Geographical Transformation of the Caribbean Islands - Essay Example

Section/# My is Mairpuran Pirus. I have lived on the island of Mamana for my entire forty years of life. Like most men may age, I am married and have children. My specialty is fishing. Since our community is relatively small by the standards of our culture; due in part to the fact that we subsist on such a small island in the Caribbean, it is of vital importance that we can sustain our food supply through reliance on the ocean. As a result, the trade craft of my family, pass down to me through my father, is that of fishing and relying on the sea for sustenance. Until the arrival of the Spanish, I had never before seen a tribesman like the ones that Columbus and his entourage presented to us. Prior to the introduction of the Spanish our culture had been relatively insular. This is not to say that we did not trade with neighboring cultures and tribes; however, the drive to settle and explore for distant lands, even if we knew they existed, was not part of our cultural legacy. I would say there were many reasons for this; however, the primary cultural reason was due to the fact that our culture had derived from a group of individuals that were keenly aware of the unique demographics constraints that island lifestyle exhibited. Rather than being able to simply expand and colonize a new area, the Caribbean island ecosystem had taught our people how to manage the resources we had, supplement the ones we did not, and seek to find a way to supply the needs of our people without having to expand outwards. This is not to say that wars did not exist. There were numerous examples within our recent history when neighboring chiefs and tribal leaders coveted the position, riches, or slaves that another neighboring group possessed. As a rsult, these battles were fought in much the same way that the Spanish fought to take control of our way of life, women, riches, and future. It was in October of 1492 that I became acquainted with what would spell the end of our civilization; although at that time, the ominous nature of the encounter was overcast by the sheer curiosity and fear that many of my tribesmen exhibited. What I first saw was a group of hairy-faced, colorful, and shiny men that I took for a type of embodiment of a god; or at the very least demigods. These men strode upon the sand and the thin thatch that covered the interior of the island with a heavy stride that set them apart from any man I had ever seen. I soon learned that the reason for their heavy and seemingly uncertain steps was due to the fact that they had been at sea, on board ships, for a long period of time. Accordingly, their ability to quickly acclimate to the sandy soil of Mamana was severely hampered. Although the fear soon gave way to curiosity, there was also a sense of foreboding that is now all too clear with respect to how the tribesmen viewed the Spanish. Upon coming ashore and making contact with the tribes chief and spiritual leaders, the Spanish wasted no time in seeking to find if there was anything that our people could offer them that would profit them. By standards of our culture, it was not common to greet a stranger and immediately make inquiries as to his overall wealth and a firm account of the things he possesses. For this reason, many of our tribesmen became wary of the way that the Spanish behaved and fearful of what type of intentions they harbored with respect to our lands and to our people. Now ten years later, I have grown to resent the way that the Spanish govern our culture. True, their technology has rapidly changed the way we lived; however, it has not improved the overall quality of our lives. Moreover, the effects of their conquest have meant that our culture, our religion, and our language is becoming more and more diminished each and every day that passes. For many reasons this troubles me. However, the single largest concern I have with respect to this is the fact that my children and their children’s children will grow up in a world that does not even resemble the one that I grew up in. There is much to be said for cultural interaction and I can say that in some small ways the Spanish have brought aspects of their culture to ours that have had a positive effect; however, these are far outweighed by the negative. Prior to their appearance, it was common for our people to live, work, and play in the way that our gods have intended; without clothing. Yet, once the Spanish came they have pushed their own values and moralities on our people and have forced us to be ashamed of that which we used to take for granted in the years prior to their arrival. Worst of all, the Spanish have brought with them the scourge of the Catholic Church. Of all of the negative things that the Spanish have done to my people and my culture, the introduction of this foreign religion with its foreign gods, and rigid power structure that does not respect the views and religions of my people has been the most destructive. Before the introduction of these priests and this foreign religion, my people had worshiped the gods of their ancestors for what seems like a very long time. However, once the Spanish began to introduce their “Jesuits”, the accepted religion and practices of my people would never again be the norm. Instead of merely tolerating our indigenous religion, the Spanish forced many to convert upon pain of life. This fact was further compounded by the fact that although the two religions could have peacefully coexisted, the Spanish had little or no respect for the religious beliefs of my people. Instead, our religion was all but successfully uprooted. Worse still, our children were instructed by these priests so that our own people were day by day losing touch with the reality of their past, their gods, and their way of life. In short, if I survey the positives and negatives that the Spanish have done to my culture, it is without question that the lives of our people were far better off prior the introduction of this foreign force. Instead of being able to live our lives as our ancestors had, we have been forced to bend our own lives and our own culture to fit the needs of the foreign invader. Sir Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake began his life in 1544 as the eldest of 12 other sons. What is of particular interest with regards to Sir Francis Drake is the rather humble beginnings that this son of a farmer hailed. Rather than being born into a lap of luxury and resultantly being granted position after position, Drake hailed from relatively modest means and subsequently attained the stature and position he held due to the fact that he had a tenacious attitude that resulted in his proceeding success (Couper 116). Sir Francis Drake first sailed for the New World with his uncle in 1568. This first voyage was to be a defining moment in the life of Sir Francis Drake due to the fact that once the participants reached the Mexican (Spanish held) port of San Juan de Ulúa, the ships were blockaded by the Spanish (Cummins 14). Drake, together with his uncle were able to escape and make it back to England. This provided to be the defining moment in Drake’s career due to the fact that this incident caused him to swear retribution against the Spanish for what they had done. What is interesting to note is that like so many other individuals in history, Sir Francis Drake was the right thing at the right time. Had he born a deep seated animosity to Spain at any other time during England’s history, it is likely that little would have come of this anger and rage he harbored. However, Drake appeared at a time in which tensions were already high against the competing interests of England and Spain; specifically with respect to respect to Elizabeth I’s reign and her clear and unbridled ambition to deny Spain of as much of her New World influence as humanly possible. It is from such a complex political situation, relatively lowly family birth, and the presence of a deep seated animosity that the exploits of Francis Drake were born (Villiers 216). Drake was originally instructed by the Queen of England to prey on Spanish shipping from the New World. Not dissimilar to our own times, weakening a nation’s economic strength is one of the primary ways in which the power that a given nation projects can be toppled. In this manner, Elizabeth I instructed |Drake to work to actively disrupt, steal or sink the cargo of any and all Spanish merchant shipping that took place within their newly expanding empire. Although Drake would happily do these things for his sheer dislike of the Spanish – combined with a life-long hatred for Catholicism, Elizabeth I was encouraging such actions in the hopes that by preying on unprotected mercantile shipping, England (using Drake as a proxy) could divert much of Spain’s military might towards concentrating on protecting her trade routes. As a function of this, Spain would no longer have both hands free to pursue further development of her Empire throughout the Carribean and North America. Although England’s duplicity in hiring an individual such as Drake to act as a pirate and thinly veiled proxy for the aims and aspirations of the English monarchy was bold, the maneuver paid off more so than anyone in Queen Elizabeth’s court likely presumed. Drake became the thorn in the side of the Spanish Empire that Elizabeth had hoped. Moreover, his exploits won renowned as more and more Spanish captains and regional governors became wary of his exploits and fearful of the fact that “The Dragon”, as they called him, would come to their location and pillage and destroy it in much the same manner that he had pillaged and destroyed many other Spanish possessions in the New World (Markham et al 76). So great was Drake’s success that upon sailing into Plymouth in September of 1580, half of the cargo (which accounted for the Queen’s share) of Drake’s ships accounted to more income for the crown than all of her other sources of income for that entire year. In short, Drake was an investment that was returning a massive profit for the English crown. The side story to all of this is not how much gold, silver and spices that Drake was able to capture but the sheer amount of loot that was being plundered by both the Spanish and the English during the 15th century with relation to the New World. Drake regularly encountered and commandeered vessels with the equivalent of tens of millions of US dollars in gold and silver. These vessels were subsequently sent back to England and helped to finance a series of successful colonizations and expansions that would eventually see England take a dominant role with regards to the future development of North America. Naturally, one would be remiss without mentioning the Spanish Armada and Sir Francis Drake’s role in conquering this massive force of Spanish galleons dispatched to crush the British Isles once and for all. The Spanish monarchy was beyond frustrated with the inability of their navy to capture and/or kill Drake. In fact, a reward with an approximate value of 7 million US dollars was placed on Drake’s head by the Spanish King Phillip II. However, neither this bounty nor the demands that his navy seek out and destroy the privateer had any overall effect in stopping the pillaging of the New World by Francis Drake. In an act of desperation and frustration, King Phillip planned what would be one of the largest naval operations in recorded history. Intent on overthrowing Elizabeth from the throne of England and installing a Catholic monarch who would not be involved in the heresy of Anglicanism and who would listen to the dictates of the Pope of Rome, Phillip endeavored to put together and dispatch a fleet of warships and troops to overthrow the monarch (Manly 10). Elizabeth I tasked Sir Francis Drake with being responsible for the maritime security of England. Although a defensive operation was something that Drake knew little about, he soon set himself to the preparations that would be necessary to defend England against the coming war. The history of this battle is well known, Drake was fortunate to have a series of mishaps befall the Spanish prior to their final readiness for invasion. A subsequent attack by the English fleet of the Spanish troop ships anchored in France helped to disrupt their efforts and forced the Spanish to miss their rendezvous with the remainder of the Spanish fleet. The British, and Drake, took this as an opportunity to harass the Spanish ships north, around Scotland – back down across the coast of Ireland, and all the way to the Spanish coastline (Dudley 64). The result was that the Spanish lost over half of the ships that they initially began the endeavor with. Although a final pitched battle was not the result of the Spanish Armada meeting with Drake, the result was nonetheless clear; Drake had successfully defended England from an invasion by the Spanish. For this, his stature only continued to grow in the eyes of the English monarchy. Drake’s final days were not spent in a royal court advising younger men on how they too could claim a piece of their own glory. Instead, Drake died of dysentery in Puerto Rico after successfully assaulting and taking the port of San Juan from the Spanish in 1595 Works Cited Couper, Alastair. "Sir Francis Drake: The Construction Of A Hero." Folklore 121.1 (2010): 116-118. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. Cummins, John. "`That Golden Knight. Drake And His Reputation." History Today 46.1 (1996): 14. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. Dudley, Wade G. "Sir Francis Drake PIRATE TO ADMIRAL." Military History 26.2 (2009): 62-68. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. Manley, Brendan. "Treasure Hunters Eye Drakes Last Privateer Fleet Off Panama Coast." Military History 28.6 (2012): 10. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. Markham, Thom, and Bob Lenz. "Ready For The World." Educational Leadership 59.7 (2002): 76. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. Villiers, Alan. "Sir FRANCIS DRAKE." National Geographic 147.2 (1975): 216. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. Read More