In the Americas, especially in South America, the conversation surrounding the establishment of western civilization is still referred to as “the discovery of the new world.” But, the fact is that, when the Europeans came to America, it was not quite “new” and neither were they “discovering” it.
Before the late 1400’s, many groups of indigenous people inhabited the entirety of the land that we now call “The Americas.” They had their own cultures, their own economic, social and political organizations, their own spiritual ways of being, and their own belief systems. They had their own ways of studying and understanding the world, interacting with nature, and had acquired knowledge in topics such as mathematics, astronomy, and architecture. Some of this knowledge was even more advanced than that which came from the “old continent.”
We are still learning from their ways of life to better understand present-day economics, ecology, and politics. Thus, rather than a “discovery,” we ought to refer to that episode in human history as a mutual contact of civilizations, if not a clash of cultures and a bringing together of divergent ways of thinking, knowing, and learning. First Nations who used to live in what we call “the American continent” in Spanish or “the Americas” in English, shared and fought for their territories, but also lived within their ecosystems and social groups according to their own values and ways of knowing.
