A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, he directly addressed Spanish royalty, discussing the hypocritical barbarities Spanish conquistadors committed in the name of colonization in New Spain. Las Casas based his argument off a few, isolated incidents. Las Casas definitely exaggerated his description of these incidents in order to influence the Spanish crown to protect the Native Americans in the New World. He was given credibility for his priesthood, however, his work has since been discredited by historians - his version was filled with inconsistencies. Nevertheless, he achieved his goal to defend the Native Americans, earning the formal title of “Protector of the Indians”. Las Casas’ overall message with his extravagant claims …show more content…
maintained that, “[Indian] men were free in the natural order and deserved the same treatments as others”. He cited Catholic theology as evidence – it was difficult for others to rebut the same religion they were struggling to incorporate in America. He was extremely influential in the passage of the Leyes de Burgos in 1512, the sublimus deis in 1537, and the reformed Laws of the Indies in 1542. The Laws of Burgos were created as an initial attempt at governing Spaniards’ behavior overseas. The sublimus deis, or in English, ‘from god on high’, was a papal bull issued by Pope Paul III, formally forbidding the enslavement of indigenous American people. He also continued they should not “be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside of the faith of Jesus Christ”. This document could potentially have saved important aspects of the Native American religion and perhaps many lives if it had been truly enforced. A century later, some Native populations began to grow notably weary of the Spanish oppression on their religion and their way of life. The Pueblo Revolt erupted in 1680 as a direct result of the Spanish outlaw on Kachina dances and sacred objects used by the Pueblo Indians, such as their ritual masks and prayer sticks. In the brutal attack, a sixth of all Spaniards occupying New Mexico died, alongside 23 priests. It did prove to be an efficient method for driving Spanish influences out – they did not return to New Mexico until 12 years later. Their influence continued to impact the Native Americans and their religion, as well as their native language. Spanish presence in the Southwest would not completely cease until 1821. In 1987, the Spanish pope John Paul the II, would address Spanish colonization efforts and their effects on Native Americans in recent years: The early encounter between your traditional cultures and the European way of life was an event of such significance and change that it profoundly influences your collective life even today.
That encounter was a harsh and painful reality for your peoples. The cultural oppression, the injustices, the disruption of your life and of your traditional societies must be acknowledged. At the same time, in order to be objective, history must record the deeply positive aspects of your people’s encounter with the culture that came from Europe. Among these positive aspects I wish to recall the work of the many missionaries who strenuously defended the rights of the original inhabitants of this land. They established missions throughout this southwestern part of the United States. They worked to improve living conditions and set up educational systems, learning your languages in order to do so. Above all, they proclaimed the Good News of salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ, an essential part of which is that all men and women are equally children of God and must be respected and loved as such. This gospel of Jesus Christ is today, and will remain forever, the greatest pride and possession of your …show more content…
people. He expresses regard to the introduction of Catholicism to the Native people, even though, today, Native Americans make up less than 1% of the United States’ population. A new race called ‘mestizos’ would emerge during the period of New Spain: a mix between Native Americans and Spanish settlers. Many people also died during harsh labor enforcement and introduction of foreign diseases from the Spanish population. Native languages, although great tools that aided American history during World War II, with reference to the Navajo and Comanche code talkers, would be virtually unspoken in the 21st century. Finally, a purely original Native American religion, untainted by Catholic and Christian influences, would be non-existent in the Southwest. Many fundamental native traditions were done away with the introduction of Catholicism; modern Native Americans have synthesized the beliefs of their ancestors and Spanish influences into a Catholic/Native American hybrid. The various similarities between Native American beliefs and Judeo-Christian principles becomes apparent especially when reading the story of Adam and Eve alongside creation myths for various tribes.
The Apache, for instance, believe four was the "magic number". This idea is repeated throughout their creation story. One can’t help but to connect the number to a similarly repeated and valuable number to the Judeo-Christians: three. The story paralleled the Judeo-Christian belief of the creation of one man and a woman, with the creation of the "small boy" and the "Girl-without-parents". The depictions of the all-powerful God, in both cultural instances, included a beard. This is just one simple example of the influence Spanish missionaries had on Native American
religion. The Spanish attempted to prevent the synthesis of Native American religion with Catholicism at all costs. It is apparent that their methods were nominal; today, Native Americans have combined their deeply engrained reverence for nature with readings from the Bible. According to an article by Michael O’Laughlin, roughly 25 percent of Native people of the United States are Catholics – an estimated 400,000 people. A group called the Native American Catholics was instituted in 1939. Since then, in 2012, the first Native American saint from North America, Kateri Tekakwitha, was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI. This recognition was significant in the Native American population; it marked the modern Spanish recognition and lament of Native struggles as well as the beginning of acceptance of their religion. Southwestern Native Americans faced religious oppression from the Spanish in both direct and indirect manners. Over a period of three hundred years, they experienced a bereavement of their matchless culture. The revival of many original traditions is developing, however, most modern Native Americans in the Southwest have experienced an inescapable conflict of interests between their roots and Catholic influences from Spanish rule. One Native American woman, Melody Spears, maintains, “Spirit is spirit. I don't care what tradition it is. If there's anything that helps to heal the people, I think it's really important."
The source of the first passage that I read was History of the Indies written by Bartolome de Las Casas written in 1528. Bartolome was a 16th century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar/priest, who condemned the treatment of Indians in the Spanish empire. Bartolome widely disseminated History of the Indies and helped to establish the Black Legend of Spanish cruelty (Give Me Liberty, 28). The source of the second passage that I read was the “Declaration of Josephe” which was created by Josephe on December 19, 1681, and Josephe was a Spanish-speaking Indian questioned by a royal attorney in Mexico City investigating the Pueblo Revolt, which is the revolt of the indian population, in 1680, which temporarily drove Spanish settlers out of present day New Mexico
In George E. Tinker’s book, American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty, the atrocities endured by many of the first peoples, Native American tribes, come into full view. Tinker argues that the colonization of these groups had and continues to have lasting effects on their culture and thus their theology. There is a delicate balance to their culture and their spiritual selves within their tightly knit communities prior to contact from the first European explorers. In fact, their culture and spiritual aspects are so intertwined that it is conceptually impossible to separate the two, as so many Euro-American analysts attempted. Tinker points to the differences between the European and the Native American cultures and mind sets as ultimately
In the fourth chapter titled “Native Reactions to the invasion of America” in the book, “Beyond 1492: Encounters in Colonial North America, the author James Axtell shares with us an essay he wrote and shared at a conference at Vanderbilt University. Historical accounts are followed beginning at the arrival of explorers and settlers until the 1700’s with various Native tribes in North America. Axtell’s goal is to educate us on the multitude of ways Native Americas reacted during various periods of colonization, and the various methods that the Native Americans perished. Axtell also educates us in his essay on the ways that Native Americans tried to ultimately prevent their extinction at any cost.
Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America shows that while Christians thought themselves superior to natives, both sides were diverse and could commit good, bad, or neutral behavior towards each other. Therefore, the Indians and the Christians were much more similar than different. This is apparent in de Vaca’s accounts of Indian to Indian behavior, Christian to Christian behavior, and Indian to Christian behavior (and vice-versa).
The Indigenous people of America are called Native Americans or often referred to as “Indians”. They make up about two percent of the population in the United States and some of them still live in reservations. They once lived freely in the wilderness without any sort of influence or exposure from the Europeans who later came in the year of 1492, and therefore their culture is very different from ours.. In the following essay we will discover some differences between the religious beliefs of the Native American Iroquois and Christianity to see if the culture and ways of living have an effect on the view of religion, but we will also get to know some similarities between them. I am going to be focusing on the Iroquois, which are the northeastern Native Americans who are historically important and powerful.
Bartolome de las casas: “In Defense of the Indians”(c.1550). Bartolome de Las Casas describes the treatment of Native Americans during the early settlement of the first thirteen colonies. Bartolome de las casas was a spanish historian, who in the 16th century was given the title of Protector of the Indians and sat at the Council of the Indies.Bartolome de las casas had the “intent to reveal to Spain that...its colonial rule would lead to… punishment at God 's hand” (LUNENFELD 6)This text was created to bring to light the hardship Natives went through during the Age of Exploration. Natives were badly hurt by the inflow of Europeans, and due to this faced many hardships such as disease, war, and disrupt to their way of life.In other words their
... hardships he must face. Differing from other Spanish explorers Cabeza does not use violence as a means of spreading his word and eventually gains utter respect from the Indians he interacts with and even the respect of Indians that he has never met. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Spanish explorers spread a wave of bloodshed and disease through the New World killing almost all of the natives indigenous to the land. Cabeza de Vaca stands apart from his counterparts in the fact that he used peace and kindness to win the hearts of the natives and successfully converted the Indians he met into Christians.
For many years’ native people of the North America lived in peaceful in their homelands. However, one day the lives of the Native Americans would come to an upsetting stop. In June of 1540, Hernando De Soto, a Spanish explorer to led the first European expedition deep into the United States mainland in search of god, glory and gold. Hernando set to out to conquer the empire and to capture the Aztecs, .On his next journey out as govern, he encountered the native’s people. From that day forward, natives would adapt to the settlers ways and even involved themselves in wars.
Although, Father Las Casas wrote about these historical events, we must also state that the events he wrote could be exaggeration on his part in trying to save the Indians from the Spaniards cruelty and brutality.
What he and his men did to the Indigenous people is told in horrifying detail by the Dominican priest Bartolome de Las Casas, “whose writings give the most thorough account of the Spanish-Indian encounter.” Las Casas witnessed firsthand Columbus’ soldiers stabbing Natives for sport, dashing babies’ heads on rocks, and sexually abusing Indigenous women. His testimony was corroborated by other eyewitnesses, such as a group of Dominican friars, who addressed the Spanish monarchy in 1519, hoping to bring an end to the atrocities. At the very least, Columbus was complicit in the actions of his men. He cared so little for the welfare of the Indigenous people that he let his soldiers commit reprehensible acts that would be considered crimes against humanity in the present day. Christopher Columbus’ actions suggest he had no issue with serving as an enabler of the horrifying actions committed by his men against the Indigenous
Las Casas emphasizes on three main issues throughout his account. First, in almost each chapter, Las Casas writes about the luscious qualities of the land and the different indigenous peoples that inhabit them. Second, he explains and describes in detail how the natives were rapidly being massacred by the invading Christian Europeans. Finally, Las Casas discusses how God had brought justice to the Europeans for their diabolical acts upon the natives. Las Casas, a former slave owner himself, realized that those whom he previously enslaved were just as much human and capable of learning and practicing the Christian faith as he was. As a bishop, he realized he could do little for the Natives except document his experiences (in as much detail as possible) and hope that the royal administration would have sympathy for the Natives and establish laws to protect them from the Europeans.
Surely millions of people should be able to defend themselves from outside invaders. However, that wasn’t possible for them. By 1900, only 300,000 of the population remained. Around the time the Natives encountered the Europeans, they suffered from diseases and bloodshed. Later on they were forced by the Spaniards to convert to a new religion, Christianity.
The American version of history blames the Native people for their ‘savage ' nature, for their failure to adhere to the ‘civilized norms ' of property ownership and individual rights that Christian people hold, and for their ‘brutality ' in defending themselves against the onslaught of non-Indian settlers. The message to Native people is simple: "If only you had been more like us, things might have been different for you.”
Cabeza de Vaca, like many other Spaniards, wanted to seek fortune in the new world, but things did not go as planned, and he eventually lost everything. Although he came to conquer in the name of Spain, he ended up living amongst the Native Americans in need for survival and became very close to them. Although originally the Spaniards were very narrow minded and believed the Indians were uncivilized and barbaric, Cabeza de Vaca shortly found out that they were not uncivilized, but quite the opposite. He saw that they were just as human as the Spaniards were and were no less than they were. His perception of humanity altered as a result of living with “the others.”
The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World