The art of propaganda

The more I read the account by Thomas Harriot, the more the italicized summaries rang true. This account was truly that of a man hell-bent on encouraging English settlement in the Americas.

Beginning with his description of the native's religion, one cannot miss the similarity to Christianity. Although there were no written accounts, they were passed "from father to son." Addtionally, they believed in the "immortality of the soul" which is "either carried to heaven, there to enjoy perpetual bliss or else to a great pit hole...there to burn continuously." And finally, there were reports of individuals rising from the dead, just like Lazarus in Christianity. So we have the father and son, heaven and hell and rising from the dead. Sounds like Christianity to me. How encouraging it would have been for the English back home to see that the religion of the natives was so similiar to theirs that conversion would be a piece of cake.

Additional evidence of the push for English settlement lies in his descriptions of the land itself. The soil was "fatter, the trees greater...finer grass, and good as we ever saw in England"-perfect for grazing animals in other words. Also, "in some places more plenty of their fruit, more abundance of beasts, the more inhabited with people,...with greater towns and houses."

Obviously cognizant of Spains hold on the new world, the intent of this account was to encourage the English to take their own hold of the new world before it was completely in the hands of Spain. I don't know about the English, but there was much is this account which would have made me consider an Atlantic crossing.

One other observation-I couldn't help but notice was how so many natives were dying after Harriot and his men left a particular region-no they were not gods like the natives supposedly believed, but merely more vicitims of the germs the Europeons left in their wake.