Sandra Chung
Social 10-IB
March 20, 2017
The given source provides us with a perspective through an Indigenous person. Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas led the Indigenous people of the land to think that he was the one who “brought [them] nothing but wars and miseries” and that Columbus Day should not be celebrated. Many people would agree with this perspective, but many others would reject it. Those who agree with it are most likely to be the Indigenous since the Europeans have left them with great destruction of their culture, values, and beliefs through processes of assimilation, eurocentrism/ethnocentrism. And because of the arrival of the Europeans, many Indigenous peoples have lost their lives and had their identities stripped away from them. While the speaker in the source holds a valid position, it could still be rejected simply because others would think that the arrival of the Europeans had a great impact on our lives today. Europeans have brought many things over to the New World in order for it to develop into the places they are today, they also introduced foreign technology that also helped develop the ways of life for the people of the Americas. Though both perspectives support different ideologies, I would agree with the given source. The arrival of the Europeans had led to the disappearance of people's culture, values, beliefs, traditions, language, and identity.
Through the use of Residential schools, it has brought many of the Indigenous people misery. Residential Schools were built for the main focus of assimilating Indigenous children into what the Europeans thought were ideal. They ordered the children to follow the customs of the Europeans and to forget what they were taught at home. They were restricted to only speaking English, and to develop the ways of life the Europeans had. If they denied this, they would be punished. At the schools, they were treated poorly, they didn’t have the right to do anything without the permission from a nun or whoever was in charge. Children at these schools weren’t just being assimilated, they were also suffering from the loss of their families and friends. Adults in the Indigenous communities tried to stop the Europeans from taking away their children, however, nothing could be done. Once the children were taken away, they would not return for quite some time. In the end, some children ended up committing suicide due to the tra...
