Takaki Ch. 2

The authors thesis is that no matter what race of people lived in the Americas at the time of colonization, the English would have thought of them as savages. England has a small area to grow its crops for its population, so they go out and colonize places like Virginia, "English were not in Virgina to Trade but to invade and posses all the land." The new settlers did the same thing to the Ireland, and they aren't of Indian decent, they were just as white as the English. And how he related all of this history to the words of Shakespeare's play The Tempest. The play depicted everything that was happening in the New World on a stage for an audience in England.

The authors argument is that England came and forcefully took the natives land and drove their population almost to near extinction. New settlers came over in ship, and the natives thought they were gods at first but soon found out they were wrong. Settlers would come and take Indians as slaves and ship them back to England, while usually dieing on the way over and thrown overboard. The English settlers thought the Indians as a Savage people and cannibals. So they fought them off there land spilling their own blood in the process and thinking now that their blood has been spilt for the land, its divinely theirs then. After acquiring the Indians land, the English found out that land was more tough to farm then thought and many died. Settlers started becoming the savages and eating their own dead and doing anything for food. The Indians saw this and help teach the settlers to grow crops, this was a mistake because now the Indians were useless for the English and could be killed again. They were too, plagues and swords almost killed the whole Indian population. Settlers thought they were doing the right thing for God, and that it was God's plan to clear the way for them. Whoever 's plan it was, millions of Indians suffered and lost their homes forever, and the New World would never be the same.

Discussion Questions: Do you think Shakespeare knew that what he was writing would shape the views of the whole new world and racism as we know it? And was it started from that play?
Do you think if the Indians were immune to those knew diseases, they might have had a more likely chance of fighting off the new settlers?

I reacted the same to this reading just like I did about Zinn's. I was totally ignorant or oblivious that all this had happened for me to be sitting here typing right now. I am not surprised though, after reading Zinn's, I was ready to read about a massacre. I was really shocked about how all the Indians died though. The author graphically told how they pretty much flaked apart and went to dust from the small pox. The new settlers were pretty much given the land because the Indians died on their own and not by the sword of the English. The settlers got so lucky and it is wrong because throughtout histroy, I feel they always were lucky. A very interesting book though and I can't wait to read some more of it.