Thoughts 4/16

While reading Bartolomes La Casa's A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, I thought an important role that came out of this was that the right facts need to be implemented in our education. It was interesting to see a different perspective than what I was always taught. Back when I was in grade school, I learned only the perspective of Western Culture, that Cortes's brought disease to South America and thats how all the Mayans died. But in La Casa's perspective, we could see that the perspective that I was taught all my life is wrong. It was quite shocking and depressing to read and see the images of Natives being killed for no good reason. The Natives treated them with respect and greeted them with open arms compared to the Spaniards that only wanted there goods and treated them very poorly and killed many of them with burning alive Mayans and slaughtering them with swords.
La Casa's story made me bring up the question on who is right? Most people have learned that disease from Spaniards killed all Mayans, not that the Spaniards purposely killed them all. It could be hard for someone to grasp, which side is right. Its seems that La Casa's perspective is right but why did most of us learn the other perspective? It is kind of like how big corporations are having so much power that they are causing a lot of problems to the world when most people do not even know about it. These big corporations are using very unsustainable techniques for the environment, causing poorer countries to struggle more, and feeding people unhealthy food. Yet we still purchase items form these big corporations while they are still doing harm to this world. The sad part is that most people do not even realize that they are contributing to the harm while purchasing the items. Education will be a key to fixing this problem like how La Casa's tried educated people about what was actually happening. When people are educated about what is right, they will make the right decisions.