The voyage of Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic to discover the Americas ‘the new world’ is perhaps among the most important topics in history. This is because it hugely impacted on international markets and set the platform for the international slave trade that was to follow thereafter. Upon landing in the Americas, Christopher Columbus and his crew of fellow Europeans came into contact with the original inhabitants of the Americas. In South America, the Europeans encountered communities such as the Aztec while in the Caribbean were the Arawak people (Hofman & Duijvenbode, 2011). The Europeans popularly referred to them as the Amerindians.
The Europeans viewed the original inhabitants as savagery and barbaric. They were considered to be uncivilized, beastly and less human in all forms. In some quarters, the Amerindians were perceived to be a generation of lost people who needed some makeover in order to be as human as the Europeans. They were argued to be immoral, cruel and without political or moral norms. The Europeans questioned the authenticity of their gods and religious beliefs as they lacked to practice Christianity (Hofman & Duijvenbode, 2011). Gender roles were not clearly defined with women being involved in gathering and hunting in some of the communities. Their economic activities which included hunting, gathering, fishing and nomadism was seen to be disorganized and therefore an evidence of their backwardness. Their political systems involving community heads was not comparable to the established administrative systems in Europe.
There is some evidence that suggest Africa-Americas contact in the Pre-Columbian period. The existence of the Olmec culture which has many similarities with African cultures is perhaps the most reliable. However, some plants indigenous to Africa were found growing in Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his men. Mansa Musa of Mali is also claimed to have sent expeditions to discover the extent of the Atlantic Ocean in 1311 (Sertima, 1976). Before 1492, only the Portuguese had managed to make a small mark in Africa. Under the orders of Prince Henry, the Portuguese navigated the coastline of Western Africa in Madeira and the Cape Verde from 1415. Other Europeans were scared of going into the interior of Africa due to dangerous diseases such as malaria.
References
Hofman, C. L., & Duijvenbode, A. V. (2011). Communities in contact : essays in archaeology, ethnohistory & ethnography of the Amerindian circum-Caribbean. Leiden: Sidestone Press.
Sertima, I. V. (1976). They came before Columbus. New York: Random House.
