Native American Dbq

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Chapters 20/21
Even though Christopher Columbus held onto his belief that he had reached the Indies until the day he died, the new continent he had actually reached had been the result of much geographical speculation and exploration by many curious men. “In some ways, these journeys of discovery collectively represent man’s most astounding characteristic: intellectual curiosity (Watson 424).”
As Watson points out, we who live in the twenty-first century have nothing to compare to the feats accomplished by those early map makers and courageous adventurers. “The discovery of America was important intellectually for Europeans” yet many drawbacks soon followed as the New World was not as developed as the Old World (Watson 442).The lack of technology, …show more content…

Europeans had travelled to the Americas with intentions of finding gold as well as convert the inhabitants to Christianity. Many Native Americans were not given a choice and were forced to convert to the new religion and give up their traditional beliefs which created many tensions between the Old and New World.John Mair“argued that some people were by nature slaves, and some by nature free (Watson 446).” Because the Native Americans were a less developed civilization, they lacked the power to protest the European invasion and were forced into slavery which further weakened their already existing society as they had to focus on simply surviving against the foreign invaders. But not all shared the view of Native Americans as backwards and uncivilized. “Using Aristotle as his guide, Las Casas examined the Indian from the physical and the moral standpoint, which marks his essay as perhaps the first exercise in comparative cultural anthropology.” He compared the political, social, and religious arrangements of European cultures with those of Native American tribes and determined that although they were different, they were not inferior. “He paid proper due to the quality of Aztec, Inca and Mayan art and observed their ability to assimilate European ideas and practices that they found …show more content…

Luther’s doctrine eliminated the inequality between the clergy and the laity and people of higher and lower classes and allowed for anyone to participate in religious practices regardless of their social and economic status. This resulted in a moving away from what had been a traditional social and political structure and a moving towardsmore modern ideas that allowed everyone an equal opportunity to participate in a variety of political issues.In hindsight we see that the disagreements that rose up between people and the church left behind several benefits as European society continued to move