KEY TO THE INDIAN HOME
In 1492, from Europe to the west through unknown ocean sailed the expedition of three ships financed by the Spanish court. Was led by a man whose name was Christopher Columbus. His life and the journey is so widely known that we almost do not talk about them. We note only that Columbus was searching not for America, but more precisely – the sea route to India, in this fabulous land of treasures and spices. And when, after a long voyage he crossed the Atlantic Ocean, in October 11, 1492 he moored in the harbour of a small island (one of the present island of the Bahamas), and was face to face with the unknown people in the New World, he had full confidence that he met Hindu (in Spanish lndios). So as a result of errors of the great navigator, who was convinced that met the first Hindu came the word “Indian”.
Thus, the Spaniards believed that they were in India. Columbus went ashore he raised up on it the royal flag and proclaimed the island at the gates of India’s possession of their Majesties Isabella and Ferdinand … Since that day one of his clerks wrote the logbook – we have the first written evidence of the Indians. The admiral described the first Indians, with whom he met:
“It seemed to me that these people are poor and needed everything. They all go naked, and women too, although I saw only one of them, but she was only a girl. And all the people I saw were still young, none of them had more than 30 years, and they were well composed, and the body and their faces were very beautiful, and coarse hair, just like a horse. Hair brushed them down to the eyebrows, and only a small portion of hair, and, moreover, long, never trim, threw back. Some paint themselves with black paint (and they have a skin color as the inhabitants of the Canary Islands, which are not black and white), others with red paint, some that comes their way, and some of them face paint, others the whole body but there are those who have painted eyes or nose …
They all, without exception, tall and well-built people. Their facial features are correct and have friendly expression.
They sailed to us in canoes made from tree trunks that were look like a long boat, and every canoe was built from a single piece of wood, and they were trimmed for the tastes of the land, and among them were big – in one of these canoes arrived 40 — 45 people – and were small, even those that contained only one person. They were moved by boats with oars.
They brought the balls of cotton yarn, parrots, javelins, and other things that it would be tedious to describe, and all were given for any subject, no matter what they might offer. But I was attentive to them and get out consistently, whether those people have gold. I saw that some pieces of gold stuck in the holes that they are for this purpose in doing a nose. And, explaining the signs, I understood that, sailing on the south, or returning to the island from the south, there is a king who has a large gold vessels, and the King has a lot of gold. I tried to find out how to get there, but soon I realized that they did not know the way to the edge of those .. . ”
These Columbus words were already portend hell to Indians, which they never knew. Columbus has not yet put the key in the lock of an Indian home, but “stubbornly get out, whether those people have gold.”
Naturally, Columbus hoisted the cross on the island and decorated it with letters F and Y (Ferdinand and Ysabella – as it was written). The notary of the expedition Rodrigo de Escovedo made an act of seizing new land, and the Indians who lived on the island became Castilian subjects. Columbus described in his journal “All that they have, they give up for any thing that they offer, even for pieces of broken crockery and glass. I saw three Portuguese copper coins, equal to the price of one form of Castilian (blanc), they came in at 16 skeins of cotton yarn. However, in another place Columbus surprised that along with the valuable goods the Indians offered to exchange a few dry leaves. I wondered why they appreciate these dry leaves. So, Columbus was the first European who saw tobacco.
At the Guanahani (Columbus rechristened it the island of St. Savior – San Salvador), the Indians treated the Spaniards are extremely friendly. Columbus in his journal says: “. … They had a friendly attitude towards us. ” And elsewhere in the logbook: “They are not having and do not know what Iron weapon is: when I showed them a sword, they rattled the blade and cut the ignorance of their fingers. And in general, in Columbus first recordings he praises Indians.
Out of Guanahani (by the way, we are faced here with another old issue which has still not given the correct answer: in fact, to which of the Bahamian island Columbus landed?) Fleet went in search of new islands. Objective one: to find gold! Gold! Four days later, Columbus in his journal reminds me: “But if I find a [place], where it will be enough gold and spices, I will be detained there until until the type [of both of them] as much as I can. And that is why I’m doing everything possible to get to where I can find gold and spices.
After Guanahani was Cuba, Haiti (Hispaniola), and other islands, and later the coast of Central and South America.
For the Indians in 1492 just as important as for Europe. And for Indians, this date marks the beginning of a new historical era. But not the beginning of modern times. Rather, especially in the early years, a medieval nightmare of conquest. On the wealth of America, the Indians set upon by dozens or hundreds of violent predators. They kill and plunder. To the glory of their Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella, in the name of Christ. The number of Indians, who in 1492 lived in America was about 16 million (15 million in Mesoamerica and South America and 1 million to the north of the Rio Grande), begins to decrease rapidly. The first colonizers are conducting this feudal-clerical terror, especially in the West Indies, where the local defenseless Indians soon almost completely extinct.
With great difficulty learn and conquer the white conquistadors mainland of America. In 1497 and 1498 coast of North America’s first visited an Italian in the English service – Captain John Cabot. In South America the first (in 1499) came the Spaniards. First Alonso Nino. Then Alonso de Ojeda, who had examined the present coast of Venezuela. Pile Indian villages in the Gulf Marakaib reminded him of Venice, which is why he gave this big South American country its modern name of Venezuela, which in Spanish means “Little Venice”. In 1500, navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón first visited the coast of Brazil, as well as immensely wide open mouth of the Amazon. However, Brazil receives possession of Portugal, despite the indisputable priority of discoveries of Columbus, financed by Spain. The reason for this was the so-called Tordsil contract. The point is that Pope Alexander VI divided the whole world, including countries and peoples who have not even been opened between the two monarchs, two states, which the Roman Church especially patronized – between Spain and Portugal. Boundary line, according to a later definitive agreement, held ‘in 370 miles west of Kapverd islands. All that was west of the line set by Tordesil’s contract was owned by Spain. But the Spaniards did not receive Brazil. Portuguese made mistake, or – and this is much more plausible – pretended they were mistaken. In any case, they claim to ownership of Brazil, referring to the voyage of the Portuguese explorer Cabral, who visited Brazil shortly after Pinson. Cabral “seized” for the Portuguese king, the Brazilian coast, and all that lay behind him in the depths of the continent. The Portuguese remained in Brazil. Thus, Indians in South America for 360 years lived not only under the Spanish, but under Portuguese colonial rule. In 1503, by order of the Portuguese king in Brazil, the first settlers arrived – baptized Portuguese Jews, who subsequently led to further colonization of Brazil. In the history of the discovery of America by inscribing his name another Portuguese, who arrived at this time under the Spanish flag – Fernand Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan) is probably the greatest explorer in the entire history of mankind. His circumnavigation is conclusively proven that the earth is round, and contributed to a better acquaintance with America, especially the extreme south – Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.
Since 1509, Europeans colonized and Central America, its eastern coast. September 25, 1513 Europeans first saw the Pacific Ocean. These were the inhabitants of European settlement in Panama, Santa Maria la Antigua de Darien, who headed the restless Vasco Nunez de Balbao abandoned their colony in search of another, more suitable land. Undergone terrible suffering twenty wandering in the tropical jungle, they accidentally went to the Pacific Ocean. Thus, guided sometimes accidentally, sometimes fantastic ideas and traditions (for example, Juan Ponce de Leon, first governor of Puerto Rico in search of the island of Bimini, where according to legend, was the source of immortality, the source of eternal youth, discovered Florida), and sometimes and with a clear objective (as Juan Solis, who found the mouth of the River Plate and, consequently, the gate of Argentina), Europeans discovered America, one area after another. In this first period of North America (except for some parts of the coast) remained aloof from their roads. Out of Sight were the first conquistadors and the interior of Brazil, and south of modern Argentina.
Often very numerous expeditions did not reach its all right, because looking for a different beautiful city and countryside, such as those mentioned above Bimini. Searched for some kind of “big Kivieru”, “Northern miracle” talked a lot about the “Seven Cities of Cibola silver, finally caught up with clay cities – Pueblo. Searched for and Kikore, and in South America – “the kingdom Skorzhika”, “Manoa” (apparently a distant echo of the existence of the same name of an Indian tribe in the Amazon), searched for “Land of the Amazons” and “South miracle,” etc. All of this was fruit of dreams conquistadors. The reality was different. In the first 25 years after the discovery of America Spain engaged mainly in the robbery the West Indies, particularly the island of Haiti (which, as we know, was renamed by Columbus in Hispaniola).
Indians Antilles suffered a terrible anguish. Columbus himself offered to sell Haitians to Spain as slaves. Indians were forced to work in mines and fields of white conquistadors, thousands of them killed for the amusement of the gentlemen were thrown to the wolves to dogs. On Hispaniola were first introduced enkomendy (of which we shall discuss later). And here broke out the first anti-colonial national liberation uprising of American Indians. Barely two years after Columbus discovered the island! The center of this first Indian uprising was Haitian region, which the Spaniards called the Vega Real. Marshal of the uprising was an Indian leader of Haiti – Siguayo. Revolt in Vega Real was suppressed. Were suppressed and all the subsequent uprising. And a few years on Hispaniola not a single Indian. The same fate befell almost all the Indian tribes Antilles. Description era when Native Americans first encountered the white colonialism – colonialism, secular and ecclesiastical – was written by a highly competent author. Peru Spanish monk, whom we shall speak later, Bishop Bartolome de Las Casas, who arrived in the New World shortly after the discovery of America and as a witness truthfully depicted a gigantic shambles, led to the extermination of the Antillean Indians (though elsewhere in his work Casas speaks to the mainland U.S. and Indian).
Here’s how my brother Bartolome describes the results of European colonialism “carriers of Faith and Education:” The sheep is so peaceful and endowed with the gifts listed Almighty, like a tigers, wolves and blood-thirsty lions, long stroking tortured, attacked the Spaniards, and the pores thereof, for forty years, nothing else is done and nothing else do not like, and until now nothing is not occupied, as soon as ubiyeniyem unfortunate that the various hitherto no one has seen or heard of ways to torment and torture so cruelly and brutally oppressed and tortured, that the three million natives, koi only the island of Hispaniola was inhabited, it remained nearly three hundred. The island is Cuba, which extends in length at the same distance as from Rome to Valladolid, had to leave and not cultivated, in the ruins of the remains. Saint Juan and Jamaica, both large and once-fertile, you can behold the abandoned and devastated. Sjá einnig and Islands, usually called Velikanov islands, and others, of which one that was the least fruitful, his yield exceeded the royal garden in Spain (besides not being cheated, and the most beautiful and fertile healthy temperate climate), has deprived the entire population will see their current ; once is more than five hundred thousand souls lived in these places [before the invasion of the Spaniards]: they often killed, often violent deported to work in the mines of the island of Hispaniola, which all of its indigenous inhabitants of the deprived. When the ship a visit to these islands, in order to collect the remains of the harvest, only eleven persons, whom I saw for myself, it was found. Sjá einnig and islands, the total number of thirty, koi are located around the island, the name of St. Juan named, predatory deprived the entire population. Shared in the same length as the island two thousand miles above, and all train depopulated and left without inhabitants, settlers and indigenous people … ”
Yes, they really were “without inhabitants and indigenous people.” And now these cultures (and the Caribbean Arawak) Indians Arub now help us recreate the first archaeological finds. Ethnographic reports by the authors, his contemporaries, very rare. And surprisingly, apparently, the first of
reports of American Indians came from the Czech Republic! Its author – Plzen-ing book printers (obviously, a Slovak native, said of himself, he said that he came from Hungary), honored the publisher of a number of Czech books Mi-Kulashi Bakalarzh. Little Bakalarzha book about Indians and America called “The writing of new lands and the New World, about which we previously did not have any news, and heard nothing» ( «Spis of novych zemiech and on novem svete, on nemzto jsme prve zadne znaraosti nemeli ani kdy with sly-chali »). “Composing” Bakalarzha must have happened before 1504, because it says that in Spain governs the queen Alzhbeta “, that is, Isabella, and in 1504 she died. And we are not afraid to call the book Bakalarzha first Czechoslovak difficulty giving basic ethnographic information about American Indians.
People with an interest in the Indians, the composition is unknown and virtually inaccessible. Therefore, we cite at least a few excerpts from the works Bakalarzha … “In our times, when the arrive at the throne of a king radiant Ferdinandus King gishpansky, ka-Tieling Municipal Prior Period, Portuguese, etc., And Alzhbeta, his wife, it happened that some moreprohodtsy, knowledgeable and experienced, who know the roads pretty sea and all the dangers of the sea have seen , they won at sea unusual way, with the pillars of Hercules, leaving behind Pointing the way stars – inasmuch moreprohodtsy at sea on the way the stars are – and bearing with him the ships appliances designed to determine the depth of the sea. And when they both sailed on the sea for a long time, it happened that their admiral, that is, older, all the ships commanded, fell ill. However, the train of his companions, feeling the depth of the sea, noticed that the sea grows shallow, because on the equipment, koi, they were lowered into the depths of the sea, were ground and sand. Uzrevshi this, their older, nemochen lay rivers: “the hope that henceforth the island and close to the earth abideth, populated by people …” Then they sat on a ship and sailed over again there, elder of the meantime he gave up the spirit … And they found the land of the great and the legion of people there. The fact the people and customs of his king gishpanskogo marshal, as aforesaid king to them was sent, writes.
Leta God тысяча five hundred and first fourteenth day of the month of May we departed from the land gishpanskoy on three ships, in order to view this New World. And we sailed south through the full 16 months of Happy Island, shared in the same train now islanders Grands Canary Islands are named. Then we sailed on the sea at sunset the mountain, what Ptolemy called Mount Mureninskoy, but now our heads is called the green, but on arapskom language – Beseghitse. Then, setting sail, we sailed with the great effort and with considerable labor and with many dangers and fears of 67 days. Then the Lord Almighty was pleased to show us the new land. And we sailed to the shores of the seventh day of August of the summer the Lord one thousand five hundred of the second and then dropped anchor. And, of counsel, that sailed round the island at sunrise, not moving away from the shore, and sailed to the south side, three hundred miles Italic. And that when we toured round the island, not once from the ships were coming down to earth and friendly with people communicate. And when ochu-tilisya we land on the add and the add-islands, and found many such people, I can tell you. And the people that was quiet and friendly. Wives and the men go naked, no part of his body is not covering, but as born, so before his death, and walk. Their bodies are large and well-built, and they are all painted in red, for one, I presume, because walking naked and scorched by the sun are, and therefore seem to be painted. Are they spit, and their hair long and black. Gait fast and free, fun person. Only they themselves of their spoil and disfigure, make a hole for cheeks, lips, nose and ears. And do not think enough to do myself, only small holes or punctured only one hole, Inasmuch as I have seen many, koi tokmo on his face had seven holes so large that each went to the finger, and the holes they are silenced with precious stones, crystals and marble alabaster, expertly prepared. Who would have seen something so unusual and ugly – a man who has to face his seven precious stones, the finger length and thickness, and another seven on his lips, he probably would be exceedingly surprised. But such is the custom tokmo men, because women make a hole in one ear. These people do not own anything, but all things are common. Without the King live, each own master. Female currently taking as much as they want, and how many times they want, many times with zhenagi divorced, no order is not met. Churches they have no, and no law they do not know. Sjá einnig not worship idols, and no letters, no books do not have, and how they came to the lands, they do not know.
And still believe that no other nation in the world there is no other than their own. Yet they believe that after this life will come true immortal. And if someone asks them, from whom they expect this immortal life, to be told that they do not know. Sjá einnig They say that heaven is all of grace. None of them are no merchants, and no haggling.
Their land and productive and fruitful, with many mountains and rivers and dolami Reproduces and beautiful. The trees there without vaccinations prevkusnye bring fruit. And I saw there is a lot of fruit with our dissimilar. Is there different grasses and roots, from which they baked bread. There Sjá einnig many seeds, but with our seeds dissimilar. Metal there is no no, tokmo gold. I used to say to us, they say, if going deep into the lands, Zlata there is great variety. Are they Sjá einnig lot of pearls. All trees are fragrant and all resins and oils from a drip. And face the south.
And there are those new lands or islands five. The first island they called the island Borzymy, inasmuch as those found on earth, God’s will, the second island he called the name of King Ferdinand gishpanskogo, the third island they called on behalf of Queen Elizabeth’s gishpanskoy, quarter of the island was given the name of the island Gishpansky gishpanskoy on the ground, the fifth island called the Gishpaniolskim. And the essence of a vast and greatest of the island, several hundred miles, and there is no number of people on them, because there are no mora, namely a violation of climate occurs yakozhe doprezh I’ve seen. .. ”
“The writing of new lands, now, unfortunately, almost unknown, in the main part, no doubt, produce a translation of the narrative of the above” Marshal King gishpanskogo. A marshal it seems, was Amerigo Vespucci, the man whose name was baptized America.
Who is he, “that Amerigo Vespucci, and why, in fact, America is America? Vespucci – a native of Florence – came from a prominent and very wealthy local family. However, he inherited a state that possessed by the more fortunate of his relatives. And , wanting to get rich, engaged in the Spanish port of Cadiz selling salted and pickled vegetables, captains of ships sailing to the open-Columbus “India.” Later, when Columbus fell out of favor with the Spanish royal court, Vespucci took part in the expedition, which was supposed to check the activities of Columbus New World. During his first journey Vespucci visited this coast of Honduras and Costa Rica, and struck them on the map. After that he undertook several journeys, the most significant of which led him to the distant shores of Patagonia. On these voyages Vespucci told his Florentine friends Lorenzo de ‘Medici and Pietro Co-Deryni, a few letters. And “writing” Bakalarzha, obviously, the first printed translation of one of them. At home Vespucci, Florence, his letters were published after the release of the Czech edition undertaken Bakalarzhem, in 1505 under the title “Letters of Amerigo Vespucci concerning the islands, the newly discovered during his four trips» ( «Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle isole nuouamente trouate quattro sui viaggi»). In fact, the colorful, but full of narcissism description of the New World from the pen of Vespucci immediately flew to Europe for what was then a hugely popular, exciting travel story, this medieval “bestseller.” among European merchants and nobles homebody when reading the Four Voyages, “is literally breathtaking. A few months later came the German translation and a Latin book Vespucci even withstood eleven editions. Not surprisingly, therefore, that when, in 1507 in Saint-Die beyond famous. map of “Introduction to the cosmography» ( «Cosmographiae introductio»), its author, a renowned cartographer Martin lotaringskny Valdzeemyuller denotes a newly discovered part of the world named Amerigo! name “America” we find on the globe Boulanger izgotovleppom in 1514. A map drawn by the 1515 Nuremberg mathematician Johann Sener, the name “America” marked the mainland of South America, located south of the Antilles (the current Venezuela and Guyana). Thus, even when life Vesiuchchi he belonged, at least by name, country, opened on the other. Some who have this terrible injustice caused outrage. For example, the famous American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote indignantly: ” It is striking that the great America must bear the name of the thief Amerigo Vespucci, merchant sauerkraut, dubbed the world’s half his infamous name. “But, anyhow, the fact remains that the Indians, who, in fact, are not” Indians “live in America , which, strictly speaking, should not be called “America.” In the end, the name of Amerigo to a literature was part of the dialect and the Indians themselves. Some anthropologists, objecting to the term “Indian,” chose to call the residents of the New World “Amerindians”, ie ” American Indian.
So for the new part of the world found a name that immediately became generally accepted (only the Madrid royal administration stubbornly continued to call their American possessions “Indiyami” – in the plural), so the Indians were found. But neither on the part of the coast of America, which already entrenched conquistadors, none of the Antilles, nor in Panama, neither in Brazil nor Venezuela has not been found, at least in any significant quantity of gold.