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History of american colonization
History of american colonization
An essay about colonisation and colonial expansion
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A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, by Bartolomé de las Casas, is an account of the atrocities committed by the Spanish against the indigenous Americans during the 16th century. This is made clear by multiple passages mentioned by the Dominican in his account. For example, towards the beginning of the document we are introduced to the island of Hispaniola (containing the modern countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and the five chiefdoms within it. These chiefdoms are listed as the first areas where the Spanish began to commit heinous crimes, such as slavery and slaughter, against the natives. These five chiefdoms are later incorporated into New Spain. Those sent into the Encomienda, the colonial labour system, are forced …show more content…
These statements make it clear that the document takes place during the 16th century. However, it should be noted that the document list virtually all the events mentioned within it as occurring in the 16th century. Nonetheless, there are other accounts within the book that allows use to see the society of that time. Although Spanish himself, De las Casas is deeply appalled by crimes being committed in the New World and advocates for abolition throughout this document. It wasn’t until the New Law of 1542 that the enslavement of natives was outlawed. Although products, such as gold and sugar, that were collected and harvested by the enslaved Indians formed an integral part of the economy of the Spanish Monarchy as mentioned in De Las Casas, the Indians themselves were not shipped across the ocean in the Transatlantic Slave Trade (the middle passage of the Triangular Trade). De Las Casas also advocates for the conversion of Indians from their traditional faith to
Anais Nin once said that “we write to taste life twice: in the moment and in retrospection.” In his book, Seven Myths of Spanish Conquest, Matthew Restall tries to change our perception of the past in other to open our eyes to what life was really like during the colonial period. As Restall puts it, the main propose of the book is to “illustrate the degree to which the Conquest was a far more complex and protracted affair” (p.154) than what was supposed in the latters and chronicles left by the conquistadores. Each one of Restall’s chapters examines one of seven myths regarding the mystery behind the conquest. By doing so, Matthew Restall forces us to look back at the Spanish conquest and question
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
This assignment examines the document entitled “Bartolomé de las Casas, from Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies.” Bartolomé de las Casas, who spent most of his time in the New World protecting the native people that lived there, authored the document in 1542. In this document Bartolome de Las Casas gives a detailed but horrific account of the atrocious behavior of the spaniards against the native people of the indies.He vividly describes the brutality brought on the natives by europeans all in the name of proclaiming and spreading Christianity.This document was originally intended for Charles I of Spain and one
Colonial Latin American society during the 16th and 17th was undergoing many changes. Society was beginning to form lasting institutions and a well defined culture emerged out of it. The Spanish Crown was now beginning to exert more control over their colonies and the Catholic Church was solidifying its place atop an already highly religious society. The Crown’s new found control would last until the independence of the colonies and the Church influence lasts in those societies up until this very day.
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
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
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.
They would kill people for seemingly no reason; they would even make games and bets from it, making their own games. “They even laid wagers on whether they could manage to slice a man in two at a stroke, or cut an individual's head from his body, or disembowel him with a single blow of their axes.”- An account from “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies”. This was not even the worst of it. “They forced their way into native settlements, slaughtering everyone they found there, including small children, old men, pregnant women, and even women who had just given birth. They hacked them to pieces, slicing open their bellies with their swords as though they were so many sheep herded into a pen.”. Yet, these are still not perhaps even the greatest atrocities committed by the European invaders of
The first instance of colonialism forced upon the inhabitants of the Dominican Republic was the “discovery” by Christopher Columbus on October 12, 1492. Ernesto Sagas and Orlando Inoa presented the interaction in their book The Dominican People: A Documentary History. The confrontation between these two diametrically opposed cultures proved to be “far from equal; the Amerindians’ Stone Age culture was no match for European military technology. The initial encounter took place on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, part of which is now the Dominican Republic” (Inoa pg. 1). This was the first step in a trek through five and a half centuries of Dominican Republic history, and unfortunately much of it was filled with the horror of colonialism. In fact, the Dominican Republic became the “hub” for the colonization of the America’s, and acted as the stepping-stone for European colonizers into a vast, never before exploited goldmine for both natural and human resources. As Sagas and Inoa discuss, the island of Hispaniola, "became the center of the Spanish colonial enterprise in the New World. It was in Hispaniola where the first major contacts between Europeans and Amerindians took place, where the first exploitative economic activities in the New World were developed, where Europeans first established permanent settlements and colonial institutions, and where the stage was set for the colonization of the rest of the New World (Inoa pg. 1.)." Thus the groundwork was established for colonialism not only for the Dominican Republic, but for the entire hemisphere. According to Sagas and Inoa, colonization was inevitable because interaction with Europeans was predictable. They wrote, “[i]f Christopher Columbus had...
Based on the relacion by Las Casas, a short account of the destruction of the Indies: discuss the arguments presented by the author on behalf of the native population. Evaluate the arguments, what evidence did Las Casas omit from his account? Be specific and provide examples and references.
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.