LAST HISTORY RECITATION FINALLY
docx
keyboard_arrow_up
School
Northern Kentucky University *
*We aren’t endorsed by this school
Course
102
Subject
Arts Humanities
Date
Jan 9, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
2
Uploaded by AgentPencilWolverine7
In this week’s classes we examine the European discovery of “new worlds.”
In Monday's
class our focus is on the Renaissance, culminating in the story of Johannes Kepler and his
attempts to determine the shape of planetary orbits in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
century.
In turn, Wednesday’s class tells the story of early Iberian voyages of exploration,
culminating in a series of European debates about the peoples of the New World as personified
in the life of the 16th century Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas.
Kepler's First Law stated that planets move in elliptical paths around the Sun. He also
discovered that planets move proportionally faster in their orbits when they are closer to the
Sun; this became Kepler's Second Law. In 1609, Kepler published the first two of his three laws
of planetary motion, which held that planets move around the sun in ellipses, not circles (as had
been widely believed up to that time), and that planets speed up as they approach the sun and
slow down as they move away.
This week's readings include two works that reflect on the lives of both Johannes Kepler
and Bartolomé de las Casas, including excerpts from Kepler’s Epitome of Copernican
Astronomy as well as from Las Casas's An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the
Indies.
Our first reading is a relatively short piece that is taken from Johannes Kepler's Epitome
of Copernican Astronomy, which was originally published in parts between 1618 and 1621.
How
does Kepler define astronomy and its relationship to mathematics?
In turn, how does he
explain the apparent movement of the sun and the stars in the heavens?
Kepler defines astronomy and its relationship to mathematics by saying it is a branch of
physics because it investigates the causes of natural objects and events, and because among
its subjects are the motions of the heavenly bodies, and because it has the same end as
physics, to inquire into the conformation of the world and its parts. He explains this by saying
Meteorology is also its subordinate, for the stars move and influence this sublunary nature and
even men themselves
It includes a large part of optics, because it has a subject in common
with that; that is, the light of the heavenly bodies, and because it corrects many errors of sight in
regard to the character of the earth and its motions.
The second text—An Account, Much Abbreviated of the Destruction of the Indies—was
originally written in 1542 and subsequently published in 1552 as part of Bartolomé de Las
Casas's quest “to protect” the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas from European greed.
(Please note that in Wednesday's lecture, we will discuss Las Casas's life at length.)
In terms of
discussion, how does Las Casas's account reflect on early Spanish colonization?
Why,
according to Las Casas, did Spaniards come to the New World in the first place?
What role did
religious faith play in their conceptions of themselves and the world?
Finally, should we believe
everything that Las Casas writes?
What does the text reveal about its author?
Also, what, if
anything, does it reveal about New World natives?
While the Pope had granted Spain sovereignty over the New World, de Las Casas
argued that the property rights and rights to their own labor still belonged to the native peoples.
Natives were subjects of the Spanish crown, and to treat them as less than human violated the
laws of God, nature, and Spain. The Spanish explorers were motivated by “avarice and
ambition.” They wanted to control the Indians and take the Taino lands, including the gold, for
themselves. Spain's colonization goals were to extract gold and silver from the Americas, to
stimulate the Spanish economy and make Spain a more powerful country. Spiritual motivations
also justified European conquests of foreign lands. The Catholic Church set up Christian
missions to convert indigenous people to the Catholic faith. At the same time, and often hand-in-
hand, Catholic nations began setting up colonies for political and economic profit in these
foreign lands. Las Casas published a shocking account of Spanish cruelties, A Very Brief
Account of the Destruction of the Indies. He blamed the depopulation of the Native American
populations on Spanish brutality rather than on the spread of disease. Yes, because it reveals
the truth of human rights.
That it was truly their land.
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help