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America Before Columbus Negative Impact

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Running Head: AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS 1

America Before Columbus:
The Positive and Negative Impacts of “Contact” and The Columbian Exchange
TyNessa Thompson
University of the Incarnate Word Online

AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS 2
America Before Columbus:
The Positive and Negative Impacts of “Contact” and The Columbian Exchange I remember my sister telling me a story about how she would always ask questions in history class back in high school. She explained that she thought the information she was learning was being taught incorrectly. One of her questions she had asked was, “How did Christopher Columbus “discover” America when Native Americans already lived there?” Her question was valid and looking back, I do wish history was taught with more factual detailed information. It seems one has to go looking for specific historical information to gain an understanding of how and why things became how they are today. The video “America Before Columbus” gives an account of what seems to be truthful information. I am glad to say that I learned quite a bit watching this video. My opinion of what was shown is that there was definitely a negative impact on the Natives …show more content…

The Europeans had “curiosities and thirst for power” (Angel, 2012), so communication with the Natives didn’t seem to be a thought. One could say each culture was different in the sense of being a high context culture or a low context culture. The Europeans were definitely the low context culture and the Natives the high context culture. Kittler, Nelms, and Sucher (2015) suggests that in a high context culture, the meaning of conversation is found in context, not in words. On the other hand, low context cultures focus on actual words to be expressed rather than focusing on who is receiving the message (p.

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