Perceived Gods
Think about the way that Native and European perceive each other.
Columbus thought that Natives perceived Europeans as gods, and Michael Wood repeats the old commonplace that Moctezuma thought that Cortes was Quetzalcoatl returned.
And yet if Natives perceived Europeans as gods, it didn’t last long, given that they often did rebel, flee, resist, etc.
Do you think there’s any truth to this notion of Natives thinking that Europeans were gods? If so, why might this have been the case? If not, why might Europeans have frequently said that this was the case?