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Explain How The Americas Was The Void Of American Civilization And Culture

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When Europeans first heard of the “New World” or the Americas, they probably heard that it was land free for their taking; a land of opportunity and wealth. However, in their voyage to the Americas, they would be met by numerous different people, with towering structures, successful farm lands, and fearsome warriors. Truly, it would be false to say that “the Americas was void of civilization and culture, open for the taking by Europeans.”

Before the European settlement, the Americas already boasted a large population, great and varying cultures, and intelligently built bodies of architectures within their own settlements. In fact, “prior to European settlement, the northern and southern American continents were home to more than 2,000 separate cultures and people groups.” (Power Point 1 Early Migrants) Evidently, the Americas cannot be considered void of civilization when numerous people of different cultures and groups had already been in the area. Also, the Aztecs were known to have built “Pyramids… [as well as], causeways that would connect their floating city to the main land provinces… These causeways required a strong workforce and the best of …show more content…
An example of this is how “The Hohokam of central Arizona used irrigation canals to grow a number of different crops.” (Power Point 1 Early Migrants) The knowledge of the Hohokam farming lands, and even using an irrigation system, means that they lived within proximity to the farming to tend to and harvest their crops. When Hernan Cortes came to the Americas with his “mountains that moved in the water”, he began to kill off resisting tribes, but let live those who curried the Europeans’ favor. (Engineering an Empire: The Aztec) Opposite to the statement, rather than the Americas being open for the taking, the Americas were being placed under siege by the

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