Chapter 15 Culture Transformation

I enjoyed this reading because it gave me a better understanding of why not a lot of Aztec ruins are in Mexico. The Europeans came over and destroyed all the native traditions, the other interesting fact is that they use to whip the Native Americans to church. I feel that the book does a god job on the Virgin of Guadalupe, but does not explaining that the virgin was actually a combination of the Aztec goddess Tonantzin, which is the goddess of our mother, revered mother, and so on. I really liked the part on Martin Luther who started the Scientific Revolutions. I have to say that in my list of people that I would like to meet he has to be in the top five because he revolutionized the system. I wish I could feel what Luther must of felt when he had to go against the church. He must of been a very brave person at the time the Catholic church was very powerful and could of killed him. I was also surprised that they could not convert the Chinese Dynasty into Christians because they thought that trinity believes were primitive thinking. The Chinese thought that Europeans were not advanced for them this is very interesting because we always like to think that we are more advance, and when I say the we I mean the west. I also enjoyed this chapter because it showed that Christianity was also spread by sword and people were forced to convert. For example, the Native American Mexicans and other Spanish base colonies were forced to go to church and forced to abandoned their believes. What the book does not say is that they were beaten in order to go to church. The section on Islam is also very interesting because at some point both religions were spread by sword then the Islamic religion just taxed the non believers instead of converting them. I have to say that I am disappointed that I cannot go to Mexico and see Tenochtitlan now we just have a cathedral.                 

This chapter has to be the most horrible chapter of the text. I thought that the past chapters were horrible, but this one took the cake. I cannot imagine how other high-ranking African nobles allowed other Africans to get enslaved by Europeans. The only part of this chapter that I enjoyed was when the company of British that enslaved Africans got beaten up my the king of what is now Gambia named Sambalama beat them up and held them for ransom money. Know that is what I call a pay back, but after the money was paid all the operations went back to normal. The other thing that I found disturbing was how the nobles set rules that most of the people they were going to enslave had to be a great majority male. They wanted this because they wanted to keep all the females for them as slaves or as wives, so they could feel a higher level of nobility. I cannot imaging seeing these nobles giving the OK to enslave opposite tribes. The new world demanded a lot of slaves, but I wonder why the Europeans did not take any noble, but we have accounts of one by the name of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo. He was a noble man with slaves trying to sell them he went into the dangerous part of Africa and got enslaved. Diallo tried to contact his father for help but was unable, so he got sent to Maryland. After coming back, from the new world because he was smart and could show his owner that he was smart, he did nothing to stop Europeans from enslaving other fellow Africans. I cannot believe that after he personally witnessed all the hard work and mistreatment of the slave owners, he did nothing to stop future people from suffering. What he did, when he arrived back to his hometown, he bought two slaves and had a normal life. This is the weirdest person in the world.                

When I was reading the textbook Ways of the World, by Robert W. Strayer chapter 13. I was very fascinated by the information that was giving, for instance, I didn't know that corn was an American product that was imported back to Europe. Another fascinating fact is, potatoes was also an American product that was not available in Europe. I can't  imaging the Russians not drinking their vodka with no potatoes to make vodka. The things that I didn't like from the reading was how the Europeans wiped out whole civilizations with no mercy. I wonder if they knew they were wiping out whole civilizations and not being able to get their knowledge, would they have stopped? The other part that was negative was how they forced some natives to convert into their religion. The mixing of the natives in the Spanish colonies explained a lot to me, and know I wonder what percentage of Native American I have in my blood, and what percentage of European I have in my blood? I never thought that at one point Brazil was the main producer of sugar for the world, I wonder if that is true today? The other section of the reading was also very interesting the Russian Empire is still alive today and its called The Russian Federation. Furthermore, they are still a very powerful nation, and I was surprised that they had so much religion tolerance since 1689 and began to assimilate the European way of dress. The Russian Empire is a very interesting part of history because I thought that religious tolerance was an idea that was not too long ago created. The Asian Empire was also interesting because it talked about China and India. For example, China went into an eighty-year war to united the nation. In the Mughal Empire the most interesting person was, in my perspective, Akbar who really united the kingdoms and was a man who was years ahead of his time. For Example, He accommodated Hinduism in his empire because he realized that only 20% of his empire practiced Islam and the rest Hinduism. Although, He was a Muslim himself he didn't want to convert anyone. This is big at the time most people had rules like you convert or you die.        

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