Slave life

Slavery. Basically the trade and owning of human beings that seem to be deemed lesser by others. It is a weird concept if you think about it. I mean, who just decided to make other people slaves. Who even came up with the idea. Why would one even come up with the idea.
And when we think of slavery, we think of white people owning black people. But in reality, there were slaves and slaves trades in African societies, which was actually very surprising to read. Not to mention, that the slavery we think of today is not the only form of slavery there was, there were many different kinds. Kinds in which slaves would get assimilated into communities or the owner's household. It all just depended, some children were even free from the slavery of their parents, while others inherited slave life just like them. And slaves in Islam got positions in the military or even political status! What?! How crazy is that?! Who would have thought that about slaves back then? But then again, we learn western culture here, so I guess we wouldn't learn about all these different types of slaves and slaves elsewhere because we are a very, I guess you could say, conceited culture.

Those Dang Portuguese

The most interesting thing that I read in Chapter fourteen had to be about Indian Ocean trade. How it used to be free and there was no one power. I mean, how long did they think that was actually going to last anyway? There is always that one person that ruins it for everyone and thinks all high and mighty of themselves and is selfish. In this case, it was the Portuguese.  The Portuguese of all people. What the heck. The thing is, other boats were not well equipped to fight the Portuguese because since it was a free ocean, well, there was not need for big arms, just the bare minimum for the pirates that roamed the seas. But the Portuguese had big canons and took the opportunity that no other boat had the same as them and they set up bases at key locations. And when they say set up bases, it seems so peaceful, doesn't it? Well, of course it wasn't. They forcibly set up those bases. And those who didn't cooperate, got messed up. Like in Mombosa, the commander of whatever fleet was attacking, burned and sacked the city, killing about fifteen hundred people! And not just men, they killed men, women and children! CHILDREN! Talk about a heartless group of people who were definitely there for their own selfish wants; to command and control commerce. But I guess if you think about it, we are all selfish in some type of way, I guess they were just a little more selfish than the rest of us.

YAY

YAY- I'm done setting up.

BLOG 1

BLOG 1

In class, we were discussing the modern era, and if we could say it could be called the European era. After everything brought up during class, it was decided and proved that it could be. This is all pointed to two key events. One, the renaissance, which was the rebirth of classical greek humanism, was the start of the spread of European culture, which started in 1492. I guess it's kind of crazy to think that every place but Antartica was influenced in some way by the european culture. It is something we do not think about every day here, we just learn about it in our history classes our entire life, but I guess we never really deeply think about it. The second significant item that happened in our history was in 1348,  which was when the bubonic plague hit and killed thousands upon thousands of people. It was the time in which Europe started to look at themselves and really start to change their ways. I mean, I guess if everyone was dying around me, I'd start to take a good look at our society and see if it needed change.

Patricia Echavarri