THE EUROPEANS AND THE NEW AMERICA
(WEEK 4A)



When the Europeans (Spaniards) came to South America they didn’t only take the gold as everybody thinks but a lot of other things:


THE FOOD

The Native Americans had a system of cultivating food such as coffee which The Spanish never had seen or done before, It surprised them a lot. This new food (also the fruits) where a phenomenal market for the newly arrived because back in Spain this product sold really well. So they started to massively take these elements and duplicate the sells. But as the Cultivation had to be done on certain seasons and not all the time in the year, the Arrived wanted all the time the plants to be farmed and so the product was damaged and finally died. As that business was over then the fruit was also taken with excess. The trees with the fruits were doubled and every single of any fruit was seeded. Once again the ambition of the Europeans made damage to Americans.



LANGUAGE

As the invaders came with the Spanish as Language they couldn’t understand what the Natives were saying especially because in all they conquered were about 3000 different languages. So they decided to put a new rule which dictated “as we are the conquerors of this place and emperors of the world we shall put our language as the only and principal of this lands, anybody who dares to cuestionate the punish will be dead by hanging” . (Translated to English, Colombia imagenes de su diversidad, pg 56) So when the “new dictators” conquered a village they taught to the natives how to speak it and so they could go to the next village to warn them about the Spanish coming, and that if they didn’t learn the Spanish their destiny would be worst. By this method the invasions were easier and that’s why many languages in our country were lost and our homeland language is Spanish.



RELIGION

The Indians believed in a source of gods which implied their ancestors and that they would guide them to make the right Decisions through life. Now the newly arrived Believed mainly in the religion Catholic and Christian. In every village they conquered they installed a church in which summited the Indians to bow a different God they were used to.


HUMAN RIGHTS

The massive Conquering of South America, made a huge change in the New World. From every aspect of the live, so all this massacres, wars did it take any meaning or we were better before the Europeans arrived?

SOCIALS WORK (3A)

AMERICAN CULTURES BEFORE EUROPEANS



All the cultures in America before the Europeans came were sacred, everything had its purpose, it was a very organized constitution in which people didn’t lived to get rich, but to serve some main purposes that determined a live.
The bosses or the leaders were called “caciques” and were the ones that controlled the wealth of each tribe. In ancient America it was habit that in order to show honor and respect to their leader the people made him different types of tributes:
For example there was the party tribute which was an obligation to the people work in what the “cacique “ wanted in party season ( mainly were religious acts). Also were tributes for crops, military services and Wanderings.

When the Europeans came they where only interested in gold, silver, money and jewels, which make it totally different from the Natives in which converted the gold and other precious stones into sculptures of the world around them. The luxury stones were found in rivers and lakes which provided the Indians a lot of it and without any ambition slowly and cautiously the Americans took out only the necessary. On the other side the Spaniards massively took out all the gold in the mines and the work that Indians made were made into golden bars for a better market sale. The Indians let this figures be taken away because at the beginning they thought Europeans where monsters, because for them the objects such as swords and mirrors where unknown, but the obsession with money and power, made native realize the ones invading were human.

Now I wonder, who is smarter the Europeans that took all the fancy jewels and gold they could, or the Americans that in an organized way lived in a better civilization?