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Unfortunately for Mr. Hughes and us, due to his broken leg he was unable to teach us our pirate/exploration unit. Instead we we’re taught by Ms. Buedry who did an awesome job.
For the final project my group of Aiden, Alex, Tatum, Robbie, Marcus, Ryan and Isobel. (I would recommend visiting those blogs by clicking on the name).
If you want to read on the rest is very long, it will help you learn. If you don’t want to and don’t, or if you do, after please visit our Instagram page and comment on any photo if you think exploration gave us negative or positive results.
I was one of the writers so I helped write about our assigned results of exploration. I wrote the positive paragraph;
When we think about the positive effects of exploration, after very little research it becomes clear that we are the biggest advantage. We would not be here if it wasn’t for exploration. Also we would be lacking many of the objects that we use in everyday life. For not just the explorers though, the native people also benefited from the discovery of the new world. Things like bananas, chicken and wheat all came from the new world. Today if we try and think of where we live not having those things and more, it sounds unheard of.
As for the native people, their society was not nearly as technologically advanced as Europe and the surrounding countries. They did not have a written language, they had no books or texts, it was all word of mouth. Unfortunately they did not really have a choice to advance dramatically or not, but either way the society advanced quickly.
When the natives and the Europeans worked in harmony it benefited both groups. Although all of the time this was not true when they did each side got things they needed from the other side, while also giving items that the other side needed and you had an abundance of.
Willa wrote the negative;
As for the negative effects, well, they weren’t exactly few and far between. The European explorers, short on time and knowledge of the people they encountered, were often violent, starting wars even with those who were kind to them, and keeping people, commonly native people such as the Africans, as slaves for their own benefit. They would keep these slaves in tight quarters and essentially treat them as cargo or possessions.
The missionary Bartolomé de Las Casas said of an expedition to Cuba that he was on, “One time the Indians came to meet us and greet us with food and good cheer and entertainment… [T]hey presented us with a great quantity of fish and bread and other food, together with everything else they could think to do for us. But the Devil entered into the Spaniards, and they put them all to the sword in my presence, without any cause whatsoever. More than three thousand souls were laid out before us, men, women, and children. I saw such great cruelties that no man alive either has or shall see the like.” To put it simply; the “Indians” did their best to welcome the Spaniards, who responded violently.
They also brought across many diseases from the Old World, and a lot of the natives of the New World ended up dying. Plus, although the new world brought many useful objects and animals, it also gave the Europeans tobacco, which became a common (and harmful) substance among them. As well, the Europeans considered themselves superior to many of the groups they encountered, with little to no information about them, which was probably the start of a lot of racism in the centuries to follow.
The negative effects of European exploration on everyone other than Europe were never quite rectified, as there are still many problems in the world with judgement, discrimination, and want for power. The explorers tended to be greedy and materialistic, caring more about their own profit than the people they encountered, hence the name, the men who sold the world.
