Analysis Of 1492 Conquest Of Paradise - 730 Words

During 1992 a number of movies were produced to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of Columbuss voyage across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain to the Western Hemisphere. Demonstrations, many of them protesting against any eulogistic celebrations, became a significant part of the festivities. Some of the messages conveyed by the protests included criticisms that Columbus was not first to cross the Atlantic and indictments against the European incursion into the Western Hemisphere. These recent activities, along with the movies produced and the books written on the long ago events, indicate that the assessment of Columbus as well as many other things in world history associated with his voyage is once again under historical†¦show more content†¦1492: Conquest of Paradise clearly reveals that Columbus has many enemies among certain Spaniards, some of whom are willing to fight him on the battlefield. As the movie concludes with Columbus trying to redeem himself after th e disaster on the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the viewer may be left with the impression that any prospect of paradise has been utterly destroyed. Today many critics of the Western Heritage, particularly those who focus on the United States, hold the view that the European occupation of North and South America was a conquest that callously destroyed viable cultures. Much of the enmity for that destruction falls upon the shoulders of Columbus. While it is a vast distortion to blame Columbus for all that happened, it is true that within two generations of the 1492 voyage many cultures and civilizations had been destroyed. The two most notorious campaigns of conquest, carried out by Spanish conquerors, were against the Aztecs in Mexico and the Incas in Peru. More than the conquests and even the slave labor that the Spaniards impressed upon the natives, it was the European diseases that decimated the ranks of the Amerindians. Also, what is often overlooked, is that, in what has come to be known as the Columbian Exchange, Europeans brought back syphilis to their continent from the Amerindians. During the sixteenth century, thisShow MoreRelatedWriters And Editors On Canovista Restoration Essay1385 Words   |  6 PagesAmerican literature, which was the world conquest, was truncated. Only in the twentieth century American culture, rip of its primitive root of pre-Columbian culture, was reunited with the interest due to archaeologists and ethnologists who bring to light this extraordinary culture. Discover and assume that root had been buried, found that since the twentieth century an alliance between the pre-Columbian culture and the new culture that prevailed during the conquest and colonization to lie. The ColumbianRead More Columbus and the New World Discovery Essay4487 Words   |  18 Pagesand colonization with legalized occupation, genocide, economic exploitation and a deep level of institutional racism and mor al decadence. The Council of Churches three-page statement is a stern indictment of the criminal history of the European conquest. The quincentennial, the resolution concludes, should be an occasion not for celebration but for repentance. The government of Canada has decided not to celebrate the quincentennial at all, on the ground that the arrival of Columbus led toRead MoreEssay Utopia4252 Words   |  18 Pagespleasant fable written by a humanist for the amusement of himself and his scholarly friends. 10. A fruit of classical studies, following Plato’s Republic. 11. An early plan for British imperialism. 12. A Christian humanist account of a scholar’s paradise, where philosophers are kings and the church purified. 13. A society constructed as the direct opposite to England for the purpose of disguising social criticism. 14. A description of a desirable and possible organization of city republic.’ (Pg.