indians on Hait2
Intwo years, through murder or suicide, half
‘hem were dead
‘When it was clear that there was no god le
‘the Indians became slaves on the Spaniaeds' huge
estates. They were overworked and misteated,
and they died by the thousands By 1550, only five
hhundted Indians remained. A century Iter no
‘Arawaks were left onthe island
‘Telling Columbus's Story
Caribbean islands after Columbus came because of
Bartolomé de Las Casas. He was a young priest who
helped the Spanish conquer Cuba. Fora while he
‘owned a plantation where Indian slaves worked
‘But then Las Casas gave up his plantation and
spoke out against Spanish cue.
ae Cazae made a copy of Columbus's journal,
and he also wrote a book called History ofthe
Indies In this book, he described the Indians’ sock
ety and their customs. He lso told how the
Spaniards treated the Indians
‘Afr the newt Borne ica ease tee
ers onrmke nd fished rsh a no
koma the an fr this son, wie wa in
aba 7.000 diden died in thee months Some
oes een downed tn abn her dep
son, tn the wy ba id nthe ns,
rile. My eyesave ne these a 20 og
‘This was the star of the history of Europeans
inthe Americas. It was a history of conquest sla
ery, and death, But fora long time, the history
Dooks given to children in the United Stats told a
ferent story—a tale of heroic adventure, not
Dloodshed. The way the sory is taught to young
people is just beginning to change
‘The story of Columbus and the Ind
us something bout how history ges waiten. One
‘ofthe most famous historians to write about
ns shows
(Columbus was Samuel Eliot Morison, He ever
sailed eros the Aantc Ocean himeelf retracing
(Columbus's route n 3954 Morison published a
‘popular book aed Christopher Calumbus, Marine.
He said that cruel teatment by Columbus ad the
9Europeans who came afer hit caused the “com:
plete genocide" ofthe Indians, Genocide i a harsh
‘word. Iie the name ofa eb crime—the deli
rate killing of an entite enc or cultural group,
“Morison didnot le about Columbus, He did
not leave out the mass murder. But he mentioned
the truth quickly and then went on to other things.
By burying the fact of gerocide in alot of other
{nformation, he seemed t be saying that the mass
murder wasn't very important in the big picture,
By making genocide scem like a small pat of the
story he took away ite pover to make us tink dif.
feently about Columbus. At the end ofthe book,
Morison summed up hisiea of Columbus a a
‘great man. Columbus's most important quai,
Moriton sid, was his seamanship.
historian must pikand choose among fies
deciding which ones to pit into his or her work,
‘which ones to leave out, snd which ones to place
atthe center of the story Every historian's own
‘ideas and beliefs go into the way he or she writes
history. In turn, the way history ie writen can,
shape the ideas and belies ofthe people who read
it. A view of history like Morison’, a picture of the
‘past that sees Columbus and others like him as
great sailors and discoverers, but says almost
nothing about their genocide, can make t seem as
though what they did was right.
People who write and read history have goten
used to seeing terrible things such as conquest
and murder a the price of progress. Tie is
because many of them think that history isthe
story f governments, conquerors, and leaders. In
this way of fooking atthe past, history what hap-
pens to states, or nations. The ators in history are
kings, presidents, and generals. But what about
factory workers, farmers, people of color, women,
and children? They make history, too.
‘The story of any country inchudes fete con
fits between conquerors andthe conquered,
masters and saves, people with powe and those
without power Writing history is always a matter
of taking sides. For example, {choose to tell he
story ofthe discovery of America from the point of
view ofthe Arawaks. {wil tel the story ofthe US.
Constitution frou the point of view of the slaves,
and the story ofthe Civil War from the point of
view ofthe Ii in New Yor City,
"believe that history can help us imagine new
possibilities forthe future, One way it can do thisis by letting us see the hidden parts ofthe past, the
times when people showed that they could resist
‘he powerful or join together. Maybe our Future
can be found in the pas’s moments of kindness
and courage rather than its centuries of warfare,
‘That is my approach tothe history ofthe United
States, which started withthe meeting between
(Columbus and the Arawaks
More Meetings, More Fighting
‘The tragedy of Columbus andthe Arawaks hap-
pened over and over again. Spanish conquerors
Hernan Cortés and Francisco Pizarro destroyed
the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of South
America. When English settlers reached Virginia
and Massachusetts, they di the same thing to the
Indians they me
Jamestown, Vipin, wa the fist permanent
English setlement in the Americas. Iwas bul
inside ateritory governed by an Indian chief
‘named Powhatan. He watched the English settle
z‘on hie land but did not attack. In 1607, Powhatan
spoke to John Smith, one ofthe leaders at
Jamestown, The staternest that has come down to
us may not truly be Powatan’s words, butt
sounds alot like what otter Indians said and
wrote at later times. We an read Powhatan'sstate-
iment asthe spirit of wha he thought as he
‘watched the white men enter his territory
"ith enc bee pesca a beter han
ay mannyc Why wou tab ye what
your have quit yo! Why wl yu destroy sho
youve? Wht yo get yn? Whyte
yo jess of? We ae une, an wing oe
hut yovade you come in endl manne and to
spe sto how ta nich ter tod
ret ep comfy. heey wth nerd
tilde, ligh and be mer th Engh and rade
fer oper il cts han ran ay
them and oe ld inthe wot and fon aco,
roo andra an bes aed can eer
Tn the winter af wing-s6. the Fglish at
Jamestown went through a terrible food shortage
they called the “starving ime.” They roamed the
woods looking for nuts and berries, and they dug
‘up graves to eat the corpses. Out of five hundred
colonists, all but say died
‘Some ofthe colonists an off to join the
Indians, where they would at least be fed. The next,
summer, the governor ofthe colony asked
Powhatan to send them back, When he refused,
the colonists destroyed an Indian settlement. They
kidnapped the queen of the tribe, threw her chil
‘ren into the water and shot them, and then
stabbed her,
“Twelve years later the Indians tried to get rd of
the growing English setlensents, They massacred
347 men, women, and children. From then on it
‘was total war. The English could not enslave the
Indians, and they were notable olive with them,
0 they decided to wipe them out.
‘To the north the Plgrizs settled in New
England. Like the Jamestown colonists, they came
to Indian land, The Pequot tribe lived in southern
Connecticut and Rhode Islnd. The colonists
wanted this land, othe war withthe Pequots
began. Massacres ton laren hath sides: The
[English used a form of warfare that Coté had
used in Mexico. Toil the enemy with teror, they
attacked civilians, people who were not warriors‘They set fire to wigwams, and as the Indians ran
‘ut toescape the Hames, the English eu them to
bits with their swords
When Columbus care tothe Americas, 10
‘million Indians lived nerth of what is now Mexico.
‘After the Europeans began setting that land, the
numberof tndians fll until in time, fewer than 3
nillion remained, Mans Indians died from dis.
eases brought by the whites,
‘Who were these Indians? Who were the people
‘who came out onto the beaches with presents for
Columbus and his erew and who peered out ofthe
forests atthe fist white setlers of Virginia and
Marsachusetts?
[AS many as 75 milion Indians lived through-
out the Americas before Columbus. They had
hundreds of different tral cultures and about
two thousand languages. Many tribes were
nomads, wanderers who lived by hunting and
gathering food. Others, however, were expert
farmers and lived in setled communities, Among
the Broquoie, the me
em tribes and didnot belong to individuals t
belonged tothe entre community. People shared
the work of farming and hunting, and they also
powerful of the northeast
shared food. Women were important and
respected in Iroquois society, andthe sexes shared
over. Children were taught tobe independent,
Not only the Iroquois but other Indian tribes
behaved in similar ways,
‘So Columbus and the Europeans who fllowed
him did not come tan empty wilderness. They
came toa word that was, in some places, as
crowded as Europe, The Indians had their own,
histor, laws, ad poetry. They lived in greater
quality than people in Europe di Was
progress" enough of reason to wipe out thelr
societies? The fate ofthe Indians reminds us to
Took at history as something more than just a story
‘of conquerors and leaders