Takaki Chapter 2

The author’s thesis is about how unfairly mistreated the Irish and the Native Americans were. They were treated poorly by the people of England. The English wanted to change how the Irish acted and were going to educate them on how to do so. His thesis about the Irish, “The English claimed that they had a God-given responsibility to inhabit and reform so barbarous a nation and to educate the Irish brutes. They would teach them to obey English laws and stop robbing and stealing and killing one another.” And the cruelty to the Indians continued. It gives graphic details about the cruel things that the English did to the Native Americans. It talks about how they poisoned there wine while trying to reach a peace treaty. And the part which states how a member of a tribe “ murdered his wife, ripped the child out of her womb and threw it into the river, and after chopped the mother in pieces and salted her for his food. The author is reiterating how badly these people were treated. They were not treated fairly and were murdered in huge numbers for no apparent reason. Is the author however, missing the bigger picture with this subject, is there a bigger problem than just with the Irish and the Native Americans? I think that the English were going to kill whoever however they wanted to get what they needed. They didn’t care if it was Irish, Native Americans, or anyone else. They were going to kill to get what they wanted. On a personal note, this is very disturbing to read about the things they did to these people. They never did anything wrong, yet the English treated them as if they did. I also was unaware of the number of people who died from diseases that the Europeans brought over. Hundreds and thousands died because of these diseases. This chapter really put into perspective how the English truly were.