Chapter 12: Contact, Commerce, and Colonization, 1450-1600
Research Topics
Many early Spanish conquerors and explores of the Americas recorded their reflections on their early encounters with a variety of Native American groups. Many of these accounts survive and offer insight into this momentous collision of cultures. These narratives also shaped other Europeans´ views of Native American societies. Your textbook authors argue that "for centuries, these contrasting images—innocents and savages—provided the two competing visions that structured European (mis)understandings of the indigenous peoples of the Americas." (p. 254) Evaluate this statement based on the following documents. Which authors depicted indigenous people as savages and which as innocents? In what other ways did the authors treat the indigenous groups they describe? How do you think these early narratives influenced European attitudes, policies, and practices in the Americas?
Featured Documents
- "All Over the Land Nothing Else Was Spoken Of ": Cabeza de Vaca Takes Up Residence as a Medicine Man in the Southwest, 1530s
- Bartolomé de las Casas,A Short Accountof the Destruction of the Indies
- Cortes´s Account of the City of Mexico from his Second Letter to the Emperor Charles V.
- How They Made Great Festivities and Sacrifices at the Grand and Solemn Feast Called Hatun Raymi.
- How Cortés Had an Altar Made and Set Up an Image of Our Lady and a Cross, and How Mass Was Said and the Eight Indian Damsels Were Baptized
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