Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
December 2, 2009

"Conferring among themselves, they replied that the Christians lied: We had come from the sunrise, they from the sunset; we healed the sick, they killed the sound; we came naked and barefoot, the clothed, horsed, and lanced; we coveted nothing but gave whatever we were given, while they robbed whomever they found and bestowed nothing on anyone."
Internet Quotation: "By the end of his long journey, Cabeza de Vaca became transformed. The once-arrogant conquistador became a passionate defender of Indian human rights." - Texas State University-San Marcos Cabeza de Vaca Project

Summary: The first quotation comes from the point where Cabeza de Vaca meets fellow Christians in the new land he has been trekking across essentially as a native. I think it portrays the two-sided Christianity that had been accentuated by the exploration. On the one hand were people like Cabeza de Vaca who had respect and kindness for the natives, realizing their humanity and treating them as human like any good Christian would do. Opposite them were the explorers Cabeza de Vaca met up with, who display an arrogant, eurocentric perspective that fails to respect or even acknowledge the kindness of the native peoples. This dichotomy of Christianity remains today, I believe. Now it isn't so much native Americans, but gays, Muslims, atheists, and all of those other groups that some Christians can get along with and some would like to wipe from the face of the earth.

The second quotation is from a project that provides the original text of La Relacion online. It speaks to how Cabeza de Vaca changed by coming into contact and living with the natives. Experiences like Cabeza de Vaca's are still the best way to understand a group you may feel animosity or indifference towards. By seeing how they live, work, and play, their humanity becomes readily apparent.

My Ideas: Cabeza de Vaca is certainly easier to stomach than Columbus. The fact that he got naked and went around from village to village as a native is refreshing and a great look at life for the native Americans he came into contact with. What we see in these people is an overwhelming friendliness that has them foregoing food to feed these strangers. Imagine that kind of hospitality today. You'll get a stern telling off before a slice of bread from a stranger.



While I enjoy the anthropological passages that detail the daily life and customs of the native peoples, I found the end of our reading the most interesting, because we are able to see a good Christian, bad Christian interplay between Cabeza de Vaca and the settlers he meets. These settlers are here for whatever profit they can make, and what they can make are slaves. After a group of natives brings them food, they immediately think they should take some of them as slaves. How warped is that? Cabeza de Vaca's angered response shows how he came to care for the people that had taken him in. There is a passionate response to the Christians that is unlike much of what one hears about from the period.

I also find Cabeza de Vaca's name for them, usually simply "the Christians," somewhat humorous. For how can these slavers be Christians? They care nothing for the amiable natives around them, instead desiring only food and slaves. A strange type of Christianity to be sure. By repeatedly calling the Christians, Cabeza de Vaca is able to highlight the problems with Christianity in the new world. It isn't the Christianity of Spain, but rather an offshoot, a malignant growth that led to the forced enslavement of millions of people from the moment Columbus landed.



I don't know what more to say, really; this reading is quite clear. As Cabeza de Vaca says himself, "Better than to exaggerate, I have minimized all things." He gives a clear account that employs cultural relativism to display his time spent among the natives while simultaneously condemning Christian explorers. The prose is simple, the narrative clear.

This is a perfect reading, I think, to end this journal. We've encountered some of the most vile ills of American society, but this reading shows that there has been hope for goodness since the beginning. Slavery, war, and disease all came to America when America became known as America. Our country did not have the most auspicious beginnings, but that doesn't mean things cannot change for the better.

Also, the man's surname is literally "Head of Cow." That must be the most wonderful name I've ever heard, and therefore the most wonderful way to end this journal.

Christopher Columbus

Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Christopher Columbus
November 30, 2009

"Of Espanola, Paria, and the other lands, I never think without weeping. I believed that their example would have been to the profit of others; on the contrary, they are in an exhausted state."

Internet Quotation: "By his toil another world emerged from the unsearched bosom of the ocean: hundreds of thousands of mortals have, from a state of blindness, been raised to the common level of the human race, reclaimed from savagery to gentleness and humanity" - Pope Leo XIII

Summary: The first quotation is the opening lines from the second letter. I find it fitting because it shows Columbus's downtrodden state after years of not only the harsh seas but also the declining state of his enterprise. What he once saw as a noble pursuit has been taken over by people hoping to make a quick buck in the New World. What is most interesting is the way such profit-driven colonization continued even after the preeminent colonizer wrote this letter against it.

The second quotation is from Pope Leo XIII, from an encyclical issued 400 years after Columbus's discovery. He essentially speaks of the explorer as a wonderful Catholic motivated by God, despite some of the policies he employed to govern in the New World. An interesting view of the explorer, in my opinion.

My Ideas: We have reached the man himself: Mr. Columbus, whose voyage in 1492 "discovered" America. This is, of course, a debatable and somewhat ridiculous claim (I think the natives may have been the proper discoverers of the continent, though what do I know) but it has also stood the test of time in elementary schools nationwide. "In 1492, Columbus sailed..." The fact that you are chanting out the rest of this jingle proves that Columbus is still alive and well in the America mythology.



But he wasn't always well. These letters are interesting peeks into his life. We get one in which he describes the beauty, the natives, and the bounty he has found. It is a picturesque vision of discovery, a piece of childlike wonder and curiosity at what the great expanse of these new lands could provide him and his people. Ending simply with "Espanola is a marvel," we see that Columbus is so totally enamored with the new lands.

Skip forward ten years to 1503 to a letter written to Ferdinand and Isabella, monarchs of Spain, as well as financiers of the voyages. His precious discoveries have been pillaged and ruined, and "are in an exhausted state." He himself has grown old and weary, tired of the constant struggle that his career has given him. Riches, once the primary reason to go across treacherous seas, mean nothing. Now, he wants only the permission to get away and go on a religious pilgrimage as his final act. The man credited with discovering America was left with nothing of value. He died three years later.

This is an interesting selection because we see the beginning and the end, the high and the low. His life isn't the sing-song fun we typically associate with the man; it is actually quite sad, especially when he tells of when he was taken prisoner and tortured after having given so much. Yet one must also remember the torture he himself used on the natives to govern Hispanola. In fact, torture may be putting it lightly; in researching this journal, genocide popped up more than once. This is who we celebrate year after year, remember.



Reading these letters makes for conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he effectively found the New World for the Europeans (read: white people like me) and we still honor that today. Such a discovery, which connected the Americas and Europe, cannot be understated. But this is also the problem. For what came from Columbus's voyages was hundreds of years continued oppression towards Native peoples, along with all of the cultural, social, and societal problems that brings. I look at Columbus, like most early explorers, with an uncomfortable ambivalence.

William Bradford

Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for William Bradford
November 23, 2009

"If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world."

Internet Quotation: "[The Mayflower Compact] worked because they chose Christians as their leaders and all understood that they were to be self-governing under the moral law of God." - Jay Rogers

Summary: The quotation from Bradford is one that portrays the prevailing notion of not only his time, but in our time as well for many Americans. The New World represented a vast, savage wilderness that needed to be put into its place by some good old fashioned civilization. And where was that civilization coming from? Europe, of course, for it is impossible to believe that civil society could come from anywhere but there.

The second quotation is from a man called Jay Rogers, published on a website called The Forerunner. It contains a Christian perspective of what Bradford and co. did when they landed at Plymouth. According to Mr. Rogers, they set up the Mayflower Compact, steeped in the "moral law of God," and it ruled them for some time thanks to the Christian leadership. This is mostly here because I like to sigh and say things to myself like "silly Christians." These people, in my opinion, did not uphold the values of God, but instead were spiteful, arrogant people who felt they knew best and had no qualms stealing from and killing the native peoples. Definitely Christian, right? I think Christ said something about it somewhere...

My Ideas: Here's a short summary for those not wanting to read this tract on the founding of the Puritan settlement at Plymouth. I'll even lay it out in mathematical terms for those who would rather not mess around with pesky words:

Everything good = God wills it.
Everything bad = God is testing us.

Simple, is it not? It makes life as black and white as we traditionally feel the Pilgrims were. Everything in Bradford's history of the Puritan's voyage to the New World feels touched by God. Sailor on the ship with a bad mouth and a rude mien? God hath smote him with the sickness and we hath thrown him o'erboard. Food in the homes of Indian "savages"? God hath given us this food graciously and we should taketh it; these heathens were just his chosen delivery service. (What can brown do for you, indeed.) The whole of this history is so deeply entrenched in the belief that God was actively watching the Puritan experiment play out in the New World, guiding their every word and action.



It makes for some skewed history. This is my problem with reading this type of Puritan writing. The history, which is truly valuable for the insight it gives us into our country's foundations, is so tarnished by the personal views and teleology of the Puritans. Everything here does not happen because things happen, but because God has made it happen for the benefit of his chosen peoples, the Puritans. It is a ridiculous view of history that has been perpetuated by our history books and is only just now being corrected, hundreds of years after the fact.

Plus, this view is cruel, narrow-minded, and eurocentric. I understand that you can argue that it was merely the times, that this is simply how people were and in a few hundred years people will look back at us and think of how totally backwards we were. But still, the idea that one can write off a man's suffering and death because he swore and could be a bit mean is insane. Even more insane is that the Puritans land at Plymouth and immediately believe the "savages" are out to get them. "What could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men?" says Bradford upon the Puritans' first perusal of the land in front of them. Of course, civilization could never exist in a forest, let alone without Christianity. It was as absurd then as it is today to instantly think that these people are evil, simple, and out to kill you.

This kind of writing makes me, plainly, angry. It's hyperreligious, insensitive to other cultures, and fallacious. What, for example, happened on the ship that made them turn to Plymouth, which Bradford was so eager to cut out to save the time of the reader? What happened during the periods of time not written about explicitly? One thing after another is skipped or glossed over, and you get an incomplete narrative of the early days in Plymouth. The only thing put down is that which helps the cause of the Puritans, and, thanks to history books, America itself. It's like saying the war in Iraq is a brilliant idea because it is God's plan and it will get America to where it needs to go. And where's that? It isn't justification or explanation for anything. It's a cop-out plain and simple.



American history would have been better had our persecuted religious group been non-religious peoples. Then maybe we would have more objective views of the beginnings of our nation. Instead, we got the most would-be pious bigots to ever get booted out of Europe. A shame, really.

Anne Bradstreet

Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Anne Bradstreet
November 18, 2009

"A corrupt carcass down it lies,
A glorious body it shall rise.
In weakness and dishonor sown,
In power 'tis raised by Christ alone."

Internet Quotation: "While it is rather easy for us to view Puritan ideology in a bad light because of it's attitude towards women and strict moral code, her indifference to material wealth, her humility and her spirituality, regardless of religion, made her into a positive, inspirational role model for any of us." - AnneBradstreet.com

Summary: The first quotation is indicative of the sort of Puritan resignation to the evil of the physical world. Across many of her poems is the theme of human life as worthless, corrupt, impure, and wrong. Only when one goes to heaven can one be cleaned and fulfilled. This creates a waiting game that I think promotes indifference to the world's problems, which I will talk about below.

The second quotation is here because I talk about her humility and spirituality below. Where the website devoted to her life points it out as inspiring, I take a rather different route.

My Ideas: As I stated in the summary, Bradstreet talks a lot about how terrible this world and its inhabitants are. Is there an image of our world so revolting as "dunghill mists"? This place is so low and disgusting that we can't even be the dunghill proper.

In a Puritan context, this is exactly what you should say. Bradstreet follows the idea that this world is a test, through things like her fever, for when they reach the Lord. It's like the original American Gladiators. If they can survive sickness, food shortages, childbirth, and savage Indians, they too can win big! This is the whole purpose of the Puritan life: to live so that you can die. Why would I want that?



This type of thinking instills in people the idea that this world isn't worth living for. Despite the ones we love, the wonders and majesty of the natural world, and the things we, as human beings, can accomplish, the Puritans see this as a temporary hellhole we wait around in, the line at the DMV writ large. This is a mindset that continues today, coming straight from the Puritan tradition. We go to war, we rape the world of its resources, we let people fall through the cracks in squalor, etc. etc. The ills never end. I don't want to believe that human beings are necessarily bad. Instead, we seem to have learned that things can't get better, so why even try. It's what Bradstreet says in her poetry, and it is what we say daily by doing nothing. Let's just wait it out, we say.

Bradstreet gives into this imperfect view of the world by looking at herself in the same way. She constantly undermines her own poetry with self-deprecating comments about how "imperfectly done" her writing is, despite being the first poet from the New World to be printed, and as a woman and in two editions at that. I'm not saying one should boast, but she could at least recognize her own talent and cross those lines out when writing. Humility is one thing; such a dim view like hers is quite another.

It is sickening to me to think that so many people lived only because they were here. It is even more sickening that we continue to live such an existence. These last two readings have really made me look at myself and think about what I'm doing to avoid the type of fatalistic life outlined by the Puritans and perpetuated by us today. Right now is a fitting time, I believe, to read something like Bradstreet to show what not to do with yourself. Don't just say God will fix everything one day. Don't say I can't do anything right, or special, or meaningful. Don't try to escape the dungheap but rather craft a bigger, more glorious dungpile that others are envious of at all times. In other words, realize that we only get one of these lives here on earth. And while you may one day go to heaven, you can make things as good as you can here and now.



Also, I may have gone a bit far on the dungheap metaphor. Apologies for those opposed to poo humor.

Jonathan Edwards

Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Jonathan Edwards
November 16, 2009

"You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell."

Internet Quotation: "The first and greatest homegrown American philosopher." - Perry Miller

Summary: The first is something of a simple summary. This reading is a fire-and-brimstone sermon delivered to strike the fear of God into the hearts of the wicked -- and everyone else, apparently. Lines like the one quoted above make me, as a blasphemous heretic, laugh for a good long time, a nice little break from the constant threats of being cut by the sword of divine justice. Which sounds like a weapon from a cheesy fantasy novel, doesn't it?

The second quotation is from Perry Miller, the founder of the Yale edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards. I include it here because it is interesting to think that this Christian theologian is our first real philosopher. I think it would explain a lot about our country's religious leanings, which I look into below.

My Ideas: As if I hadn't gotten enough sermons during my forced tenure at church (love you, mom), this one proves why I stopped going the moment I could. I even wrote at the end of the reading "Why I don't practice religion, QED." To be young and atheistic.



There is a simple reason why Puritanism isn't quite the hot religion these days: nobody wants this! As if life weren't bad enough, now I have to go to church every Sunday and listen to some man pontificate about how God hates me and how it's a wonder I'm not already in hell? I'm afraid that isn't going to work. If you wanted to stick around on the religious scene, you need to tone it down a bit, maybe make the salvation a little more than a quick note at the end, as it is in this sermon. After being scorched by the fire-and-brimstone of the sermon, the only recompense we get are a few measly, uninspired paragraphs on what we can expect if we follow the rules?

The sermon isn't bad from a technical level. The writing is prototypically American, all short, declarative sentences that leave lasting impressions. They can be easily spewed back by, say, little kids. Imagine, if you would, a scene in Sunday school:

Instructor: And how long is the wrath, children?
Children: "It is everlasting wrath."

Each point that Edwards makes is delivered succinctly for maximum effect. One would think that there were many converts on the day this one was given. But then again, they were usually like this one.

While I've mostly made fun, I will admit that this is scary stuff. The idea that even your omnipotent, merciful Creator utterly despises your poor, foolish soul is one that most wouldn't be so quick to scoff at, especially not during the period. We've since, in my opinion, given the whole religion thing a bit more thought, and certain scientific theories were developed that help to explain a universe without God. Even with these, the sermon has stopping power. Maybe if this were delivered at my benign little church back when I was a young, generally rebellious little teen I would have listened a little more intently. But probably not.



I perhaps need to stop joking. Sermons like this one are a reason this country has such deep religious inclinations, despite what our founding documents say. While we aren't really supposed to be a Christian nation, there are strong Christian undertones to much of what goes on in this country, especially in politics. Do you think, for example, that cutting abortion coverage from the health care bill recently passed in the House had nothing to do with the representatives' religious beliefs? Religion is everywhere in this country, and I believe we have people like Edwards to thank for that. We tried to escape the hellfire by leaving God out of our Constitution, upon which this country is based. Yet that great magical man in the sky just won't leave this country alone.

And that's a problem for the country, especially when the type of fundamental zealotry found in this reading was the norm. When people are so concerned with the spiritual -- whether or not they will get to heaven, whether or not God wants to smite them, etc. -- they neglect the physical. How can society possibly improve if everybody is trying so hard not to screw up and go to hell? Real life problems take a back seat to whatever the popular thing is to do to rid a person of sin. If we cast off religion as a whole, I have a feeling we would suddenly take a good look around, see the innumerable problems this world has developed, and get to work fixing them. But nobody wants to hear that, because what is the purpose of life without a place to go after it? We are working for something, aren't we?

Aren't we?!

(Aside: I found a social networking site just for Satanists called MySatan.net while searching for images. You learn something new everyday.)

Thomas Jefferson

Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Thomas Jefferson
November 11, 2008

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him... "

Internet Quotation: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." - John F. Kennedy upon welcoming 49 Nobel Prize winners to the White House

Summary: The first quotation comes from the section on slavery removed from the final draft of the Declaration of Independence. In this passage, Jefferson decries the system of slavery in the colonies, which he attributes to George III. While Jefferson owned slaves, he obviously had a great moral dilemma between ideals and reality. He was doubtlessly for the end of slavery, but he could not reconcile that with the needs of his life.

The second is probably one of the more famous quotations on Jefferson. From JFK, it portrays the level of respect people give to Jefferson in a very humorous little line that is worth a laugh even today. Perhaps Mr. Kennedy should have gone into standup. Maybe he wouldn't have lost his head. That was probably in poor taste. Moving along...

My Ideas: Quick aside to begin: the Norton Anthology fails to mention explicitly that Jefferson owned slaves. Unless I'm missing something, that's a major oversight in my mind. It would have been easy to spot and fix. For example, "He remained a [slaveholding] agrarian aristocrat all his life..." See, simple. I understand the man's conflict with his own slaveholding, about the need with his debts and the societal normalcy of it, but it needs to be in there somewhere.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, to the text we go. Our Declaration of Independence is the document upon which ever other government document was built. As such, it should be some strong stuff, and Jefferson's words admonish the British in the best, most ferocious way possible by directly attacking King George III himself: "He has refused, He has endeavored, He has erected," and so on. So ferocious, in fact, that the Congress had to take some bits out to water them down a bit, making the words a little less incendiary. The administration of Justice has not "totally... cease[d]," only obstructed; the "future ages" that will be unable to believe in the tyranny fostered within "the short compass of twelve years only" has been nixed completely. Many other examples follow a similar pattern of calming Jefferson's angry tongue.



What is also missing is one of the longer sections written by Jefferson: the one on slavery. Wholly removed is the inspired argument against slavery that could have ended the institution with one fell swoop, saving this country decades of ignominy and racial strife. The "cruel war against human nature itself" remained, thanks to the interests of those in the Congress, our country's "peculiar institution" for some time. Reading these crossed out lines is both upsetting and unsettling. Both our Founding Fathers and our Declaration of Independence are revered on the highest levels; I dare you to name one president in your lifetime that hasn't mentioned "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" at least once in a speech, or who hasn't channeled one of those men who helped give birth to our nation. And yet, they must have come to some majority consensus that the slaves must stay slaves. It's cause for a serious look into the men that made the country.

But, back to Jefferson. The rhetoric here is laid on thickly, with each ill of the British government spat out with contempt. It's just great, really. I can see from the beginning just how much Paine influenced Jefferson, and vice versa. These lines could be attributed to either man, I think. Though Paine probably would have fought the Congress to keep in the slavery portions, the rebel.



What I love along with the strong words is the short length. As we've mentioned in class many times, short, declarative sentences are the hallmark of American literature. This document is a quick one, moving through each transgression with the rapidity of an angry mob marching in the streets. To sum the whole thing up as hemingwayesque as I can: We are now independent because the British were bad and that is all. I wonder what the writers responsible for the British retort must have thought upon seeing this Declaration. "That's it? Really?"

Thomas Paine

Spencer Lambert
ENGL 48A
Journal for Thomas Paine
November 9, 2009

"Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe...Her trade will always be a protection"

Internet Quotation: "He had lived long, did some good and much harm" - Newspaper in New York City after Paine's death

Summary: The first is included here because of the astounding foresight it contains. Paine was so overwhelmingly right about commerce being our security and source of friendship with Europe that I was actually somewhat frightened. America has long been the source of great new must-haves, for better or for worse.

The second quotation is here for humor. I love it when history proves the prevailing notions of the day wrong, especially for somebody as revolutionary as Paine. We are lucky he had "lived long" and influenced this nation as much as he had, otherwise we would still be proclaiming "God Save the Queen" like those complacent Canadians up north (I know the monarchy is mostly ceremonial, but even still). Paine's writing shook up this nation like few ever had, and we are the better, in my opinion, because of it.

My Ideas: We have reached the revolutionary period, which I am rather excited about as I've reached the "college liberal ultra-leftist radical" phase of my life. Funnily enough, I read Paine's selection on the anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia. My Saturday had me ready for insurrection, but alas, my glorious dreams of rebellion did not play out. (yet.)

I am struck by how much we can still take from Common Sense. It is still about a government that serves the interests of the people, not the status quo, which remains applicable today. Unfortunately, we don't feel we need to act against some of the problems with our government, and when people do they follow morons like Glenn Beck, who actually attempted to reinterpret Paine's Common Sense in his latest book. He failed miserably. The nerve.



What he missed was the careful reasoning that is Paine's defining feature in this pamphlet, and his entire career. As a major figure in the Enlightenment, Paine's insistence on reason shines throughout Common Sense, giving careful, logical answers to why British rule is wrong for the continent. His reasoning is so clear that it is easy to understand why it made such an impact on the American public (though it doesn't explain why Beck couldn't quite grasp it... I feel this says a lot). "Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument," he says of those who argue that the connection with Britain is essential for "future happiness." "We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat." This is one of the simpler explanations, but I think it accurately depicts the wit that makes up most of this reading.

And after showing you the revolutionary light through reason, he makes direct, powerful appeals straight to the reader: "Your future connection with Britain...will be forced and unnatural, and, being formed only on their plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first." Paine understands that for some reason isn't quite enough. By bringing you, the reader, directly into the conflict between the continent and the crown, you feel enveloped in this urgent affair that must be acted upon immediately. Even as modern readers, I think we can feel like we should go out, organize, and rise against the British tyranny... before calmly realizing that it is now 2009 and we have long since won that war. (not to mention we have them in our back pocket now. Oh the irony.)



I do wish politics was relatively more Painesian. The man is critical, judicious, and immediate, unlike the plodding, indecisive politics of our age. Prime example: health care. Does the issue of people dying daily because of jacked-up insurance prices really need to be discussed for months and months? Is the problem not plain, even for those who have a penchant for rejecting anything the other party says? Paine could shove off those who argued against him so simply and stand up for his own beliefs. It would be wonderful if our politicians could do the same today. We need to get radical again; not in the ultra-right Nazi way, but in the "this is what I think, so there" way. Relative radicalism, I suppose.

On second thought, what would C-SPAN have to show if it weren't for the back-and-forth mumbling and grumbling of our nation's Congresspeople?