Week 2: Meeting of Two Worlds:



The video talks about how the idea of Latin America and why and how it became popular.  The mythical point of contact: 1492 October 12th was the instant Latin America begun. Whilst watching this video, I discovered that this was the year there was a great divide between pre-colonial, pre-Hispanic and pre Latin America. And despite having several Vikings sail around the world, their settlement left little to no impact whereas Christopher Columbus had a huge impact having several places/things named after him.  At the end of the video and in class as well, we are asked to think about whether Columbus was a hero or not.

Whilst in high-school, all the history I had been taught about Columbus was that of him being a hero. A hero for being enough of a risk taker to sail out into ocean.  In text books he was seen as a famous Italian explorer who discovered America, but after reading his journal and watching the videos posted online- I personally think that it is evident that he may have been a brave man- but he was a greedy man. How do you call a rapist a hero? 

The Meeting of the two worlds video by Angela pope et all- (0.49) the image shows Christopher Columbus with a huge cross and natives/indigenous people all around him subtly bowing down to him. This picture struck me due to the stark type of it because it shows the nature of who he really was- making people do things for him, and having complete dominance over the native people whilst they obey him out of fear or no choice. 

He damaged the lives of a lot of Native Americans by partaking the slave trade.  His crew and him killed a huge population, and all his ideas were erroneous because he was not the first to have discovered the land, Indians had been there way prior.

"Columbus makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent" 

After watching the videos, it boggles my mind why he’s had places and things named after him, especially for having public holidays like Columbus Day when in actuality it should be called Indigenous People’s day.

Whilst some are able to recognize Columbus for the courage, determination and will he embodied, I still do not see how he can be considered a hero- he is much more a fake idol. 








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