In Defense Of The Indians Argumentative Essay

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The discovery of America and its' ingenious people by Christopher Columbus in 1492 led to a debate about how to deal with the ingenious people. The main concern about the Indians was that they did not practice Christianity as their religion. The debate about how to Christianize the Indians of America were headed up by two main schools of thought: peaceful conversion of the Indians to Christianity or concurring the Indians and forcing them to accept Christianity as their religion.

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda was a strong supporter of the idea that the best way to Christianize the Indians was to first conquer them, then subject them to Spanish rule and Christianity. I believe that this is partly due to the manner in which he viewed the Indians. He viewed them as “barbaric” and “uncivilized”. I fell that de Sepúlveda views the …show more content…

De las Casas shares the Columbus' view of the Indians as peaceful people. De las Casas states that the Indians “are of such gentleness and decency” more so “than the other nations of the entire world. Columbus and de las Casas both believe that the Indians are willing and fully capable of dropping their current religious belief and learning and accepting Christianity.
De las Casas believes that it is morally wrong to wage war against the Indians. I agree with de las casa belief that ware would be morally wrong. First the Indians has not do anything to the Spaniards and are not deserving of war for no particular reason. I fell that waging war does not model the Christian beliefs and behaviors that the Spaniards want to teach and have the Indians adopt. De las Casas brings up and interesting point that waging war on the Indians would cause the Indians to resent Spain. This potentially could make Indians less receptive to Christian

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