ABSTRACT
The histories of the Americas begin long before 1492. The space that was later to be called the “Western Hemisphere” was inhabited by innumerous people when Christopher Columbus arrived in Guanahani on October 12 of that year, and lands in the far West had been in the European imagination for centuries. There is hardly any event in world history that equals the discovery of America in terms of the status it held in Europe for centuries as an undisputed historical turning point. European empires became the colonial masters of alien and far remote peoples whom they oppressed and exploited in a bloody manner. The indigenous communities and empires on the mainland were to react differently again and in very diverse ways to the European invaders. Closely tied to the Enlightenment and to the French Revolution, the ideas of freedom and equality spread. America was the continent that saw the first successful anticolonial liberation movements.
