Occupied America Chapter Analysis

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In the second Chapter of Occupied America with author Acuña he continues to inform his readers about the oppression and unjust way the indigenous people were treated by the Spanish Conquest . The Spanish occupation destroyed the identity of these tribes that lived in Mesoamerica changing their religion their infrastructure and the social institutions trying to erase their way of living . As we were taught at a young age the so called “founder” of the New World was Christopher Columbus who was claimed and admired by many landed on the Caribbean looking for gold but found very little leading to the forcing of labor and enslaving the Indians for economic gain. His first slave ship was meant to carry over 1500 indigenous slaves however due to the bad conditions and sickness that came with the …show more content…
One of the many changes that happened was that before the conquest the women would marry around their twenty’s however once the conquest happened they were encouraged to marry at the ages of 12 or 14 much younger than before. Although that doesn’t seem like the worst thing you will also see that while men had a full buriall women weren’t granted one making it completely different than what the religions used to practice before them. Despite the fact that women were seen as inferior it did not make them passive , they too fought for their people and their right being courageous strong women was who they were and it did not matter that the Spanish had changed the ways in which a women was see they worked hard in the jobs they were placed and even helped in liberating men from the prison. Finally the chapter talks about the different mining camps and the Spanish settlements up North specifically in Texas. This creates a great introduction to the next chapter where we see the effects the spanish had on these tribes and the outcome of bad