Group 5
The Lust for Gold Exterminated the Native Race of Latin America
In the book, Open Veins of Latin America, by Eduardo Galiano, part 1, The Sign of the Cross on the Hilt of The Sword, talks about how Columbus came to American, and what the consequences of him arriving there. Columbus “discovered” America during one of his expeditions, when he was trying to get to Asia. During his journey, he accidentally landed in America, this caused a series of events that resulted in the extinction of many of the natives that were living in America. The text talks about how the excursion started because Europe was in need of spices, and metals, like silver. They decided to finance Columbus’ expedition to Asia, to get direct access to
these goods. During these expeditions, Columbus accidentally landed in America, thinking it was Asia. While he thought he was in Asia, Columbus, and the other people that were with him, decided to explode and slave all the natives, so they forcefully do the work of extracting the goods from the land. They decided they did not care about the lives of these people, they did not bother to learn about their culture or language. They forced their religion, culture, and language onto them, and forced them to do work for free. This work was so exploitative, that they collapsed and died. All these work only benefited Europe’s economy, and nothing else. Columbus wrote about all the wonderful things he saw on these Latin American lands, this
causes many others to want to travel there to get the same goods as Columbus. These people who followed after Columbus were just people wanting to be rich and nothing else. They continued the horrors of colonization and helped exterminate the native race, just for personal gain. The Europeans colonized the land, and exterminated their population, all to stop their hunger and lust for gold and silver. They claimed the stolen land as their own and continued to exploit its resources. Many natives decided they did not want to serve the Europeans, they gave up, and
instead of fighting back, or working for the Europeans, they committed suicide. They could not bear the idea of working for those who stole their land and gave them the goods they did not work for. Thanks to colonization, all of these native tribes disappeared, colonization exterminated all of these people, just for material goods. This text talks about all of the horrible things the natives had to go through while colonization was happening in Latin America. It shows the relative of colonization, and the real impact it had, not only on the European countries involved in it, but also the Latin American countries that were colonized, and the most affected. This text shows the real cruelty of the Europeans towards the natives of the lands in Latin America. It shows how careless they were, and how all they wanted was to become richer from these expeditions. This text shows how Europe’s obsession with material goods resulted in the extinction of a whole race.
Images explanation:
These photos depict the truth about Christopher Columbus by showing the true horror. The first picture shows men chained up like animals and being enslaved by Christopher Columbus and shows them barely clothed and dirty showing the mistreatment of these men. The second picture shows the beauty of said Native American that has a strong sense of the Native American culture however there is a skull face drawn over her face because of Christopher Columbus killing and enslaving the Native American people.
Audiovisual explanation:
This video is very relevant to the article because it adds to the truth of Christopher Columbus. It speaks of the horrors that really occurred when Columbus “discovered” America. He aided to the upcoming popularity of the international slave trade that was just beginning. He was greedy and ignorant. The natives were very hospitable upon Columbus’ arrival, and he instead, upon first glance looked at them as naive and decided to exploit these Natives. He brought diseases, raped their women, and overall did many unspeakable things. When he returned to Spain, everyone saw him as a horrible man, and he was tried for all of the treason he committed in the Americas. Although these charges were dropped, the Spanish still never looked at Columbus as a hero. But somewhere in history this was all forgotten, and now people try to make him seem like a hospitable savior when that was not the true story at all.
