Reading our book Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask really shows you the full story on what Christopher Columbus really did when he came over to the Americas. It’s very interesting when you actually went through it and were taught that all he did was complete this amazing feat and that was it. But if you knew the full story you would now that “The Spaniards made bets as to who would split a man into two, or cut off his head at one blow; or they opened up his bowels.” The reason all of this happens is because of the colonization process. As we know from class this process never really works. The Spaniards came over met with them and eventually discovered a resource, gold. They could not get all the gold the Spaniards wanted, so they ended up annihilating them.
Like I sort of mentioned before, it is very interesting to actually be apart of this whole process of our education system not telling us the full truth. I know we aren’t proud of it but we need to teach or past so it doesn’t happen again, because as many people know the past tends to repeat itself. We teach slavery and other humiliating parts of our past, so why do we overlook this?
makayla7 June 14, 2018
I definitely agree with this. I have always wondered who it was that decided on which part of history that we don’t get to be taught. I wonder why we are taught that Christopher Columbus is a hero when in reality, he was a maniacal tyrant who violently took over these innocent people’s land. I mean, we have an entire holiday dedicated towards this man. I think that it’s important that people start to learn about the real story of Columbus and how he actually conquered the Americas. The colonization process is terrible and the mistreatment that the Natives faced is horrific.
avestoll June 14, 2018
I agree! How did we, being high school graduates, never hear about this side of Columbus’ story? Yes, it was a truly horrible act, but you’re right in the fact that our school system has us learn about slavery and other events that don’t paint our ancestors in the best light. Now that we have heard the whole story I can confidently say that although Columbus made a great discovery and advancement in the world, he is not the hero that our K-12 textbooks make him out to be. If we don’t learn from the past, we are destined to repeat it!
zpete55 June 14, 2018
I agree with what you are saying Mike, what we did in the past to the indians is not ok, and since we don’t teach people about what is happened in our past we are bound to repeat our past. We need to rewrite the history books and teach kids what happened in the past. We maybe don’t need to teach them all of the nasty nasty things that the Spaniards did but people need to know what actually happened it was all nice. Eventually in more advanced history class maybe around 7th and 8th grade kids could be able to learn all of the dark things that happened.
seanjr81 June 14, 2018
Mike,
I agree with your statement completely, growing up we learned about slaves, then what Hitler did to the Jews so I do agree with what you are trying to say what’s the difference between us learning about the Indians just like we did the Slaves or Jews? The sad truth about today is that’s just how it is in today’s world , some believe the deep dark past is best “forgotten” or “not spoken” of anymore. In some cases I understand possibly not showing the gore and blood at a young age but as kids get older and begin to learn what the cuss words are which is middle school we should start teaching them the history of what the world use to be like before we made significant changes to better ourselves and world as a whole.