Unit 1 Original Colonies

This is the very first assignment I had to do for this course. It's about my thoughts on the original colonies and an event during this time period.

I would prefer to live in the French colonies. They seemed to be less intimidating toward the Native Americans. The French treated Native Americans as real people rather than controlling them like most of the other colonies tried to do aside from the Dutch. I don't honestly mind which colony specifically, but I would prefer it being somewhere in Canada. The Frenchmen that made colonies there respected the Native Americans. That was their land before the French, and I think they knew and understood that. The French made an effort to understand the Native Americans rather than just killing them all like the Spanish. The French learned the Native Americans' language and didn't force the French language into Native American societies. They also didn't force their religions onto the Native Americans. The French intermarried with Native Americans and from what I've read, didn't rape them. It probably did happen, but that happens in all societies even today. I tjust wasn't as frequent as it was with, say, the Spanish.

As you've probably guessed (due to my very large bias) I would avoid Spanish colonies like the plague. I despise the way they treated the Native Americans. I'm pretty sure their policies were "shoot first, ask questions later." I don't agree at all with how they handeled the Native Americans. An dthough they did intermarry with Native Americans, they were forced most of the time. And a lot of the time, the Spanish didn't even marry the Native Americans, they raped them to continue the Spanish race. Also, even though basically all of the European contries were after gold, the Spanish went about it terribly. They stole, killed, raped; there was no end to their violence towards the Native Americans! The Spanish also forced the Native Americans to learn their lanugage. They also forced Native Americans to convert to Catholiciism. They were brutal to Native Americans and they didn't have a reason to do so. They didn't understand that this was the Native Americans' land, not theirs. They had no right to do all the terrible things they did.

Honestly, I would like to see the Salem Witch Trials. Not to laugh in the faces of people being murdered needlessly, but I usually can't imagine the terror. I don't understand how people suddently thought that witches lived among them. i can't wrap my head around it. So I would like to go to that time period to try to understand why people were so scared. DId they think they saw magic being used? Were there strange occurencese that happened that couldn't be explained? What exactly happened? All I truly know is that people (mostly innocent women) were murdered in cold-blood. I do know that most of them were killed because of men thinking that these women weren't following the religion the way they were supposed to. But I can't wrap my head around that either; but that probably has something to do with the fact that I've never been a religious person at any point in my life. So I just can't understand. But even though I can't understand, I am still interested in seeing why all these people were burning women because of "witchcraft."

Bibliography

http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-did-french-relations-with-indians-compare-with-226835

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406400630.html

Reflection

This was the assignment that I had to write for our First Unit in my class. The first paragraph was about which colony I'd prefer to live in during this time. The second paragraph was about the colony I'd most want to avoid. The last paragraph was about what event I'd most like to witness. I received full credit on this assignment even though I had a large bias against the Spanish. But I'm quite happy to have received full credit.

#history #Fall2015