Chapter 12

The way the chapter catches the reader's attention is by talking about Columbus and challenging the fact that Columbus is celebrated and perhaps he should not because in the writer's eyes he was not who you may have thought he was because of the way he treated the cultures who were in the Americas before he had arrived. To be honest, in my elementary class, we did in fact talk about these topics and how the first European travelers came to America and completely took over and threw out the Indian settlers. This may have not been the most positive that our forefather have done, and no, they were not perfects, but come on! This is how the developing world worked. What ruler before this time did not take over a land without showing a sight of brutality or force? I believe it is the values we have now is what causes people to attack our historic heroes when they have been honored for years and years. There will always be someone who will get bored with the way things are and just cause a big deal like the quote found in the beginning in the book. As mentioned in class, we would not be here if this did not have happened and I can almost guarantee that if it was Columbus, it would had been someone else who may have been even more brutal and merciless.

Moving on, it is interesting that even during the fifteenth century there were still hunting and gathering societies that existed. These hunter gathering societies resided in Australia, Siberia, and Africa. This becoming interesting because in most of Eurasia the hunting gathering days are just about over and most civilizations have moved to agriculture. Since the Australians had been on a distant island, they eventually developed ways to fish, and ways to travel by water, like canoes, which sounds very familiar to one of the routes we just wrote a paper on.

Many of these distant cultures had their own ways of living. Some of which chose not to communicate with others, and others still made trade with other neighboring  groups. Trade enabled them to exchange goods and ideas, and created more development among even the less advanced societies.

Other things that was going on during this century was the increase of maritime travel. Many regions was taking advantage of the new technologies of travel by sea. China had practiced this until 1433 were they then considered the extra travel a waste of resources.

Populations in most regions began to increase, most notably in Europe. Religions continued to be exchanged throughout the world, and some of the Chinese population began to migrated and settle in neighboring territories such as Taiwan and Japan. 
 
by Andrew Murillo