Christopher Colombus
As the great explorers Christopher Columbus and James Cook were recognized and honored in having great explorations in the world history. They encountered some Natives of countries in their individual explorations and in this essay I will compare and contrast the Columbus’s and Cook’s views of the natives they encountered. Christopher Columbus discovered native people from North America and Captain James Cook discovered them from Hawaii. They both kept journals of their experiences so now we are able to look back and understand their first experiences with Natives. In Christopher Columbus’ journal of his first voyage it describes to us his first impressions of the people he met on the Caribbean islands. Columbus describes how friendly and innocent they look as a whole. Columbus is wrote on how he was interested on converting the Native peoples religion to Christianity “people who would be better freed [from error] and converted to our Holy Faith by love than by force”(Dunn). Columbus also noticed how peaceful the natives were and how they did not want to fight “They are very gentle and do not know what evil is; nor do they kill others, nor steal; and they are without weapons and so timid that a hundred of them flee from one of our men even if our men are teasing them.”(Dunn) The Natives were so peaceful and such a pleasant encounter for Columbus to have that he seemed to enjoy.
There are few other examples in history of two cultures being so different as the Native Americans and the soon to be European settlers encountered. There are two big concepts that I could imagine Europeans having great difficulty understanding about indigenous culture. The first concept I think the Europeans would have great difficulty understanding is the natives idea of land. The Native Americans tied themselves very closely with the land they lived on as they would use it for things such as food, shelter, and navigation. It seems as if the Natives only took from the land what they
There are few other examples in history of two cultures being so different as the Native Americans and the soon to be European settlers encountered. There are two big concepts that I could imagine Europeans having great difficulty understanding about indigenous culture. The first concept I think the Europeans would have great difficulty understanding is the natives idea of land. The Native Americans tied themselves very closely with the land they lived on as they would use it for things such as food, shelter, and navigation. It seems as if the Natives only took from the land what they
References: James Cook. The Journals of Captain Cook. Ed. by Philip Edwards. London: Penguin, 1999, pp. 530–34. (Translation slightly modified.) Christopher Columbus. The Diario of Christopher Columbus 's First Voyage to America. Trans. by Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley Jr. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989, pp. 65–69, 143–45.