Columbus’ Voyage Journal Entries Reflection
Before I even started reading this text, I had a feeling that it would be both dense and hard to follow through. The latter was true, but not because of its density, in terms of the use of antique language, but because of the actual content within the journals. Truly, the reading is hard to go through because it allows you to see the mentality that Christopher Columbus had towards the natives, and how he saw himself and his goals in that land. This mentality he and his men had was one of superiority, and that they were there as representatives of G-d, seeking to convert those they thought to be inferior to them: the natives. One quote that shows this is: “I could see that they were people who would be more easily converted to our Holy Faith by love than by coercion”. Additionally, he goes on to say: “they appeared to me to be a very poor people in all respects”. Visibly, he sees the differences between their cultures as more of a “who has more technology”, and furthermore, he sees their curiosity to learn more about Columbus’ crew as a weakness, since, according to him “they took anything, and gave willingly whatever they had”. The way he says this last line sounds as though he’s insinuating that the peoples he has met are vulnerable and are desperately in need of material objects that they’ve never been in contact with before, and have lived for centuries without even knowing about them.
Columbus also talks about the natives’ physical aspects. In his description, he somewhat objectifies them, commenting on their stature and their physique, describing them as “well built, finely bodied, and handsome in the face”. But, as he goes on, the line that truly highlights his feeling of superiority towards them is when he says “They must be good servants…I believe they would readily become Christians”. Clearly, all Columbus intends to do is to force (although apparently they won’t be forced to do anything) them to learn the “European way”, and to completely forget their culture. As a whole, this shows the colonizers intentions of essentially erasing the natives’ culture, while also becoming more European in the making.
Hi Daniel,
Great points you got there about Colombus. He was definitely all about being more superior by trying to take away the culture of the natives and converting them to a European culture.
I agree that the journal was difficult to read because each passage made him seem so calm and at peace with what he was doing. I was expecting more hostility in his first encounter with the indigenous people as validity that he was a villain but instead he truly believed he was in the right.
I totally agree. It was hard to follow for me too. Especially because I was so not cool with how he referred to the natives, and in such a chilled way. He narrated events as plain as he could. The only emotion I felt was when he wrote directly to the crown just so they could acknowledge how beautiful the land was and how “great” he was doing his job.
Hey Daniel
I read your blog post and I have to say I totally agree that Columbus and his crew felt a complete superior attitude over the indigenous peoples of the land. You also brought up the point that Columbus seemed to believe the peoples were very poor because of the lack of materialistic items in their possession. It’s a weird feeling because I dislike comparing the thoughts and attitudes of somebody from far in the past to that of one in 2016, but, we as peoples of this age continue to judge one another based on what materialistic items we have in our possession.