Native Americans
Native Americans are regarded to be indigenous people that are treated as the earliest inhabitants of North American continent and who are currently forced to survive as intact political communities. The discoveries of the continent have shown that those people were treated differently in terms of weapons, advancements, religion, households and architectural structures. In this essay we are intended to compare Native Americans encountered by Christopher Columbus on the islands of the Caribbean with those encountered by Hernan Cortes in Meso-America.
Christopher Columbus was considered to be greedy and cruel towards Native Americans. History proves that he killed many Taino people when his three ships arrived at West Indies. Many of natives were turned into slaves as men of Columbus was all in search of gold and wanted to make people find it for them. Soon the slavery trade was promoted as many Native Americans were sold in exchange for money and goods. According to the view of famous American scholar Stephen Greenblatt, “Columbus inaugurated the greatest experiment in political, economic, and cultural cannibalism in the history of the Western world” (Columbus). And his practices were noticed to induce racism and genocide that is sometimes reflected in present-day society, especially when treating various minority groups. Columbus also brought his infected men to the island, which caused the deaths of Native Americans. Finally, once not enough gold was found, households of Native Americans were seriously devastated and they were deprives of everything. Columbus eliminated the opportunity of technological advancements and economic breakthroughs for Americans as he was intended to use people for making money on trade. He is known to start a wage war, which caused numerous rebellions. Columbus discovered that Native Americans had unique weapons to be used in wars. Most of them had arrows, bows, arrowheads and spreadheads as well as knives and tomahawks. Most Native American families lived in teepees, hogans or wigwams as well as created all their households by hand.
Speaking about Fernando Cortes and his treatment of Native Americans, we must agree that he was also extremely cruel. First of all, he conquered Aztecs, which was a serious anti-social practice. He was active in Mesoamerica, spreading from Central Mexico to Guatemala and Honduras. Together with his six hundred conquistadors he managed to deceive natives. Although Aztecs believed that his conquistadors are the returning gods, they turned into huge discriminators. His treatment to people was very unpredictable. As he had plans for the Crown of Spain, he was in dire need of using people. In cases they did not act against his will, he offered them some minor provisions and basic standards of living. Under such circumstances, natives did not have the opportunity to introduce their own architectural structural structures. However, he was captivated by their wigwams built by natives. “Magnificent houses; which may be accounted for from the fact, that all the nobility of the country, who are the vassals of Moctezuma, have houses in the city, in which they reside a certain part …