Craig Spell - Other Americas GBS-3299

      This short novel from Aphra Behn tells a really interesting story about 'royalty turned slave' from a first hand perspective of someone watching what was happening with the transatlantic slave trade. What was interesting to me about Behn's story is the juxtaposition of the character Oronooko from the beginning of the story to when he was sold as a slave versus other slaves and people in the story. We see what happens as he goes from perceived royalty as a prince to someone who is rallying the troops and attempting to lead a revolt of sorts with other slaves running away. Behn illustrates this change in a few interesting ways. When we first hear of the physical makeup of the character, he is described saying, " His Eyes were the most aweful that could be seen, and very piercing; the White of ’em being like Snow, as were his Teeth. His Nose was rising and  Roman , instead of  African  and flat:...

      Going to public school from kindergarten through high school, slavery was a topic certainly covered, but at times felt like just brushed over. Triangular trade is discussed and worksheets are given out where we draw lines between the regions and write what is going to and from where. What this  documentary does, is really dive into how much of a business slave trading was, and how crucial it was, really, to the survival of some economics powers during the time. It can be easy to look over and forget that these trades were two-way deals, so when slaves were being sent from Africa, someone on the ground there was letting this happen. I think the documentary captures this well when it says, "The idea we have today of this being mass kidnap couldn't be further from the truth. This was just business." There was no secret to what was happening or how was happening, on either end of the deal. It seems as if there is a sense of complacency with what was happening ...

      The discussion had on this podcast was eye opening and helped further my thinking on the topics we have been reading about. What was interesting about this as opposed to the first hand written accounts from the actual time period of things happening, was these historians having the hindsight and knowing everything that ended up happening in all these different regions. With this, they are able to talk about the issues with more knowledge of the situations than the people 'on the ground' while these things were going on. This podcast looks into laws and a more legal/ethical side of the story that the other pieces we have looked at did not dive into as much. It was interesting to me that they started off the podcast with Aristotle's idea that some of the native and indigenous people were 'natural slaves' and talked about how some of the Spanish Conquistadors believed this notion. When you read pieces from people like Columbus, you would n...

     After reading what Columbus himself had to say about his voyages and journeys, it was good to hear another version of the story and more of an objective historical look at what happened on these trips. While I was reading the extracts from Columbus' journal I was thinking about the idea that there are always two (or more) sides to every story and this documentary had more of the indigenous perspective, or at least took their livelihoods and existence into account. With this, we saw more of the harsh reality of what happened when Columbus and his men came onto these islands and seemingly took over. The documentary said, "within 50 years of Columbus' arrival, the Arawak population was practically depleted." That is sad for a number of reasons, including the fact that now on those islands, none of their descendants remain. It also keeps the Arawak people from having any true representation or voice on what happened.     Luckily, historians and people on those ...

     Reading a first-hand account of an exploration that helped start defining the shape and landscape of the world as we know it today was very interesting. Growing up, you hear a lot of stories about Columbus 'sailing the ocean blue in 1492,' but you do not really go into any depth or really understand the scope of what that meant or who  he was as a person. Right away, hearing it from his own accounts, it was evident how much Columbus cared about the approval and wanting to impress the King and Queen back in Spain. In my experience, learning about Columbus had made him seem like the powerful person in the situation, which he was as leader of this expedition, but he was still reporting back to higher ups. He says, "I saw a snake, which we killed, and I have kept the skin for your Highnesses" along with telling the royalties of several other things he plans to bring back to them. I think it is worth noting how Columbus was not the ultimate power at ha...

     What was interesting to me about this article was how much debate and discussion can be had on a single term and phrase. It seemed obvious that to discuss and study 'post-colonial' works, it is crucial to understand the context of what this means and where/when this work comes from. In Child's article, it is discussed how the generally accepted and overarching definition of this term has changed with time and historical contexts and how some scholars and researchers have differing opinions on what it means. While simply it means the "literary analysis of literature written in English in formerly colonized countries," this does not necessarily mean every single formerly colonized country. Like stated in the article, colonialism deals with "extreme unevenness - with different empires, different needs, different strategies, different trajectories of expansion or contraction, different levels of territorial penetration, control and exploitation." With t...

     This documentary was eye opening for several reasons as I saw the language and communication struggles these people had that I have never even thought about. For me, being born and living in the United States all my life, I have always been lucky enough to be speaking the primary and most widely known language in any environment I have ever been in. Moreover, I have never had the chance to travel outside of the country, so I have never been in a situation where the language I know was not being spoken. Watching this documentary made me realize language and ease of communication is something I have taken for granted. To these people in the documentary, language means a whole lot and with their native tongue they get "a sense of belonging and importance" when their language is spoken, according to one 20-year old girl interviewed.     Unfortunately, with so many different languages across the different villages and regions throughout these Caribbean...