Examining the beginning as a means to understanding the end

People's History begins with a bare roots look at the events leading to and following Columbus' first voyage to North America. This topic is definitely at the core of all text on American History. That being said, heres the basics:

I.Christopher Columbus' voyage was financed by the King and Queen of Spain. However, although not expressed in this text,the Queen was interested more-so than the King because of the spices,jewels,and more importantly the gold of the stories of the voyages of Marco Polo.
II.At this juncture of History,Constantinople[ modern day ] had been conquered by the turks. So this left the Eastern Mediterranean and the land mass of Asia. The problem with Asia is that the land routes were completely controlled by Asia.
III.Columbus traveled to North America and returned to Madrid in the thought that he had reached India. I am not reiterating this purely for the terminology of why they are called “Indians” in this paper instead of “Native Americans”. The purpose is to emphasize that this term is an important part of this historical account.

That being said let's move into the bulk of this account.

When Columbus arrived in the “New World” as it were, he was met by the Arawak Indians. The Arawaks produced corn,yams,gold jewelery among other things. But the Spaniards came with iron swords and other foreign wares. Some were taken aboard to Hispaniola (modern day Haiti). Upon making his fort called Navidad (or Christmas),he returned for Madrid.

What's important to remember is that Columbus returned with virtually no gold. Not to say he had no gold,but he sold the King and Queen outlandish claims to finance this trip. He did however have indigenous people. This is where the history gets a bit shaky.

The King and Queen decided to finance yet another voyage. This voyage had 17 ships and 12,000 men. This journey took them through the Caribbean to Navidad(the fort) then to Cicao(within modern day Haiti)
The horrors of Hispaniola have never been a happy sight in any historical account I've seen in any texts. Although then numbers of those lost in the mines,encomiendas(slave labor estates) can never be truly exact it is estimated that around 50,000 Arawak Indians were lost from 1515 to 1650.

Zinn chronicles the forging of Navidad (Columbus' fort in Hispaniola from the remains of the Santa Maria) although way to the Las Casas mines in the mid 1650s. The reason I say the history gets a bit shaky is that there were not too many report as far as conditions and mortality rate being done in that area,or that time for that matter. Although many of the horror was definitely from working within the mines,some could be attributed to that in conjunction with illness.

Immunity systems are tricky little things that we are still in that dark about for the most part. What can be surmised though is that this colonial presence was definitely only beginning to take it's toll on this culture.

The end of the first chapter touches on the events of Jamestown,but more specifically the Pilgrims of New England. It's been widely expressed and openly acknowledged that the Puritans were a very religiously devote folk. And that a good bit of them thought of the Indians as savages. This sense of entitlement strings of from the entire Elizabethan complexes of “Light” and “Dark”. It was a wide notion of the time, that black the word itself begets thoughts of dirtiness,and spoiling.

I think it's important to remember this complex,and others like it. By the account of Samuel Eliot Morison,harvard historian, Columbus was a religiously devote man. This can also be said of Constantinople himself. He considered his conquest of Constaninopolis was from a religious experience.

I think the most important part of this journey through History will be to remember things like this. To remember that all these events take place in a context. All of these events are people vs. people,action vs. action, ect. However they all had motivations and hearts and minds invested in them for many reasons.

I. Introduction

I'd like to start this by first expressing some of the focus within this blog.
It will not be: to side with any author,party,event; to make brash opinions; to alienate any group or groups;or to come to any assumptions about the parties involved.I feel that in going down those routes it will only foster more biases.
What I would like expressed within this blog is reevaluation. More specifically, an open reevaluation.

My study will be focused on gaining more perspective on American History.Through a "ground-up" approach to this subject matter I will not only become better grounded in the history that shapes us,but the social events that spawn from said history.
The core of the study will inherently be diversity and education. Although,the hope is to bridge them together more effectively for students and their background.

I will contribute thoughts,reflections,and other points of interest in a blog throughout this process. The blog entries will be simple "check-ins" with the subject matter I have read thus far. This will be not only to better work through the thought processes involved,but to have "snapshots" so to speak of my place within these topics.These blog entries will also identify any added informative media(supplementary articles,lecture videos,etc)

I look forward to starting this endeavor by reading People's History by Howard Zinn later on this afternoon.