Yourlastname Student Name Professor Name Subject 10 Sep 2012 Native Americans Native Americans are regarded to be indigenous

people that are treated as the earliest inhabitants of North American continent and who are currently forced to survive as intact political communities. The discoveries of the continent have shown that those people were

treated differently in terms of weapons, advancements, religion, households and architectural structures. In this essay we are intended to compare Native Americans encountered by Christopher Columbus on the islands of the Caribbean with those encountered by Hernan Cortes in Meso-America. Christopher Columbus was considered to be greedy and cruel towards Native Americans. History proves that he killed many Taino people when his three ships arrived at West Indies. Many of natives were turned into slaves as men of Columbus was all in search of gold and wanted to make people find it for them. Soon the slavery trade was promoted as many Native Americans were sold in exchange for money and goods. According to the view of famous American scholar Stephen Greenblatt, Columbus inaugurated the greatest experiment in political, economic, and cultural cannibalism in the history of the Western world (Columbus). And his practices were noticed to induce racism and genocide that is sometimes reflected in present-day society, especially when treating various minority groups. Columbus also brought his infected men to the island, which caused the deaths of Native Americans. Finally, once not enough gold was found, households of Native Americans were seriously

Yourlastname devastated and they were deprives of everything. Columbus eliminated the opportunity of technological advancements and economic breakthroughs for Americans as he was intended to use people for making money on trade. He is known to start a wage war, which caused

numerous rebellions. Columbus discovered that Native Americans had unique weapons to be used in wars. Most of them had arrows, bows, arrowheads and spreadheads as well as knives and tomahawks. Most Native American families lived in teepees, hogans or wigwams as well as created all their households by hand. Speaking about Fernando Cortes and his treatment of Native Americans, we must agree that he was also extremely cruel. First of all, he conquered Aztecs, which was a serious anti-social practice. He was active in Mesoamerica, spreading from Central Mexico to Guatemala and Honduras. Together with his six hundred conquistadors he managed to deceive natives. Although Aztecs believed that his conquistadors are the returning gods, they turned into huge discriminators. His treatment to people was very unpredictable. As he had plans for the Crown of Spain, he was in dire need of using people. In cases they did not act against his will, he offered them some minor provisions and basic standards of living. Under such circumstances, natives did not have the opportunity to introduce their own architectural structural structures. However, he was captivated by their wigwams built by natives. Magnificent houses; which may be accounted for from the fact, that all the nobility of the country, who are the vassals of Moctezuma, have houses in the city, in which they reside a certain part of the year; and besides, there are numerous wealthy citizens who also possess fine houses (An Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico). What is more important, their buildings were larger, thus not authentic. There is one square twice as large as that of the city of Salamanca, surrounded by porticoes, where are daily assembled more than sixty

Yourlastname thousand souls (Cortes 2012). Mexican natives also used spears as weapons unlike Caribbean inhabitants. All in all, although native tribes were not warlike at all, both Columbus and Cortes

had brought serious confusion. They were different in terms of their writing: Columbus wrote in his Journal about appearance, religion and trade of Native Americans, whereas Cortes in his Letters to Charles primarily focused upon architectural structures. Columbus was more concerned about their appearance as all of them were naked. Additionally, he stated, Some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white; others with white, others with red, and others with such colors as they can find. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose (Columbus). One more difference between Columbus and Cortes is that Cortus treated Native Americans in a more sophisticated way. He described them as the ones ready to make civil decisions. There is a building in the great square that is used as an audience house, where ten or twelve persons, who are magistrates, sit and decide all controversies that arise in the market, and order delinquents to be punished (Cortes). They tended to develop trade themselves, offering their goods on market squares. Both Columbus and Cortes believe that there were no technological advancements in all native tribes. In North America, they had arrows. And in Mesoamerica they did not have steel or iron, being limited to sticks and fish bones. Finally, both agreed that they probably believed in their unknown Gods, but had to be converted to Christianity.

Yourlastname Works Cited An Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Modern History Sourcebook. 2012. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/aztecs1.asp Columbus, Christopher. Extracts from Journal. Medieval Sourcebook. 2012. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.asp Cortes, Hernando. Second Letter to Charles V, 1520. Modern History Sourcebook. 2012. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1520cortes.asp