Quotes from Tongues Long Vanished

On my last AP quiz, I got an 83%, of which I am desperately ashamed. I figure the reason I do so poorly is because I don't really "get" history. Sure, I understand the facts and such, but I have a hard time connecting what happened then to what happens now. I need to remember that these were REAL PEOPLE with actual THOUGHTS and FEELINGS. Enter shock.
Here are some quotes from my history book that kind of made me think twice about calling history dead and dry:

"I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent which was hitherto unknown...Your Highnesses have an Other World here." -- Christopher Columbus (Really, Chris? Really? You're trying to impress nobles of another nation and all you can say is some vague almost-compliment about "an Other World?" If I was them, I'd be more than a little confused.)

"Who of those in future centuries will believe this (destruction of the Native Americans?) I myself who am writing this and saw it and know the most about it can hardly believe that such was possible." -- Bartolome de Las Casas

(Compared to the following quote by Charlotte Delbo about the Holocaust.)

"I'm not alive. People believe memories grow vague, are erased by time, since nothing endures against the passage of time. That's the difference; time does not pass over me, over us. It doesn't erase anything, doesn't undo it. I'm not alive. I died in Auschwitz but no one knows it."

"A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking pit thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit (Hell) which is bottomless." -- King James I (At least SOMEONE had his head screwed on right!)

"The Negroes are so wilful and loth to leave their own country, that have often leap'd out of the canoes, boat and ship, into the sea, and kept underwater till they were drowned, to avoid being taken up and saved by our boats, which pursued them; they haveing a more dreadful apprehension of Barbadoes than we can have of hell." -- A random sailor. (I'm afraid I have to agree with what one of my classmates said about the miniseries Roots; it almost makes you ashamed to be white.)

"There is a saying, that we should do to all men like as we will be done ourselves...But to bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against...Pray, what thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries, separating husbands from their wives and children?" -- Mennonites in Germantown, Pennsylvania (Sentiments which have been echoed time and again, across the world.)

And finally, an excerpt from a child's hornbook:

NOW THE CHILD BEING ENTRED (?) IN HIS LETTERS AND SPELLING, LET HIM LEARN THESE AND SUCH-LIKE SENTENCES BY HEART, WHEREBY HE WILL BE BOTH INSTRUCTED IN HIS DUTY, AND ENCOURAGED IN HIS LEARNING.

THE DUTIFUL CHILD'S PROMISES:

I will fear GOD (I love how GOD is always capitalised) and honour the KING.
I will honour my Father and Mother.
I will Obey my Superiours.
I will Submit to my Elders.
I will Love my Friends.
I will hate no Man.
I will forgive my Enemies, and pray to God for them.
I will as much in me lies keep all God's Holy Commandments.

And what happens to the Undutiful Child?


...well. One doesn't talk about such things.

I'll keep putting up interesting stuff I come across throughout the year.