The voyage of Christopher Columbus was an extensive journey leading way to the development of a new world. In connection to his voyage was the Guaman Poma, The First New Chronicle. These historical events mark a significant change to the known world, the first interactions between Latin Americas and Europeans. While, reading Christopher Columbus’s journey I found it fascinating that he was so intrigued by the abundant source of nature on the islands. As, it was evident in the majority of his journal entries that he was captivated, by the green trees, streams, and various types of fruit. I was curious at to Spain’s landscape and if this type of scenery was new to him? It caught my attention while reading this journal that Columbus stated the people he came across had little knowledge of fighting. This was noticeable when Columbus encountered villages, were the people would flee their homes once they spotted anything unknown, instead of fighting for their village. Currently, when people think of Latin America corruption, and violence are words that often cross their minds. Is this a possible indication that the discovery of the new world, and the integration of Europeans brought more serious forms of aggression into Latin America? Columbus mentioned a goal of his was to convert the people of the new islands he’d discovered to Christianity, as he suspected they had no religion. Similar to the voyage of Columbus, the First New Chronicle stated that a new land had been found. This land was referred to as the Indies, located in the highest altitude. The Spaniards appeared to have only the concern of retrieving gold and silver from the new land. This caused me to wonder if greed was common during this age in Europe. Comparable to Columbus their curiosity of the land brought them to embark on the exploration, and the desire to convert its people to Christianity. Although, the difference I found was that Columbus wanted the villagers to trust him, therefore he did not inflict harm upon the people. While, in the Indies of Peru the Incas refused Christianity, worshiping no one but the sun. This resulted in a slaughter of the Indians, leaving their ruler prisoner in the city of Caxamarca. I am curious as to it if Columbus attempted to influence the villager’s religion would it of ended in a similar violent situation, to that in the Indies?
I was also curious about why Colombus found everything around him so beautiful. As was mentioned in class, it might have been to impress the King and Queen, to really exaggerate everything to show how successful his journey was. However, what I took from it was that Europe, already very civilized with complex societies and with an advanced agriculture probably exhausted their resources so fast that by that time they were already surrounded by buildings and had no connection with nature. Their god, was human, not like the Incas who worshipped the Sun. Instead of maintaining a reciprocal relationship with other Earth beings, Europeans separated humans from nature and to me this is almost as if he was surrounded by so much nature in this New World that he was overwhelmed by something he was not used to seeing before, thus, describing it so much.