Trying to Keep What's Yours: The Pearl

6TH 2016
M. Surface 
The Pearl Quote

  
   The brothers, as they walked along, squinted their eyes a little, as they and their grandfathers and their great-grandfathers had done for four hundred years, since first the strangers came with argument and authority and gunpowder to back up both. And in the four hundred years Kino's people had learned only one defense - a slight slitting of the eyes and a slight tightening of the lips and a retirement. Nothing could break down this wall, and they could remain whole within the wall.

 This means that people came and tried to start wars with the Indians. The Indians had to learn keep their mouth shut because they didn't have the weapons that the other people had. The people that came to take over the land were fully equipped. The Indians didn't have the things that they did.
  
This is important to the story because it gives some background info and tells how it used to be when Kino's grandfather was young, and how it effected them and how it still effects Kino's life. 

A real life example would be when slavery existed. The black people had to learn to keep their mouths shut and not to disobey the white people. They were mistreated and had things taken from them. They faced a lot of problems just like the Indians.