Nature’s Gold: Comparing Michel de Montaigne’s Inspiration and Bernal Diaz’s Intentions, Indigenous Peoples have brought culture, traditions, and knowledge to the United States of America. Yet, despite their invaluable contributions, they have always struggled in American society. In the past, Europeans have illustrated cruel stories of the Natives as noble savages, uncivilized people and criticized their practice of cannibalism. Historically, these stories have led the world to establish a negative association with the Natives. However, the Europeans did admire and respect the values of the indigenous communities, along with the wealth from all the natural resources. Such as Michel de Montaigne, who praised their survival techniques and encouraged the Europeans to …show more content…
Bernal Diaz sought out the same aspirations, except he aimed to steal the Native’s wealth from their natural environments, for himself and his people. This essay focuses on the contrast between the readings by Montaigne, Of Cannibals, and Bernal Diaz, The Conquest Of New Spain. Utilizing the observations on the Indigenous People’s natural environment, and the impacts the Americas has on its inhabitants, this essay will reveal that Montaigne and Diaz have different opinions on the American land of the Indigenous Americans. Bernal Diaz aims to take this land, while Montaigne wants to learn from these lands and its people. In Michel De Montaigne’s Of Cannibals, Montaigne praises the Native’s values and morals, suggesting that his readers, the Europeans should learn such respect. He strongly believes that the American landscape is full of culture, and the Native interactions with natural resources should be globalized. At the beginning of his reading, Montaigne addresses regret for missing the opportunity to learn from the Natives earlier on, as he reflects on the land’s
Unlike Las Casas’s idealistic and pacifistic descriptions of the indigenous, Montaigne portrays the natives as flawed, and sometimes violent individuals. He goes on to use these flaws as criticism towards his fellow Europeans. The main topic Montaigne covers and uses to compare Indian and European practices is cannibalism. To a civilized European, cannibalism seems like a brutish, primal, barbaric practice. Montaigne defends the natives by pleading their thought process in eating another human’s flesh. “After [the natives] have long time used and treated their prisoners well… kill him with swords: which done, they roast him and eat him in common… not to nourish themselves with it, but to represent an extreme and inexpiable revenge”(Montagne Paragraph 11). Contrary to the belief that the cannibals are not unable to feed themselves, so must resort to eating human flesh, they do it out of revenge, after killing their victim relatively humanely. Montaigne goes on to compare the practices of Europeans in relation to the cannibals, and in doing so, he shows that the cannibals are no more savage than people who are considered to be more advanced: “[The Portuguese] bury [their prisoners] up to the middle, and against the upper part of the body to shoot arrows, and then being almost dead, to hang them up”(Montaigne Paragraph 12). The way the Portuguese kill their prisoners is much more torturous and dehumanizing than the method of the cannibals. Montaigne then tells the chilling fact that the natives began to follow this method of killing (Montaigne Paragraph 12). Those who are considered to be barbaric by Europeans took the method of revenge because it was “more smartful and cruel than theirs”(Montaigne Paragraph 12). This implies an awful characteristic among the explorers: their method of killing is so barbaric; that the “barbarians” themselves felt inclined to follow their example. By
In this section his initial thoughts show through. “But losers matter, especially in the history of early America.” Many different regions of early America are examined in their years of early conquest when native populations started their descent. The biggest theme throughout the section is the effect that conquistadors and explorers had on the native population in their search for gold and glory. The information that is given is not typical of what is learned of early America, but tries to really focus on the most important figures of the time and there voyages. For example, when talking about the Plains nations and there explorers, Coronado and De Soto a tattooed woman woman is brought up who had been captured by both explorers at different times and different places, but little is known about her. “Of the tattooed woman who witnessed the two greatest expeditions of conquest in North America, and became captive to both, nothing more is known.” This point captures the main idea of the theme and what many know of this time. Horwitz aims to point out the important facts, not just the well known
Modern day Native American are widely known as stewards of the environment who fight for conservation and environmental issues. The position of the many Native American as environmentalists and conservationists is justified based on the perception that before European colonists arrived in the Americas, Native Americans had little to no effect on their environment as they lived in harmony with nature. This idea is challenged by Shepard Krech III in his work, The Ecological Indian. In The Ecological Indian, Krech argues that this image of the noble savage was an invented tradition that began in the early 1970’s, and that attempts to humanize Native Americans by attempting to portray them as they really were. Krech’s arguments are criticized by Darren J Ranco who in his response, claims that Krech fails to analyze the current state of Native American affairs, falls into the ‘trap’ of invented tradition, and accuses Krech of diminishing the power and influence of Native Americans in politics. This essay examines both arguments, but ultimately finds Krech to be more convincing as Krech’s
“The Conquest of New Spain” is the first hand account of Bernal Diaz (translated by J.M. Cohen) who writes about his personal accounts of the conquest of Mexico by himself and other conquistadors beginning in 1517. Unlike other authors who wrote about their first hand accounts, Diaz offers a more positive outlook of the conquest and the conquistadors motives as they moved through mainland Mexico. The beginning chapters go into detail about the expeditions of some Spanish conquistadors such as Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, Juan de Grijalva and Hernando Cotes. This book, though, focuses mainly on Diaz’s travels with Hernando Cortes. Bernal Diaz’s uses the idea of the “Just War Theory” as his argument for why the conquests were justifiable
This book is complete with some facts, unfounded assumptions, explores Native American gifts to the World and gives that information credence which really happened yet was covered up and even lied about by Euro-centric historians who have never given the Indians credit for any great cultural achievement. From silver and money capitalism to piracy, slavery and the birth of corporations, the food revolution, agricultural technology, the culinary revolution, drugs, architecture and urban planning our debt to the indigenous peoples of America is tremendous. With indigenous populations mining the gold and silver made capitalism possible. Working in the mines and mints and in the plantations with the African slaves, they started the industrial revolution that then spread to Europe and on around the world. They supplied the cotton, rubber, dyes, and related chemicals that fed this new system of production. They domesticated and developed the hundreds of varieties of corn, potatoes, cassava, and peanuts that now feed much of the world. They discovered the curative powers of quinine, the anesthetizing ability of coca, and the potency of a thousand other drugs with made possible modern medicine and pharmacology. The drugs together with their improved agriculture made possible the population explosion of the last several centuries. They developed and refined a form of democracy that has been haphazardly and inadequately adopted in many parts of the world. They were the true colonizers of America who cut the trails through the jungles and deserts, made the roads, and built the cities upon which modern America is based.
His book clears the smoke from our eyes of the stereotypes of indigenous populations, their cities, and their cultures. Through reading this book, we find that natives were so far advanced that most of their inventions and discoveries still hold true today. The book also proves to us that textbooks are not always the best resources, even though we have relied on them since public education systems became the norm. Mann’s recount of his studies have opened up a world of more civilized, intelligent, and useful depictions of Indigenous populations and flourishing cities throughout North and South
Bolivar illustrates the relationship between the Spanish American colonies and Spain. The relationship could be described as bitter, at least in the eyes of the Spanish colonies. Inferiority led the Spanish colonies to the ideas of revolution. Although their rights come from the Europeans, they do not acknowledge themselves as Europeans or Indians. The people of the Spanish colonies claim to be, according to Bolivar, “[…] a species midway between the legitimate proprietors of [America] and the Spanish usurper” (411). “Usurpers” meaning a position that is held by forces which entails an unwanted or uninvited relationship. It is because of the Europeans, as stated by Bolivar, that “we have to assert [European] rights against the rights of the natives, and at the same time we must defend ourselves against invaders [which] places us in a most extraordinary and involved situation” (411). This is also evidence of a bitter rela...
The article, “Native Reactions to the invasion of America”, is written by a well-known historian, James Axtell to inform the readers about the tragedy that took place in the Native American history. All through the article, Axtell summarizes the life of the Native Americans after Columbus acquainted America to the world. Axtell launches his essay by pointing out how Christopher Columbus’s image changed in the eyes of the public over the past century. In 1892, Columbus’s work and admirations overshadowed the tears and sorrows of the Native Americans. However, in 1992, Columbus’s undeserved limelight shifted to the Native Americans when the society rediscovered the history’s unheard voices and became much more evident about the horrific tragedy of the Natives Indians.
In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.
The author starts the chapter by briefly introducing the source in which this chapter is based. He makes the introduction about the essay he wrote for the conference given in at Vanderbilt University. This essay is based about the events and problems both Native Americans and Europeans had to encounter and lived since the discovery of America.
Talking Back to Civilization , edited by Frederick E. Hoxie, is a compilation of excerpts from speeches, articles, and texts written by various American Indian authors and scholars from the 1890s to the 1920s. As a whole, the pieces provide a rough testimony of the American Indian during a period when conflict over land and resources, cultural stereotypes, and national policies caused tensions between Native American Indians and Euro-American reformers. This paper will attempt to sum up the plight of the American Indian during this period in American history.
The reactions of sheer shock and awe is used by the author to support the thesis by demonstrating the brilliance of the society that existed in the Americas before Columbus relative to to Europe and the society Columbus brought to America. An additional way Charles C. Mann supports his thesis is explaining why the natives were defeated if their society was so advanced. Precisely, he stated that disease was why the native society fell: “The People of the First Light could avoid or adapt to European technology but not European disease. Their societies were destroyed by weapons their opponents could not control and did not even know they had”(70). A common reason for disagreeing with the author’s thesis is that the natives could not have been so advanced if they were so easily dispatched by the European people. Fortunately, Charles C. Mann addresses this issue furthering his thesis that advanced society existed in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus by stating it was not the society of the Europeans that was more advanced but rather the uncontrollable spread of disease by the Europeans. A final way Charles C.
Bartolomé de Las Casas begins by providing a vivid description of each land being invaded by the Europeans and the type of peopl...
The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World
In ‘The Things They Carried’ O'Brien explains war memoir and a writer's autobiography where he remembers his experience and describes it with Jimmy cross as the main character. The first Lieutenant Cross is dyeing inside to find out the truth he ‘humps’ letters that are written Martha, “a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, a poet and a virgin and uninvolved”, which he folds in a plastic and puts them at the bottom of his rucksack. Every day, he would return to the letters in his ‘rucksack’ and spend an hour going through the letters while his imagination grew wild. The letters were not romantic, he kept on kissing the papers hoping she had done that too.