North America Exploration - Essay Example

North America It is impossible for people living today to truly understand what North America looked like during the age of discovery. While we can gain some understanding by exploring the limited remaining wild places and studying some of the history of geographical regions and historical events, it must always be remembered that history is often told through the eye of the victor. A cursory understanding of history indicates that the European explorers arriving on the ‘pristine’ shores of North America found an abundant land filled with often unreasonably savage tribes of Indians who loved nothing more than hiding the bush and indiscriminately killing white people without warning. However, reading through some of the material left behind by actual European explorers and settlers such as De Vaca, Morton and Anne Bradstreet reveals a very different picture of how the Indian and white races compared. In his narrative, De Vaca describes arriving at an abundant land, full of a wide variety of tall trees, which would provide the necessary lumber for construction, as well as fertile fields and a number of game animals. This land is sparsely populated, with a brief mention of scattered houses. However, this impression is a deception as he moves inland and southward. The land becomes largely populated and relatively barren, causing many, including the Spaniards, to go hungry for many days at a time. According to De Vaca, the Indians all along the initial portion of his journey harassed his party continuously, killing some of the men while others began to fall sick with some mysterious illness. He is careful to include the information that this harassment is brought about because the Governor refuses to return one of the tribe’s women. After a harrowing sea voyage of escape, the men are cast ashore again and this time make friends with the Indians, who show them how to survive on prickly pear cactus and permit the men to winter with the tribe. Life with this tribe depicts the Indians as a compassionate yet practical race. During times of hunger, everyone goes hungry. The protection of the race begins when the woman discovers she is pregnant as husbands will not have sex with them until the child is two years old. It is continued in De Vaca’s account with the suggestion that children are permitted to suckle until age 12, also as a means of survival in a land that requires strong bodies and offers little sustenance. While men may come and go from a relationship with a woman without children, once children are born, the man remains with that woman forever. Men in dispute with one another may get into a physical fight, but they do not employ weapons against each other and fight until the women break things up. As further means of protecting life and feeling, these fighters then move away from the village for a while until they are calm again. However, this reverence for life was tempered with practicality. “If any one chance to fall sick in the desert, and cannot keep up with the rest, the Indians leave him to perish.” This practicality extended to the threat of the white man. Although the land seems densely populated from De Vaca’s account, it is also made clear that the Indians preferred to starve in the barren mountains than retain their place on the fertile plains near the shore and have to deal with the Christians. When pushed, the tribes are fierce fighters with sophisticated and effective techniques of offense and defense. When left on their own, though, they were generally peaceful farmers. Morton describes a relatively peaceful Indian culture as well, relating the various practices of the Indians favorably to the practices of his own ‘civilized’ society. He relates the migratory living arrangements of the Indians to the rotating habits of the gentry class who move from hunting homes to fishing cabins to winter and summer places. He also describes their clothing as having much in common with the gentry class back home, including the idea of men wearing clothing that covers their ‘secret parts’ and an article of clothing much like trousers while he illustrates how women’s clothing is relatively similar to the gowns worn by ladies back home. The only difference, based on Morton’s description, is that Indian clothes are made of leather instead of cloth. In relating the degree to which the Indians revered their elders and their deep spirituality, which Morton indicates closely relates to the creation stories of the Bible, Morton further draws the conclusion that the Indian race is simply a less educated but every bit as civilized soul as the Englishman. Like De Vaca, Morton illustrates not only the innocence and decency of the Indians, but also the deceit and evil ways of the Europeans. He relates one instance in which the English invited a group of Indians to share a meal around a fire. As they feasted, they all enjoyed each other’s company, but at a prearranged signal, the white men jumped on the Indians and stabbed them all to death. From this single instance, the white men gained a name that would sour all future Indian/European relations into the future. In another case, Morton illustrates how alcohol was used to intoxicate the Indians into a subservient status within the Protestant state. Finally, the Indians were cruelly used as pawns as white man fought with white man for religious or secular power in the land. This confused them and made it difficult for them to develop any sort of trust for the European who comes in friendship. The wild depictions of these two men regarding life in North America are much different from the highly domesticated life of the white female. Anne Bradstreet reveals a strong Protestant dogma within her poetry and letters that dominates every aspect of her life. While she continues to highlight how she takes comfort in her faith, this assertion is often made as she is describing how God tested her to pull her back in proper alignment. Through this depiction and her passionate poetry to her husband, it can be discerned that life in Boston was strictly confined for women. Her world existed only within her own home and her passions were appropriately confined to husband and children. She writes nothing of the outside world, of the concerns of the Indians or the trials of the wilderness. Her world is rigidly civilized and her place in it is well below the intellectual and social possibilities of her husband simply because of her gender. This contrasts with the more respected roles the other authors have illustrated exists among the Indians toward their women and again questions which race was the more ‘civilized.’ Life in the early years of European habitation on the North American continent is revealed more through these kinds of documents than the historic lessons provided for future generations that were deliberately created by those who came and conquered, carefully editing those segments of history that reveal undue treachery on the part of the ancestors. However, in their own words, European explorers reveal that it was the white men who acted with treachery, deceit and dishonor in dealing with the Indians. Any action on the part of the Indians themselves was most often reciprocation or pure defensive strategy. When left on their own, though, Indians were depicted as being every bit as ‘civilized’ as European cultures with the simple difference of having had to adapt to an entirely different climate with different resources. In some respects, as illustrated by Bradstreet, the Indians were even more humane than the Europeans in that they enabled women to contribute fully to the tribe’s survival. Read More