The American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World

America has always been a diverse society in was such as racially, culturally, and regionally. To start off, racially, in 1492 when Christopher Columbus sailed to the new world he encountered the native American people that were living here previously to him “discovering” the new world, as stated in the reading The American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World (Stannard, nd). While Columbus was exploring the new world, the native people were captured and taken away from their families while Columbus and others began to settle on their land, because Europe and Spain where they came from were riddled with disease and illness (Stannard, nd).

Additionally, to make the new world more racially diverse, according to the reading Black People in a White People’s Country (2003), stretching back to the seventeenth century when slaves began coming over to the new world from Africa with the help of the African people, later then lead to the start of the industrial revolution. There has always been a racially diverse population here in the United States. The diverse population has not only been here some of the biggest advancements of this country have been off the backs of enslaved African people.

America has always been a country of racial diversity, according to The Mayflower and the Slave Ship lecture by 1660 “most black skinned-people who came to America came as slave not servants” (Metaxas 16). By 1660 there was already an enormous population of African American people brought here to the United States working as slaves. In short, the native American people were living in the new world to begin with, following that the European people came along and settled on the land, then African people were brought her and forced to live her as best as they could. Clearly, America has been racially diverse since Columbus in 1492.

Additionally, America has always been culturally diverse society because it has always had a diverse set of people here with different beliefs and cultural norms. In order to be a culturally diverse nation, we need to have different people coming from different backgrounds with different beliefs than what is typical from that area in the world. The cultural diversity goes hand and hand with what I mentioned about the racial diversity previously. The native American people that were already in the new world before Columbus, had their own cultural beliefs and ways of life. Furthermore, the European people that came over with Columbus also had their own cultural beliefs and understanding of culture.

Additionally, when the African people were brought to the new world, they brought with them what they knew culturally and believed in culturally. When talking about culture you need to look at all aspects of a given culture. These things include the language, beliefs, religions, as well as the overall way of life that different people live. More distinctly, In the film Black Robe, it clearly depicts the cultural differences between the Native Americans and the Europeans that were living in the same area at the same time. The two groups went about their lives in distinctly different ways. Clearly, it is evident that America has always been culturally diverse.

Furthermore, America has always been diverse regionally because the Europeans were in the northern parts of the new world, however there were native American people everywhere. Also, when African people began to come to the United States they were scattered around the states as well. It may have taken more time to spread out regionally however, at the baseline there were different people all around the nation for the vast majority of the history. It was harder to spread out because it was much more difficult to get around, anywhere you needed to go you either walked or rode a horse and it could take a long amount of time. Not to mention, the nation was mostly untouched land, land that had not been seen yet or made suitable to promote a good lifestyle or a lifestyle that the Europeans were used to, coming from much older and more developed nations.

As you can see, America has been a nation of diversity from the very beginning. In 1492, when Columbus first set sail to find the new world and landed in America, the nation was diverse because there were a variety of people, beliefs, and regions where different individuals lived. The people that were here at the infancy of America made it diverse. They believed in different things, they worshipped different entities, and they lived in different areas. Clearly, all of these different and vastly unique people made America into the diverse nation that it is today.

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