AFTER TWO-HUNDRED-THIRTY-SIX YEARS IS AMERICA REALLY FREE?

(Juan Ponce De León)



(Giovanni da Verrazano)

Americans! We have always been selfish, smart, and bulging with many ideas. Yet deep down in truth and history we are ass-holes, a young nation that acts so childish compared to other countries. I believe that we Americans can be cured from this unfair advantage of youth not by being the most powerful but to know world history. Columbus you should know was not English he was Italian and never stepped a foot on North American soil (for was in fact todays so called US Bahamas) so the truth of this discovery and matter was the English did not discover the new world nor did Columbus. It was a Spanish explorer by the name of Juan Ponce De León, in which at least my US history class had never heard of till now, and I consider this an insult to Juan himself who that day four-hundred-ninety-nine years ago traveled along exploring the Florida coast (he later took a second voyage to Florida as well). Eleven years later Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano, would lead a French expedition along the coast of North Carolina to Nova Scotia and enter what is todays New York harbor. Two years later the Spanish settlement would be made by San Miguel De Guadalupe & company on land that was founded by Spaniard Lucas Vázquez De Ayllón in 1526. During this period of settlement it is in what is todays South Carolina, but was later abandoned in October of that year. Why? Where did they go? Soon thirteen years had passed since then, it was now 1539 and Spanish conquistador Hernando De Soto landed in Florida may twenty-eighth and later be the first to cross the Mississippi River in 1541(also lead expeditions to Peru). To get to the river Hernando traveled through parts of, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas (theories have argued for a northern route through Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana from Mabila. A year before Hernando’s crossing of the Mississippi a Spaniard Francisco Vásquez De Coronado explored the southwest north of the Rio Grande as well as exploring the Grand Canyon and much of what now is New Mexico. Then there was Hernando De Alarcón who was the first to reach the Colorado River (he led also an early expedition to the Baja California peninsula). Lastly that year Garcia López De Cárdena s reached the Grand Canyon. History shows that over all we were not the great explorers of North America. It was mainly the Spanish who discovered Mexico, South America and parts of North America; and also the French who explored the regions of Canada and parts of northern North America. “We are like the Romans” people say. “we are the modern day romans”, but if we are than who are “the modern day Chinese” that Marco Polo describes  in his book of travels in Asia (in which today his travels are very controversial being that we know not if he ever made it to Asia. True we are like the Romans when really we are not. We like to say we are and act like we are because it shows power, dominance, and intelligence. Like the Romans we stole land, like the Romans we killed our natives, unlike the Romans we were constantly cruel to our slaves although there were some wealthy or middle class, or poor men who treated them as they would treat any other person, unlike the Romans we don’t all support or praise gay marriage as a way of life, natural, and a greater love than man to woman. Could it be throughout history things have become so complex or we are so blinded by our personal thoughts and beliefs that it has blinded us. Every situation after every discovery after every new thing we have just given up on our world history and gone to our own ideals. Could it be by doing so we have become like Romans, but as well as the barbarians that caused them to fall