arcane1
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Wed Jan-19-05 01:43 PM
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I can't read about Columbus without having fits of apoplectic rage |
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:grr:
and since I just started "People's History of the United States", I once again have to re-experience that horror, inhumanity, avarice, betrayal, and sorrow
I'm sure the people on the train last night did their best not to sit near me
I'm not from Spain, Portugal, or Central America, but for some reason the fate of the Arawaks affects me on a profoundly personal level, in many ways more than any other people's plight...
I'll mourn them until the end of my days :cry::cry::cry:
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proud patriot
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Wed Jan-19-05 01:45 PM
Response to Original message |
1. that first Chapter is very difficult |
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Edited on Wed Jan-19-05 01:46 PM by proud patriot
I cried many times durring that chapter .
Remember you honor them by remembering what occurred .
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arcane1
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Wed Jan-19-05 01:48 PM
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I didn't learn anything from that first chapter that I didn't already know, and suffer through, many times before, but it still hits me so hard :cry:
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DrWeird
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Wed Jan-19-05 01:51 PM
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3. he was an American hero. |
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Just kidding. He was a terrible excuse for a human being, and anybody who respects the guy ought to be ashamed, on account of profound ignorance.
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arcane1
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Wed Jan-19-05 01:53 PM
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4. and yet we get a day off in his 'honour' |
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:grr:
and I had to work on MLK day
go figure :shrug:
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UdoKier
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Wed Jan-19-05 01:58 PM
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5. He represented a pretty typical European mindset at the time. |
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But still, reading his journal entries about his first encounters with the natives...
“They do not bear arms, and do not know for I showed them a sword--they took it by the edge and cut themselves.”
“They are the best people in the world and above all the gentlest--without knowledge of what is evil--nor do they murder or steal...they love their neighbors as themselves and they have the sweetest talk in the world...always laughing.”
“They would make fine servants. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Amazing that you would meet and interact with people, find them beautiful, kind and gentle, and your first thought is of how to exploit them.
But when I think of that, and think of the GOP and their attitudes towards working people, I can't help but think that things haven't changed all that much. We just don't call it slavery today. We call it "the service sector".
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arcane1
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Wed Jan-19-05 02:00 PM
Response to Reply #5 |
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IMAGINE what this country, and this civilization, would be like, had we adopted their culture, instead of eradicating it
:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:
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mongo
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Wed Jan-19-05 02:10 PM
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and I'm sure that you will feel more rage and sorrow.
The good thing is that when you take it all in you realize how much better things are today, and that positive social change takes time, and lives, but that ordinary people changed this country for the better. It will give you strength to make a stand. It was very inspiring for me in the end.
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TolstoyAndy
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Wed Jan-19-05 03:17 PM
Response to Reply #7 |
10. Kick for what Mongo said |
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Zinn is a source of hope in the end, though I see none.
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imenja
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Wed Jan-19-05 02:14 PM
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8. you need to consider the Spanish point of view as well |
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Edited on Wed Jan-19-05 02:34 PM by imenja
It's useful to do some reading on how the Spanish understood their mission in the Americas. This, of course, is not to excuse their actions, just as it doesn't excuse the behavior of the English. The Spanish, in general, were far more accommodating of indigenous rights than were the English, who defined Indians as entirely outside of society and treated them accordingly. I have not read Zinn's book, but most historians of the United States are overtaken by the "black legend" that villanized the Spanish in comparison to other empires. It is important to remember that the Spanish truly believed they were fulfilling God's mission. Our modern day society separates the sacred from the secular, but no such division existed in the minds of sixteenth-century Europeans.
A few readings you might consider: D.A. Brading's _The First America_ is a superb though lengthy intellectual history of Spanish America (you can always choose particular chapters); John Leddy Phelan, __The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World__ is a fascinating look at the the most utopian and pro-Indian faction of New World clergy; Inga Clendinnen's, _Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in the Yucatan, 1517-1570_ is quite readable but will almost certainly make your blood boil more, since it is an unusual case of a Franciscan cleric, Diego de Landa, who staged his own inquisition. Another possibility might be Tzvetan Todorov's _The Conquest of America_; or you could always pick up a simple textbook on Colonial Latin American History (such as by Berkholder and Johnson; Schwartz and Lockhart (the best but most difficult); or Jonathan Brown).
There are many more excellent studies of the experience of indigenous peoples under Spanish rule than studies of the Spanish point of view. If you are interested, I could suggest readings some indigenous people's in the colonial era. In general, it's best never to trust a historian of the United States when it comes to Latin America. However well intentioned, they tend to be influenced by a deep-seeded sense of American and English superiority that training in US history only tends to enhance rather than dispel. I realize Howard Zinn is a good and very popular historian who has somehow convinced the public that he is the only historian who studies the oppressed, but that is far from the truth. The field of history for the last thirty years has overwhelmingly focused on social factors. There are many excellent works to read.
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arcane1
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Wed Jan-19-05 04:19 PM
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11. thanks, some of those sound very interesting |
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Zinn does quote many other works on these topics, too...
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ElsewheresDaughter
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Wed Jan-19-05 02:14 PM
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9. i hear you and you echo my heart |
arcane1
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Wed Jan-19-05 04:20 PM
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