CHANGING FRONTIERS
Native American Indian tribes had their own histories, which they searched to explain the European's arrival, but history conceived as an inquiry starts in America with Western man's attempt to describe his first sight of the new continent, so strik- ing to him in his cultural isolation. The early Spanish reports spread the news of islands different from anything in Europe, luxuriant, extraordinarily rich in exotic animals, plants, and minerals. The simple life of the inhabitants recalled to Euro-...