A brief account of the destruction of the Indies.
This account is a voice to create awareness for the silent indigenous people. It is a real account of what was happening in the new world real world. It was written by the bishop Don Bartolommeo de las Casas to inform the lord the Emperor. He talks about what is happening to the Indies, “Some of the things that have occurred in the Indies, however, are quite terrible, the slaughter of innocent people, the depopulation of entire villages, provinces, and kingdoms, and many other acts, on less horrifying’ (P:8) He also brings the topic of why, this so called Christians were acting like savagery. Their humanity was degraded by their greed, they were never content with the wickedness they have committed. On page 11 he talks about the some of the possible explanations to why this people committed this horrific acts. “The reason that the Christians have slain an infinite number of souls has been the desire to take the Indians gold, to enrich, themselves quickly, and to raise themselves up to the high social ranks that bears no relation to their humble origins in Spain.”
General history of the Indies.
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This is a secondary source written by Francisco Lopez de Gomara who never went and visited the Indies. HIs writing is very biased, right from the beginning can sense his negative attitude towards the Indians. He is very judgmental and criticizes the Indians for their traditions and culture. He also compares it to their county and says, “They do not have writing or money or beast or burden things necessary for the well-ordered life or making… They do not know our true God, they commit the greatest sin of idolatry and human sacrifice, eating human flesh conversing with the devil…” (P: 14)It is kind of ironic that he has a very good attitude towards the land, climate and overall nature, however he is portraying this people as some sort of savages or animals. To the people or the audience this creates this idea of “we are better than this people. Look at the land they live in, it is paradise. Let's go and manage this people, and if they don't cooperate they are no better than animals.” Chronicle of New Spain This is again another account that despises Native Indians.
It was written by Francisco Cervantes de Salazar a professor at the University of new Mexico arguing that Native Americans are over all lazy, gullible, slow. They are given an animal type view, they think they are dumb and they treat them like an animal. “Furthermore, as servants they respond only to threat of punishment, and fear alone motivates them to do a job well, so they have little respect for any master who is not stern enough or who treats them affectionately.” (P17) The intention here is to dehumanize the Natives and enslaved them in their own land. He is talking with a mad attitude in how the Natives are not fit people and that they are not giving them the proper respect, however in reality the Indians should be the ones that should have rights to get mad
. The true history of the conquest of New Spain. These account was written by one of Cortes followers, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, about their first encounter of the City of Mexico, and the surrounding cities. They were very amazed by the magnificent scenery, they were captured by the way the way the city was built. These magnificent city with full big building was built over a lake. The Spaniards were not the only ones that were amazed at that moment. The Indians were also very surprised to see white people. They were especially captured horses before, they never seen men on a horses before. Even though they were warned to not enter the city, Cortes and his men did. That magnificent moment entering the city and meeting Montezuma is a memory that Catillo holds on to for the rest of his life. A general history of New Spain This account is a collection of many indigenous elders testimony written by Bernardino de Sahagun. It is about the first time the indigenous people encountered Cortes and his people. Montezuma welcomes Cortes and his people to the city, however later he is kidnapped as a hostage for food, resources, and gold. Later Cortes and his people ransack the city of all it’s gold, and leaving the city in terror by killing their king.
`Black Robe" tells the story of the first contacts between the Huron Indians of Quebec and the Jesuit missionaries from France who came to convert them to Catholicism, and ended up delivering them into the hands of their enemies. Those first brave Jesuit priests did not realize, in the mid-17th century, that they were pawns of colonialism, of course; they were driven by a burning faith and an absolute conviction that they were doing the right thing. Only much later was it apparent that the European settlement of North America led to the destruction of the original inhabitants, not their salvation.
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 An Account, Much Abbreviated, of The Destruction of The Indies, the author is giving an introduction on Bartolome De Las Casas who was a Christian missionary at the time of the Spaniards discovering the New World. He had a rather self-taught oriented theology, philosophy and law. He went to Hispaniola ten years after its discovery in 1502 ; in Santo Domingo he was ordained priest in 1512 and a year later he went as a chaplain in the expedition that conquered Cuba . After going to Hispaniola years after Columbus settled there, he did not support what the Spaniards did to the indigenous people. From 1551 until his death , Las Casas role was to bring the complaints to the authorities of the indigenous population of the Spanish America. Dissatisfied
Through the entire article, de las Casas discusses how great the Indians of the New World are. In paragraph 2 he states: "And all the infinite universe of humanity, these people are the most guileless, the most devoid of wickedness and duplicity, the most obedient and faithful to their native masters and to the Spanish Christians whom they serve. They are by nature the most humble, patient, and peaceable, holding no grudges, free from embroilments, neither excitable nor quarrelsome. These people are the most devoid of rancors, hatreds, or desire for vengeance of any people in the world. And because they are so weak and complaisant, they are less able to endure heavy labor and soon die of no matter what malady. The sons of nobles among us, brought up in the enjoyments of life 's refinements, are no more delicate than are these Indians, even those among them who are of the lowest rank of laborers.” They are also poor people, for they not only possess little but have no desire to possess worldly goods. For this reason they are not arrogant, embittered, or
One of the most interesting aspects of Diaz’s narrative is towards the end when Cortés broaches the subject of Christianity with Montezuma. Conversion and missionary work was one of the most important and lasting goals of the conquistadors and other contemporary explorers, they were charged with this duty by the rulers who sent t...
Native American civilization was not always a pit of terror and agonizing torture for every single being. The Spanish arrived in Hispaniola, during the early 1500, with the seemingly good intention of introducing to the indigenous the Christian faith. Unfortunately, their mission turned into an almost complete annihilation of a culture unlike their own. Bartolome de la Casas, depicts a graphic and ultimately disturbing castings of the happenings during their expedition. The Spanish Christians involved in these happenings can be seen as hypocritical, heartless, and close minded. Although, in the minds of these men, they were completing their God assigned duties, such as
Of the text named Bartolome de las casas: In Defense of the Indians(c.1550) it covers what is to be the Spanish Conquistadores, and talks of the natives to which at the time seen by many are barbaric, ignorant, incapable of learning, just another group of people to be conquered. But to the Catholic missionaries they see the Natives as new people to influence and enlighten. But if at any time the person drops the belief of Christianity they would use deadly force against the person or family. Adding to that Hernán comments that their cities are “ worth of admiration because of its building, which are like those of Venice”(Poole 4). While the argument remain if really would the Natives had stood a chance what
The rhetor for this text is Luther Standing Bear. He was born in 1868 on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He was raised as a Native American until the age on eleven when he was taken to Carlisle Indian Industrial School: an Indian boarding school. After graduating from the boarding school, he returned to his reservation and now realized the terrible conditions under which they were living. Standing Bear was then elected as chief of his tribe and it became his responsibility to induce change (Luther Standing Bear). The boarding schools, like the one he went to, were not a fair place to be. The Native American children were forced to go there and they were not taught how to live as a European American; they were taught low level jobs like how to mop and take out trash. Also, these school were very brutal with punishment and how the kids were treated. In the passage he states, “More than one tragedy has resulted when a young boy or girl has returned home again almost an utter stranger. I have seen these happenings with my own eyes and I know they can cause naught but suffering.” (Standing Bear 276). Standing Bear is fighting for the Indians to be taught by Indians. He does not want their young to lose the culture taught to them from the elders. Standing Bear also states, “The old people do not speak English and never will be English-speaking.” (Standing Bear 276). He is reinforcing the point that he believes that they
De Vaca’s experience is a humbling one. His account of Indian life is written in a thoughtful manner, and he describes the Indians kindly. While he describes his captivity as “melancholy and wretched” (De Vaca 34), it’s clear that he harbors no ill feelings towards the Indians. He states that he and his men were treated well, that they lived as “free agents” (De Vaca 32) and tried to accustom themselves to Indian life. He’s highly observant of the Indian life. He records the Indian lifestyles in detail; his account reads more like a cultural anthropology study. His account of Indian life ends on a sympathetic note towards the Indians especially after he realizes his misjudgment of the Christians. “We often misjudge the motives of men,” de Vaca writes, “We thought we had effected the Indians’ liberty, when the Christians were but poising to pounce (De Vaca 36).”
“on the following day the Indians from the village came to see us, and though they spoke to us we did not understand them, for we had no interpreter, but they made many signs and threatening gestures, and we thought they were telling us to leave their land; and on this the...
The discovery and conquest of American Indians inspired efforts to develop an ideology that could justify why they needed to enslave the Indians. The Spanish monarch wanted an ideal empire. "A universal empire, of which all their subjects were but servants. Charles V remained for them the dominus mundi, the legitimate and God-ordained lord of the world." (Weckmann, The Transit of Civilization, 23) Gold and religious conversion was the two most important inspirations for conquistadors in conquering America. Father Bartolome De Las Casas was a Dominican priest who came to the New World to convert the Indians to become Christians. He spent forty years on Hispanolia and nearby islands, and saw how the Spaniards brutally treated the Indians and sympathized with them. The Devastation of the Indies was an actual eyewitness account of the genocide by Las Casas, and his group of Dominican friars in which he demonizes the Spanish colonists and praises the Indians. Father Las Casas returned to Seville, where he published his book that caused an on going debate on whether the suppression of the Indians corrupted the Spaniards' values. What Las Casas was trying to achieve was the notion of human rights, that human beings are free and cogent by nature without the interference of others.
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
Bartolomé de Las Casas was born in 1484 AD in Seville and died in 1566 in Madrid. In the ending of the 15th century and the beginning of 16th, he came to America and become a “protector of Indian”. In 1542, most based on his effort, Spain has passed the New Law, which prohibit slaving Indians (Foner, p. 7). In 1552, he published the book A Short Account of the Destruction of The Indies.
In A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé de Las Casas vividly describes the brutality wrought on the natives in the Americas by the Europeans primarily for the purpose of proclaiming and spreading the Christian faith. Las Casas originally intended this account to reach the royal administration of Spain; however, it soon found its way into the hands of many international readers, especially after translation. Bartolomé de Las Casas illustrates an extremely graphic and grim reality to his readers using literary methods such as characterization, imagery, amplification, authorial intrusion and the invocation of providence while trying to appeal to the sympathies of his audience about such atrocities.
From Spain's early arrival in the Caribbean through their establishment of the Spanish empire indigenous people were exploited through cheap, slave like labor. One of the most incredible subjects raised by the documents presented in Colonial Spanish America is the topic of Labor Systems that were imposed on the indigenous people. Spain tried to excuse this exploitation by claiming to save these indigenous people by teaching them the ways of Christ but many of the Articles in Colonial Spanish America, Struggle & Survival, and The Limits of Racial Domination prove otherwise. Through letters, personal stories, and other documents these books present accounts that tell about the labor system used in this area. They tell of the Spanish labor systems such as the encomiendos and later rapartamientos and how these operations were run.