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| European Expansion Clashes with Ancient Central American Cultures |
| 12.18.03 (4:42 pm) [edit] |
Abstract
What happens when two isolated cultures meet for the first time? When Christopher Columbus landed in the New World, instead of Asia, he made presumptions about the people he met. He exposed these people to the western world, and named them Indians (as we still refer to them Today). It is such a rare opportunity when two new cultures meet to share and learn. But instead the Europeans blinded by greed did not see the value in the friendship the natives bestowed upon them. Instead European culture would lead Christopher Columbus and those who followed him to repay them by kidnapping and classify these unfamiliar people as savages. Did Spaniard disappointment in not finding a new passage to the East Indies lead to their brutal treatment of the people who had greeted them with friendship and compassion? Or once again should one argue that European treatment of the Native Americans was caused by cultural differences and misunderstandings. There may not be an easy answer, but an excuse, no matter how good cannot rise above itself to become something more.
European Expansion Clashes
with
Ancient Central American Cultures:
The Renaissance period in Europe saw great advancements as the Europeans began to expand and explore. The European world came in contact with many new societies that had been previously unknown to them. The Europeans often mistreated the people they met in Africa, North America, and Asia. Few times in history has there been two cultures so isolated by their geography meeting in a fashion that would forever change both their destinies. Instead of embracing these moments, why would Europeans turn to greed and thus causing us to lose many of these great and mysterious civilizations to time?
On October 12, 1492, such an incident occurred. After a two-month voyage across the Atlantic Ocean Christopher Columbus landed on a small island in the Caribbean Sea. Consequently, he was the first European explorer of his time to reach the Americas. Unfortunately he didn’t know it, and thought he had landed on a chain of islands somewhere not far off the coastline of the main Asian body mass. Why would he think anything different? He had never been anywhere outside of Europe before. In correlation with thinking he was geographically in India, and their culture being the most closely resembling that of the stories he had heard of the Indian people in India; this resulted in him naming the natives he met Indians.
The people he met were actually the Arawaks, a sophisticated people located on modern day Hispaniola. Upon arriving, the Arawaks came to marvel at the people they believed had traveled to their island in ships from the sky. News of these strange new visitors spread quickly and people from nearby villages came to great Columbus and his crew.
This first encounter of two cultures would lead to be both unique and tragic result. The European mentality was not only foreign but nothing less than alien to the natives. Arawaks saw the world around them as giving and nurturing, where as the Europeans saw the natural world as a beast to be exploited and tamed. The Arawaks trusting and generous nature would leave them vulnerable to European exploitation.
Columbus wrote in his log of these people, “Artless and generous with what they have, to such a degree as no one would believe but he who had seen it. Of anything they have, if it be asked for, they never say no, but do rather invite the person to accept it, and show as much lovingness as though they would give their hearts. ” Then as a sick twist, he added ”these people are very unskilled in arms… with fifty men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished,” later he wrote “in the first island that I found, I took some of them [Indians] by force, to intent that they should learn and give me information of what there was in those parts. ” Christopher Columbus not being able to understand the native’s culture assumed that they had no religion, and further they wouldn’t resist being taken as slaves. This would prove to be only a precursor for what was to come.
On Christmas Eve, while making its way along the coast of Hispaniola, the Santa Maria (Columbus’s flag ship) ran aground on a coral reef. The ship was destroyed, but with the help of the friendly Arawak chief Guacanagari and his people of the local province, (as the Arawaks society was separated into) the crew and most of the supplies on board were saved. As a token of gratitude, Columbus gave Guacangari a red cape. Guacangari saw this as the opening of trade between leaders and gave Columbus a mask plates and several other objects made of gold. Guacangari thought this to be a fair trade. One of these objects was a gold headdress that Columbus thought was a crown. This led Columbus to the misunderstanding that the Arawaks were passing right to rule to him and gifting authority of their land to Spain.
Because of the destruction of the Santa Maria, Columbus now lacked enough room aboard his ship to bring all of his men back with him. Columbus was forced to leave a good number of his men behind to establish a fort he named La Navidad until he could return. However, it is speculated that he may have wanted to set up a permanent colony even before he left. On his way back he wrote a letter to the Spanish monarchs telling them of the natives he had captured and was bringing back to them as gifts. “They are fit to be ordered about and made to work, to sow and do aught else that may be needed ”.
Even though Christopher Columbus was of Italian birth he could only convince Spain to finance his voyage. When his voyage was successful it positioned Spain to become the most powerful nation in the world.
This started the Spanish Conquest of the Caribbean. Upon Columbus’s return in 1493 he found to his anguish that La Navidad had been destroyed. The Arawaks claimed that the men left behind had destroyed La Navidad and killed each other through drunkenness and unruly behavior. Many of Columbus’s crew wanted to attack the Arawaks for this atrocity, but Columbus decided to believe Guacangari’s story and to leave him and his people there in peace. He moved further down the coast and established a new fort called La Isabela. He immediately began to put many of the Arawaks to work panning for gold or working in mines. The brutal working conditions and harsh treatment of the Arawaks by the Spainards lead to many revolts, which the Spaniards quickly and violently put down. Many people were rounded up by the Spaniards and were either killed or shipped of to the slave markets in Spain. The Arawaks were also exposed to many diseases by the Europeans that they had never had contact with before, which also killed a great number of people. Eventually Enrique (the rightful heir of the Arawaks) would lead a successful rebellion against the Spaniards and win the freedom of his people. The remaining four thousand Arawaks of the original estimated seven to eight million settled at the base of the Cibao Mountains; and gained amrest through the efforts of a Spanish priest and Enrique in the Spanish court. They lived unmolested until 1552 (only sixty years after Columbus’s first arrival) when the Arawak people became extinct.
This tragic story of betrayal and genocide was not the only one being perpetrated by the Spaniards at this time. After establishing themselves on Hispaniola they began to explore the nearby coastlines.
In 1519 a Spanish explorer named Hernán Cortés was sent by the governor of Hispaniola, with more than five hundred Spaniards to eastern Mexico in search of more land and gold. At the advice of Malinche, Cortéses Native American mistress, Cortés formed an alliance with one of the rivals of the Aztec, the Tlaxcalans, and set out for the center of the Aztec empire. The Aztec ruler Montezuma II allowed Cortés to enter the city in order to learn more about him and his intentions. The Aztecs believing the Spaniards were gods returning to them from over the ocean gave them the greatest of hospitality. The Spaniards couldn’t help but marvel at the splendor and greatness of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. The Spaniards had found their way into the world’s largest and richest city.
The Spaniards seized much of the city’s gold. Fearful that the Aztec would attack their outnumbered Spanish force, Cortés seized Montezuma as a hostage. The Spaniards melted down the gold ornaments that the Aztec had either gifted to them or they had stolen for shipment to Spain. They then forced Montezuma against his will to swear allegiance to the king of Spain. The Spaniards were able to remain in the city without opposition until about six months later. When Cortés was away from the city, a Spanish officer named Pedro de Alvarado, of whom he had left in command massacred 200 Aztec nobles who had gathered for a religious ceremony. When Cortés returned to Tenochtitlán, the Aztec rebelled, fighting to drive the Spaniards out of Tenochtitlán. The Aztec warriors destroyed the city’s bridges and chased the Spaniards into the canals, where three-fourths of them, weighted down with stolen gold, quickly drowned. Unfortunately Montezuma was killed during this revolt.
Cortés retreated to Tlaxcala and gathered what Native American allies he could for a siege of Tenochtitlán. The Aztecs’ crude and specialized weapons proved ineffective to the steel and gunpowder of the Spaniards. After three months of seige the city Tenochtitlán surrendered in August 1521. The Spaniards conquered the remaining Aztec peoples and took over their lands, forcing them to work in gold mines and on Spanish estates.
The fall of Tenochtitlán marked the end of the native civilizations that had existed in Central America since the first human settlement of the region. What started out as cultural differences and misunderstandings turned into a battle of survival for the natives and a conquest to glory for the Europeans. History will always remember these events as one of human’s darkest and inhumane chapters. The knowledge and cultural history that we lost as a result of the European arrogance and greed is a tragedy that cycles throughout human history, even today.
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