DBQ on Euro Expansion

Noah Brown
DBQ

The motives of the Europeans was simple: exploration. However, as they explored, they found that most of the native societies disgusted and somewhat insulted them. Although spreading disease through innocent investigation was not an intended consequence of the clashing of the two cultures, the destruction of the larger societies was.
Religion was a major motivator for the attack of the American natives. Document #1 shows the Europeans in 1497 C.E. observing the religion and worship style of the native Americans, finding that their lifestyles are far different than the common European's. What seems to be the first observation of the Europeans is the native's religion and their methods of worship. The Europeans note the "worse than pagan" ways of the Americans, and immediately places them under that category. The Europeans have a negative point of view towards the Americans, believing them to seek pleasure more than anything else in their religion. Document #2 clearly describes the utter distaste of the Europeans as they view the spectacle of the cannibalistic society in the Caribe Islands, disgusted by the fact that they eat the human flesh of the children born by the concubines taken from surrounding tribes.
Document #4, 1632, displays a negative point of view because of the inappropriate clothing, lack of trust, and abundance in thievery in North America, although the Europeans believe that they are only thieves because they are poor. However, document #3 expresses a quite opposite point of view when it came to the natives. Apparently giving up their native religion, the Natives of an island in Mexico converted completely to Christian Catholicism. The Mexican natives were very open minded and benevolent to the Europeans, and were very impressed by their goods. Document #5 shows the confusion of the Aztecs as the Europeans enter their lands, wielding unknown weapons, riding strange animals, and having very pale skin. However, the newcomers also brought with them terror and new diseases that caused the death of many native Americans. As is seen in this document there are extreme differences in he social aspect especially when it comes to
In conclusion, the driving force of the Europeans, at first, was mere exploration, which too had consequences, such as the deaths of thousands due to unknown European diseases (doc #5). However, as the European's religion was insulted (doc #1), and their imaginations shocked (doc #2), they were given a new motive to cause destruction to the native Americans. The consequences of this were that more societies like the islander Mexicans (doc #3) could have been spared, however, their lives ended in calamity.
An additional document that would help this DBQ would be a document with the point of view from an English non-Catholic explorer so that we could see how the Americans reacted to the protestant religion.