C Building Room 209 Spring Semester 2016
World History
Take Home History Final . . .
Analyzing Primary Sources: Christopher Columbus*
Periods: 1, 2, 3, 6, & 7 (Grade 7)
Thursday, June 2, 2016
4th Quarter
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of Democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the differences, is no Democracy.”—Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States
“No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world. No amount of peace building will be able to last nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself.”—Pope Francis
Christopher Columbus voyage to the Western Hemisphere in 1492 was one of the most significant events of the last thousand years. Why? Christopher Columbus introduced two phenomena that revolutionized race relations and transformed the modern world: taking land, wealth, and labor from the indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere, leading to their near extermination, and the transatlantic slave trade, which created a racial underclass.
Directions: examine and analyze some extracts from below that were selected from several primary sources of Columbus (his journals, letters, other members of his expeditions such as Bartolome de Las Casas, the first great historian of the Americas then respond to the following: a) how did the natives, aka the “Indians” fit into Columbus’s plans?, b) what advantages accrued to Spain as a result of Columbus’s voyages?, and c) how would you assess the legacy of Christopher Columbus nearly 524 years later?
Always do your best work!:)
Mr. Fulumirani
*I listed some primary sources for you on a separate sheet of paper.