Week 03 Journal – Art from West Africa

I think the part about these Eurocentric narratives, it is described that the explorers “discovered” these continents as if the continents have not been settled by others. The history is written from a Eurocentric perspective and only emphasizes on that view thus, many other perspectives from other travellers and thus, History isn’t fully revealed. Thus, having a biased narrative continue to shape our “history” of the world can be misleading as readers would only have knowledge about one side of the story and only remember an Eurocentric “famous” explorer. Thus, this emphasizes of how people should continue to be critical about the information they take; different way of seeing, and find out more of the full narrative.

From research, the narrative doesn’t mention that the leftover fleet were guided to BruneiBorneo, by Moro pilots, who could navigate the shallow seas.

Another person missing from the Eurocentric narratives is the the people of Moluccas who helped them set sail the “well-established westward route” back to Spain.  Magellan’s fleet to found a route that circles the globe – the first circumnavigation of the world because of going through that strait.
From research, the fleet had traded with the Sultan of Tidore, a rival of the Sultan of Ternate, who was the ally of the Portuguese in Moluccas.
And because it was mentioned in class that the Arab traders, Chinese traders and others who dominated the ocean, it can be concluded that their trade with the Sultan may have traded valuable knowledge from these traders. Therefore, with that knowledge, the fleet was able to travel back to Spain. It shows how connected the world was before the recording of Magellan’s fleet crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.

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Zerline Jade

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