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Please read Chapter 2 entitled, "1493: The True Importance of Christopher Columbus," from the book Lies My Teacher Told Me.

Please be prepared to discuss at least 5 things from the chapter you found interesting, strange, or of importance.

Write your discussion post in 150 words.

THEN, REPLY TO THESE POSTS WITH 3-4 SENTENCES

#1

Five things I found interesting, strange, or of importance from Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

1. Columbus kidnapped Arawaks for the reason he wanted them to search for gold.
2. When Arawaks could not find gold, Columbus kidnapped more natives and killed those who could not find gold.
3. Along with the Arawaks' resistance, Spaniards took prisoner them and killed them in different ways.
4. After that, half of the 250,000 Indians were killed in two years.
5. History textbooks show us Colombus as a big hero even though he is actually a serial killer.

Five things I found interesting, strange, or of importance from Lies My Teacher Told Me: Chapter 2

1. Real factors behind Columbus's arrival to America.
2. There is no clue that Turkish Muslims' discrimination against Europeans.
3. However, Columbus's Voyage led to Islamophobia in America by blaming the Turks.
4. Columbus tortured many indigenous for the sake of his gold-finding interests.
5. How heroically Columbus is shown to us, and how it is actually untruth.

Unfortunately, history sources paint Natives as half-naked, uneducated, and savage people. I did not know how people actually are and stereotypes about them when I was a child, but I learned about lies that were told about them in high school. However, I did not know that there were 120 million Natives when Colombus came here. I think this surprising fact is proof of we have adopted this country from Native Americans. If we celebrate Native Americans day as the founder of America, that will help the country educate itself.

#2

When I was in elementary, I was painted a picture of Native Americans being described as not savages but people who didn’t have clothes that can cover them and all of them live in teepees. Wow I really low balled the number of Native Americans who lived here in 1942. There was 120 Million and I said 30,000. It shows how little I was taught in High School about Native Americans. I also did not know most of our ideas of Democracy came from the Iroquois Confederacy. Like Professor Bell said, most of us were painted the picture of Native Americans being savages by living with minimal clothes, teepees everywhere, hunting to survive for food, and many more inappropriate stereotypes. In my opinion, both the school system failed and maybe a little bit of ourselves as we could have done some research to see if these stereotypes are even true.

The five things I found interesting are:

1. The Arawak tribe greeted Columbus with respect and care

2. Columbus writing a letter saying, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”

3. How many colonizers they listed that took over communities. Colonizers such as Columbus, Cortes, Pizarro, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts.

4. Indians in Haiti were taken as slaves by the Spanish after there was no gold.

5. These same Indians in Haiti killed their newborns so the Spanish didn’t take them and they also committed suicide to not become a slave.