Hernan Cortes's Campaign Against Machu Picchu

From the moment Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico and began his campaign against the Aztec empire, the people of the new world were doomed to be conquered by both technological and biological means. Smallpox, a disease that had never been experienced in America before the arrival of the Europeans devastated large scale native populations. The abandonment of the famous lost city of Machu Picchu stands as a famous example of the devastation of native populations.
By 1515, the Spanish had conquered large swathes of territory in South America including the modern day Dominican Republic. In these territories administered by the Spanish Empire, slavery was a major institution (one inherited from the Romans and the Moors, previous occupants of the Iberian Peninsula). At the time of the Romans, slavery had never been about race or religion, but rather a slave was a victim of their own poor luck. When the Spanish conquered their colonies, they saw

themselves as modern day crusaders. Many of these conquistadors had parents and grandparents who had driven the Muslims out of Spain during the Reconquista, and thus they used the same brutal tactics.
After the conquest of Hispaniola, the Spaniards thought they were doing the Lord’s work by converting the natives and utilizing the encomienda system, a system in which Spanish colonists were given land and the right to force labor of the native people so long as in return they instructed them in faith. However, many Spanish colonists abused this system. The Spaniards did not value the lives of the Natives. There were Spaniards who treated the natives with brutality, and there were Spaniards who felt sorry for the natives, however neither valued the natives enough to place the health and wellbeing of the native people above their own interests. They were also preoccupied with looting the land for any riches that they could (ostensibly to spread the faith but really to battle other European powers in a series of deadly wars).
Dominican priest, Friar Bartolome De Las Casas utilized the encomienda system until 1514 when he freed his native slaves and devoted his life to speaking out against native brutality. He would argue against the encomienda system to ensure that the Natives would no longer be enslaved. His arguments would eventually lead to persuading Charles V to promote the New Laws of 1542, which were intended to deprive the Spaniards of the encomienda system.
The authority that Friar De Las Casas held was granted to him by the authority of the church.

In Spain at the time, the church had authority second only to the crown. The position of a Catholic priest was well-nigh unassailable in the world of the Spanish empire. In fact Spanish priests led the Spanish inquisition, purging society in Spain of Jews, unreligious peoples and those who disagreed with the church. A group that was capable of policing society separate from the power of the government and the monarch had a great amount of power in society and people looked up to priests as role models.
However, Friar De Las Casas with his sermons against the greed of the colonists threatened the established order of the Spanish colonies. This established order ensured the flow of money and resources to the Spanish empire, thus allowing it to grow. When Friar De Las Casas questioned the institution of slavery in the colonies and the systematic brutalities inflicted upon the natives, he was really criticizing the Spanish empire at

large.
However, Friar De Las Casas had crossed the line by questioning an institution that was vital to the economy of the Spanish empire even though that very institution involved very un-Christian practices such as murder, slavery, rape and thievery of native objects such as gold and other precious materials. If one were to look at the conditions for the natives in Hispaniola, it would be easy to understand why Friar De Las Casas spoke out so fervently against the treatment of the natives. Living every day wondering whether the Spanish man who practically owned you would decide to murder you if for no other reason than that you were in his way. This sermon and document describing Native brutality had the very simple purpose of showing to the civilized world the cruelties inflicted by the Spanish.