Chapter 1 "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress"

Andrew Mueller

Melissa Altman

Ethn 101 4:30-5:45

August 22, 2007

Chapter 1- Indians and Human Progress

The author’s main point in this chapter about the Indian and Human progress express’s the insecurity that Columbus had for the Indians and their graceful race once he found the gold.

The Indians treated him with extreme generosity and swamped him with many a gifts, but as soon as Columbus found that the Indians had many sources of items of gold he began to act irrationally and inhumanly. He took many prisoners, made many slave, and killed many Indians in the search for a small amount of gold for his king, queen, and self. Even Columbus’s own countrymen were against his practices. In the story A People’s History of the United States a man reported that “naked as the day they were born they were no more embarrassment than animals”. As a come back to his statement Columbus said, “Let us in the name of the holy trinity go on sending all slaves that can be sold”. By this statement we can recognize that despite what is fellow men thought he continued on his mad rampage for gold.

Is one man’s greed worth a whole nation of peace and humanity? The answer to everyone except that man who thought this himself would be no. Hundreds of thousands of Indian began mass suicides of themselves and their families so they would not be captured and sold as slaves. This horrible thought would convince me that maybe above all my greed for gold is it really worth it to kill and sell hundreds of people that were so peaceful and kind when I met them? Could there be another way that I could go about this situation without the mass selling and suicide of harmless caring people? Maybe a trade of some sort could be compromised or a buying of information where to find the gold myself. All these alternate solutions probably never even ran through Christopher Columbus’s mind but how much different would the world be now if they would have.

This was an intense reading from the perspective of the conquering Columbus and his crew. The on slaughter that went on on his behalf of finding gold is one of the most shocking and terrifying stories that America can share about its past. I personally cannot believe some of the things that were done. Sure they may seem like a good idea at the time, but the aftermath of the situation was one that could not be redone.