Colonialism is something that affects us today and still manifests itself in the global community. From relationships between western companies and countries in the third world to military interventions in the Middle East, the legacy of colonialism and imperialism is far from vanished. To understand the role of colonialism in today's world we must go back and understand its origin. Fundamentally colonialism is the relation between those with power and those without it. Therefore, the language used by the powerful to describe the powerless can be very useful in comprehending the relationship.
In Christopher Columbus’ initial writing on his first encounters with you can see the colonialist mindset of his ventures in the new world without him actually stating them. For example, from the very onset it is made clear he is doing this for the glory of himself and “the lord”. The role of religion is one of the driving factors in imperialist actions especially in the Europe’s relation with the Middle East and Spain itself. Much of the atrocities in the crusades and the Inquisition (an event that started during Columbus’s times) were justified with religion and bring the true Lord to the world over. When talking about the land he is almost aping the biblical description of Eden making this new land seem like it was the land of god and was destined to be found by such a pious man (page 20-21).
One of the most blatant ways in which imperialist intentions seep through into Columbus’s speech is how he describes the land and how he describes the people. The rich and exotic plants and animals that dot the landscape of Hispaniola are almost entirely descriptions that lack agency. This, of course, makes sense you cannot really subjugate or humanize a tree. But the way he describes the people is almost entirely identical to how he describes the food they eat and animals they hunt, For Columbus, the native is as much a part of the wild island he imagines as the turtle or the trees. They do not exist on the same plane of importance as the men on the crew of his ships or the people back in Europe. He sees them as uneducated heathens who are above all inferior and therefore committing crimes against them is not morally reprehensible even for a man of god like himself. When he eventually enslaves, subjugates, or murders the entire island it is in his eyes no different than cutting down the trees in a forest or killing a heard of deer. They are just a passive element of nature undeserving of compassion that a human is usually granted. This inferiority is the bedrock on which colonialism is built and imperialism is justified through.
I like your analysis of Columbus' underlying colonialism mindset when exploring the islands. I think this is very important because it provides a justification - though not a positive one- for why Columbus chose may of the actions he did toward the Natives. His wanting to colonize outweighed any thought that the Natives were human beings too who were equal to him and should not be treated as the living objects in which he treats them. This mindset that Columbus had translates to many other explorers of the time and led to the overtaking of so many indigenous cultures and people around the whole world.
ReplyDeleteThe desire to colonize newly found lands gave many European colonizers a reason to call the native peoples inferior. If there were already people on the newly found lands then the colonizers could not colonize the land. By calling them inferior, they gain the support of their leaders at home to push the so called savages out of their desired land so they can gain a profit. Calling them savages justified the removal of the native from their own land and allowed them to slaughter a lot of the native population with no consequences.
ReplyDeleteThis mindset of inferior people carried on through Wilson's speech of self-determination. His speech was mostly geared towards the people in Europe who had not yet gained independence. He had no intention of the colonized regions of Central and South America, Africa, and Asia gaining independence from their overlords because he did not feel that they were ready. The effects of colonization are still truly felt today and they will continue to be felt into the future.
Many people who colonized like Christopher Columbus did so because they wanted to gain money, power and glory, and to expand their faith. They were very Machiavellian in their exploits because they would do whatever means necessary to accomplish this task. For example, Columbus had intense mistreatment of the natives that were living on those lands before he colonized them. This can be connected to many conflicts going on in parts of the world today, like the Middle East and Syria. The inferiority complex humans have towards other humans has been a conflict in history for all of time.
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