Are there any good accounts of Westerners thoughts and experiences

>>2427988
Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (The True History of the Conquest of New Spain) by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

Naufragios by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

>>2428094
Whiteness was a quality more related to the land and climate and than the people. The more similar the climate and land to Europe the more equal the people to Europeans, for until the age of exploration they thought that no civilization could possibly develop in tropical regions.

>"This king and all the others go around naked just as their mothers gave birth to them and so do the women without any remorse, but they are the most beautiful men and women to been ever found, extremely white, and if they dressed and keep away from the air and sun, they would be almost as white as in Spain: For this land is quite cold and the best a tongue can describe, very high and for the most part arable by beasts."

>"In this island of Trinidad and in the land of Gracia I found a very kind temperate climate and the lands and trees very green and as beautiful as the april orchards in Valencia and the people there of very nice height and white, more than any I've seen in the Indies, with very long and straight hair and the most clever and cunning and no cowardly at all."
-Columbus, first letter of relation to the kings of Spain

On the same note, the acceptance of the christian faith by the Caribbeans contributed to these descriptions, while black people were mistreated for it was thought they had no soul since they refused to convert.

>>2428675
Eventually these early descriptions were ignored and (as you can see in Valignano's speech) replaced by disputes of discredit which reached their height during the 18th century, in which many European naturalists discredited the New World as entirely incapable of civilization by itself, reinforcing its necessity of European rule.

>"At Quebec, for example, which is under the same degree of latitude with Paris, the rivers freeze every year some feet thick; a coat of snow still thicker covers the land for several months; the air is so cold that the birds fly off and disappear during the winter, &c. This difference of temperature under the same latitude in the Temperate Zone, though very considerable, is perhaps still less than the difference of heat under the Torrid Zone [the Tropics]. In Senegal, the sun is perfectly scorching; while in Peru, which lies under the same line, an agreeable temperature prevails. The same remark applies to all the other latitudes."
(...)
>"In the savage (Native American), the organs of generation are small and feeble. He has no hair, no beard, no ardour for the female. Though nimbler than the European, because more accustomed to running, his strength is not so great. His sensations are less acute; and yet he is more timid and cowardly. He has no vivacity, no activity of mind."
(...)
In these melancholy regions, Nature remains concealed under her old garments, and never exhibits herself in fresh attire; being neither cherished nor cultivated by man, she never opens her fruitful and beneficent womb "
(...)
>"One must be astonished that the American continent has not yet produced one good poet, one able mathematician, on man of genius in a single art or a single science."
- Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière by Georges Louis LeClerc Count of Buffon.