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How Did Balboa Impact The Lives Of The Americans

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Throughout the centuries during colonial America, a lot of Europeans went to the Americas with new expectations or just for seeking something new. Most of them had absolutely no clue what to expect from the new land. Also, as soon as they arrived, they also encountered new aspects of the new land that they have never seen before back in Europe such as the Native Americans and their culture. They also had to go through a lot of hardships and frustrations within themselves or with the Native Americans, and not all the European colonists were successful in the Americas. Nevertheless, the Europeans brought in many changes to the Americas which impacted their lives or the lives of the Native Americans. In these series of collections of stories and …show more content…

In Balboa, we could see how cruel the Europeans have been dominating the Native Americans through violence. In this quote, “His spanish war dogs, great mastiffs and wolfhounds, tore children limb from limb”, it says that Balboa has torn babies of the Native Americans brutally with his fierce dogs(Murray, 81). Another quote on the same page, “Balboa’s strength had been to recognise this discord. He divided great tribes, supported one against each other.”, this implies that due to Balboa’s one-sided support and favouritism on a specific Native American tribe, the Native Americans had to go through constant conflicts with each other. Due to these actions of the Europeans and Balboa, the Native Americans now see Europeans, specifically Balboa, as their God for he has invented unequal terror to the Natives(Murray, 81). The fear of the Europeans were also added when the Native Americans were infected with smallpox and syphilis as shown in this quote, “Balboa’s soldiers spread smallpox and syphilis.”(Murray, 81) Before the Europeans came to the Americas, it could be possibly inferred that the Indians did not have deal with these new dreadfulness caused by the Europeans. However, now, Europeans, specifically Balboa are now seen as people who do not distinguish good and evil and everybody fears them. This could be seen in the quote when the priest says, “Your dogs...are demons” towards the fierceful dogs of Balboa.(Murray,

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