1. With your group you are going to talk about our large topic (Cultural Encounters and Frontiers) and how it can be tied to the two most recent readings we have done. What MESSAGE ABOUT cultural encounters and frontiers do these two selections communicate? Not just that they show cultures encountering one another, but detail out a specific message about the encounters that they show. Please use textual evidence in your argument.
Post your group's answer as a reply to this post and make sure all of your names are listed in the text of the reply.
Once your group has discussed the topic "Frontiers and Cultural Encounters" and tied these two authors to it (and written it with textual evidence as a reply to this post), work on your own to answer this question as a second reply to this post:
2. Do you think either of these (de las Casas’ and Equiano’s) accounts changed the audience? How? Why yes or no? If no, what could they have done to more affect their audience?
Aim for around a paragraph, making sure to answer all of the questions and connecting them to each author
Both stories contained cultural encounters and frontiers that portrayed a dominant culture that were seen as "Gods". After making encounters with the white colonizers the Indians stated " And they committed other acts of force and violence and oppression, which made the Indians realize that these men had not come from heaven". Originally the Indians thought that the white men were from heaven but after seeing their actions they came to the conclusion that these men could not be from heaven/Gods. After this the Indians began to fight back against the white mans wants leading to fight. The white man being the dominant culture with more developed weapons had no problem eliminating many Indians while the Indians were still fighting the horse riding gun bearing white men with bow and arrows. This ties in with Olaudah Equiano's story about slavery by having the the same characteristic of the slaves being transferred not understanding the white mans technology and characterizing them as a hierarchy/spirit. One of the quotes from the narrative which describes the white man was " I was now persuaded that i had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions, too, differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, united to confirm me in this belief." This states that he originally thought that the white men were spirits, but his views changed after the way they treated him aboard the ship.
ReplyDeleteAlyssa, Liza, Camilo
When cultures collide with each other, the more dominant of the two will overpower the weaker power.
ReplyDeleteIn the Olaudah Equiano story, we went back and believed that the message was best relayed in the part of the story that says, “ One day they had taken a number of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit, to our astonishment who were on deck rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expected, they tossed the remaining fish into the sea again, although we begged and prayed for some as well as we could, but in vain…” (Equiano, 87-88)
They didn’t think that they were worthy enough of food/ the kind of food they ate. They didn’t think that they needed to give them the basic necessities, but instead give them the very minimum in order for the majority of them to live. Tying into the message that the more dominant of the two cultures will overpower the weaker power.
In the relation story, we felt that the colonizers dehumanized the Indians this is showed when Casas states, “Then, like sheep, they are sorted out into flocks of ten or twenty persons…” (Casas, 90)
The colonizers dominated the Indians by treating them like they were less than human. Like shown in the quote above, they refer to the Indians as sheep and herd them like sheep, rather than to treat them like they were equals.
Sam, Kaylea, Tyler, Erica
The message that both texts show is that when two cultures meet, the dominant culture will take advantage of the weaker culture. The dominant group will do whatever it takes to get what they want. The dominant group in the story written by Bartolomé de las Casas, was the Spaniards. They took advantage of the Natives by making them dive for pearls. "...if the pearl divers shows signs of wanting to rest, he is showered with blows, his hair is pulled, and he is thrown back into the water..." (de las Casas 91). The Spaniards knew that the Natives were accomplished swimmers and they used their abilities to make a profit. In Olaudah Equiano's narrative, the dominant group was the whites who brought slaves across the ocean and the weaker group were the slaves. While selling the slaves, the whites had no regard for the slaves' families. "...without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them to never see each other again." (Equiano 88). The whites did not care about the slaves' families, they just wanted to make as much money off of each of them as they could. They would force the slaves to work brutal jobs in order to make the whites' lives easier.
ReplyDelete-Holly, Britta, Walker, Breanna
I believe that they could have had an effect on the audience by giving then descriptions of what they went through. How they were for the most part just living their lives and then when a new culture came through at east in De las Casas they didn't try to fight them because of what they believed but how they were treating them. The accounts and how these people were taken from their lives killed and/or enslaved could make anyone think about the situation and think about the pain and confusion that they could have been going through. This would be enough to change their thoughts even a little about the good of slavery or how bad it really was.
ReplyDeleteI think that the accounts of De las Casas and Equiano changed the audience in some ways, but didn't in others. I think their stories had a small impact on the thinking of the readers, but they weren't really life changing. It made the readers think about what they had to go through. I think if they spoke to their audience more directly, it would make more of an impact on the reader. It is human nature to feel bad for the people in the stories, but honestly, the people reading it probably wouldn't do anything to change the fact that these terrible things were happening.
ReplyDeleteI do think that the accounts written by De Las Casas and Equiano changed the audience. Since both writers experienced many of the horrors that happened during this time, they were able to write in such a way that not only made the reader become informed with the reality of what was happening, but it created sympathy within the reader. They incorporated personal stories that showed the reader exactly what was happening in 1st person, which allowed the reader to see into their lives at a deeper level. The readers became uncomfortable with these accounts, because they saw a side to their own culture that they hadn't seen before, that showed just how cruel, barbaric, and inhumane their civilization could be to another human being.
ReplyDeleteI don’ think it would have changed many people’s opinion who had seen what was going on, because they would have already decided whether they believed it was right or wrong. I do think it would have a lot of people’s minds who had only heard about it. The two stories tell of the horrible things that were done to the people by white man. There would be a lot of people who wouldn’t have known all that was going on and being done, and reading these would cause them to believe that what was going on was wrong and inhumane. There isn’t that much more the accounts could have done to convince people. They did their best to mess with people’s emotions and make them see what horrible things were being done to other human beings.
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't think either of these stories changed the audiences' view. They both did a great job in showing the injustice these people suffered, don't get me wrong. But I think that the people who these writings were aimed at probably didn't read any of these because who would want to read a whole book/story on how badly they treated these Natives? They thought that taking advantage of the Natives was right and they aren't going to change their views just because one person wrote a story about it.
ReplyDeleteThe Christian dominant culture is forcing the submissive culture to submit to them for their own benefit. “This was the first land in the New World to be destroyed and depopulated by the Christians, and here they began their subjection of the women and children, taking them away from the Indians to use them and I’ll use them…” (de las Casas 89). This was shown as they separated families and forced them into slavery in both stories, “relations and friends separated, most of them never see each other again,” (Equiano 86). It also shows the inhumanity of the white Christians, and their persecuting nature. “I should be put to death, the white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty; and this not only shown towards us blacks, but also to some of the whites themselves.” (Equiano 87). Blacks were treated in such a manner that was inhumane and cruel. The were harshly beaten and forced to do labor in severe and unsafe conditions. “ for it is impossible to continue for long diving into the cold water and holding the breath for minutes at a time, repeating this hour after hour, day after day; the continual cold penetrates them, constricts the chest, and they die spitting blood, or weakened by diarrhea.” (de las Casas 92) The submissive culture were treated as human puppets; using them whenever and whatever they wanted them to.
ReplyDelete- Tymber, Carolina, Richard, Kinzie
I don't think they changed their audience because they both showed the horror and inhumane cruelty of slavery. Both aiming toward the sacrifices they had to make that were forced upon them while the dominant culture got "everything". The reader had to think about what happened to them through their life journey to show that they wanted freedom. If both de las Casa and Equiano spoke more about different view points instead of aiming it on just one "dominate" culture would have changed the affect on the audience. To show that there were more than just the Christians.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don’t think that de la Casas and Equiano’s account of slavery changed the audience, I think that they both wrote very powerful texts, but Equiano’s text wasn’t timely. He didn’t write until the Europeans and Americans had already considered and talked through abolishing slavery. I think that if he would have written it a few years earlier then it would have changed the audience’s mind. De la Casas and Equiano’s texts were effective in informing whoever read of how brutal and inhumane slavery was, and how the Native Americans and African Americans were treated as animals, not as people, which would have given some insight to the governments.
ReplyDeleteI think that the stories did change their audiences because they both discussed the horrors of slavery and what they went through. This created a sense of sympathy while the author was reading and it also opened up the eyes as to what happened during that time. They hadn't realized what had happened during this time, so it was a better way to inform people about their experiences.
DeleteI think that De La Casa and Equiano's stories would've had an impact on the Europeans and what they were doing to the natives if it would've been published right away. The stories were written years after the Colonists already were seeing what they were doing and changing their ways. If Bartolomé and Equiano would have written and published their works earlier they would've contributed to having slavery end faster showing the pain and struggles that were involved with slavery but their works were published later, helping but not doing the full affect.
ReplyDeleteI think that de las Casas’ accounts did change the audience, but not alone. The About the Author section tells that eventually, de las Casas’ accounts did help the indigenous people get their rights. It specifically says, “In the 1530s, laws were passed that banned further enslavement, and gave native people the protection of the courts.” (de las Casas 88), stating how laws were changed to help the indigenous people. While Equiano’s accounts were moving, I don’t think that they actually convinced the white Christians to stop slavery, but maybe convinced a few that what they were doing was wrong.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s really hard to change a person’s views when they are set, however I think both de las Casas’ and Equiano’s did a very good job with explaining what happened to them and how it affected them versus how it affected the settlers/ colonizers. I think these stories made people more aware of what was happening and why it’s wrong and how it was inhumane the way they were treated. Between the awfulness of being beaten for asking for a break from pearl diving, and being jammed packed on the disease infested lower deck of a ship with minimum food and water I think that they got the point across but, I don’t think it was all that effective to the colonizers.
ReplyDeleteI do think that the authors did a good job expressing what happened to them and why it was so terrible. You have these people who, no matter in which story or time period, are doing the same thing to people who can't fight back. The superiority complex of the whites is expressed in both stories very vividly. Both "lower" cultures were taken as slaves and humiliated, mutilated, and sometimes killed. I think it made people more aware of what was really going on around them, but most people didn't care. Slavery was legal in the U.S not even 150 years ago, and it's still going on in some places of the world.
ReplyDeleteThe goal of both these author’s was to change the way people viewed slavery and show how bad it really was and I think they achieved that goal. Both of the authors went into detail about how they and other slaves were treated. Many people did not know these things, or maybe didn’t even think about them until these facts were described in great detail. They showed that the so called Christians were brutally torturing them and only wanted gold and glory but didn’t actually care about anything or anyone else. This most likely changed the views of some people and showed that just because they were Christians does not mean they were good to the slaves.
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