1491

Hand-carved Alabaster  - W58 x D19.5 x 20H cm

For thousands of years ancient civilisations and cultures thrived throughout the Americas, including Incas, Mayas, Aztecs, Chibchas and all Native American peoples from the far south to the far north. In 1492 Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean, opening the door to the gifts of European civilisation. These gifts were to include colonisation, slavery, smallpox, war, rape, murder, theft, pillage, genocide, and the eradication of almost every native civilisation and culture that inhabited these vast lands. The Americas stood unknowingly at the end of their world in the year of our Lord, 1491.