A Christian Missionary Named Bartolome De Las Casas

This section highlights that history has created a false narrative depicting the natives as a victimized people, which they were to some extent but only in the fashion that they did not possess the same technology for warfare, immunity of communal diseases transmitted, and they were not anticipating combat. All other factors considered, the natives stood to be a potential threat. In regards to knowledge obtained by Spaniards prior to arrival and knowledge gained from observation, it would be remiss had they not prepared for battle. This argument is not to be misconstrued in approving their actions; I do recognize colonization as an evil for both the reasons employed and its damaging effects, but rather to change the narrative surrounding that of the native people. While they did experience a tragedy, I feel that it is erroneous to write them into history as being incompetent resulting from their

Convinced of the superiority of Catholicism to all other religions, Spain insisted that the primary goal of colonization was to save the Indians from heathenism and prevent them from falling under the sway of Protestantism. The aim was neither to exterminate nor to remove the Indians, but to transform them into obedient Christian subjects of the crown. To the Spanish colonizers, the large native populations of the Americas were not only souls to be saved but also a labor force to be organized to extract gold and silver that would enrich their mother country. Las Casas’ writings and the abuses they exposed contributed to the spread of the Black Legend-the image of Spain as a uniquely brutal and exploitative colonizer. This would provide of a potent justification for other European powers to challenge Spain’s predominance in the New World.

de la Casas describes the second voyage that he embarked upon with Columbus. He described how each island was depopulated and destroyed. His observations of the land were no so descriptive of the native people and the land, but of the gruesome images the Spanish painted upon the Indies. de la Casas says, “…the Indians realize that these men had not come from Heaven (9).” He goes into detail about how the Christians would take over villages and had no mercy describing one particularly crude act to show how ruthless the Spanish were. He says, “Then they behaved with such temerity and shamelessness that the most powerful ruler of the islands had to see his own wife raped by a Christian officer (9).” The Spanish were so coward and angry anytime an Indian was actually capable of slaying a Spanish man that a rule was made; for every Christian slain, a hundred Indians would die. Natives were captured and forced to work jobs like pearl diving where they would very rarely survive due to man eating sharks or just from drowning and holding their breaths

Casas has a positive attitude towards the natives although it is extremely apparent that those around him do not feel the same. He wants to improve the relations between them and the so – called Spanish Christians, which is why he is writing about these horrors. His approach in improving the relations is to write a brutally honest account of what he witnessed to share with others. He wants the Spanish to realize the brutality they have bestowed upon the natives is unsettling and barbaric for people who call themselves civilized. In this writing, he doesn’t outright tell anyone what to do, but it is implied that he wants the murders and slavery of the natives to end. His story portrays the negative relations between the natives and Europeans from the very beginning of the discovery of the New World.

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.

Christopher Columbus and Bartolome de la Casas are similar in most ways but have a major difference. They were both explorers of the New World and came to convert the natives into Catholics. The two explorers worked on the Spanish’s behalf. Columbus wrote accounts of the New World in his journal. La Casas wrote the Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies. Both gave accounts of the native people they saw. Columbus’s journal entries aim to give a positive light on the Spanish and their relationship with the natives. La Casas’s Brief Account does the opposite. While this is true, both explores worked faithfully in favor of the Catholic Church, but they each held different beliefs on the treatment of natives as slaves.

While many native hybridized Christianity into their own beliefs, others resisted Christianity in order to maintain traditional beliefs. In the Huejotzingo letter, the town council mentioned that, “(The People of) many towns were forced and tortured, were hanged or burned because they did not want to leave idolatry, and unwilling they received the gospel and faith.” (236). Under colonial mindset and the concept of “just war” via the Requerimiento, the Spanish forcibly converted natives into Christianity. The Tlaxcalans, for example, hybridized European practices, such as baptism, into their religious beliefs because of their defeat against the Spanish. In the paintings shown through the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (125), governors of Tlaxcala are being baptized in order to emphasize their conversions and loyalty. Throughout the painting, tropes of military technology, through the drawings of iron lances, and Christianity, through the cross with Jesus crucified and the picture of

Thus, New Spain and New France’s main problems dealt with their men having sexual relations with the Native American women. The main problem for New Spain was the continuous sexual assaults against the Native American women. The men of New Spain were soldiers helping Franciscans convert Native Americans, residing in now a days California, to Christianity (“Father Luis Jayme” 36). The reasons for the sexual assaults are due to the differences in sexual culture. Europeans follow a patriarchal system and therefore the female is inferior and often viewed as property to the male in the European culture (Castaneda 54-55). The soldiers viewed the women as someone beneath them. Another big difference is that the soldiers used “rape...as an act of domination, an act of power” while Native American warriors by no means had an sexual relations of the enemy women (Castaneda 53). Rape was viewed as an act of power because the men defiled the women, which in turn demonstrated to the Native American men that their women or “property” could easily be taken from them or at least this was the view of the soldiers. As stated by Theda Perdue, “Spaniards seized women as they seized other spoils of war” (40). Thus by sexually assaulting the women the soldiers were fulfilling their duty to control the land and the Native Americans, while the Franciscans attempted to convert the Native

Still deeply concerned about the Indians' plight, Las Casas went back to Spain in 1540 where he spearheaded a drive to reform laws that regulated relations between the races.

Christopher Columbus, an italian born navigator, commandeered a daring search for India in the name of Spain. His mission was to spread Catholicism and open a Western sea route to trade with India. Columbus accidentally sailed upon what is now Cuba and Hispaniola. Taking advantage of this unexpected occurrence, Columbus brought the Word of God to the heathens living on the islands. Of course, this account before is a grotesque misconception of what was to follow Columbus’s embarkation of the Caribbean and North America: the largest genocide in history. David Stannard’s book, The American Genocide, is an accurate depiction of the events.

As little kids one of the few lessons that we first learn is about knowing the difference between our rights and our wrongs. Little did we know that was the introduction to becoming a person of morality. To be moral is defined as the principles and beliefs of someone’s behavior concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do. This was exhibited in the story of Bartolome de la Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indes. Many historians characterized De las Casa as a moral person because of his deliberation of the invation of the Indians.

In his treatise as well as Cruelties of Spaniards, Bartolomé Las Casas supported the Native Americans by explaining that they were just as human as the Spaniards were. He states in his treatise that “…it is unlikely that anyone will resist the preaching of the gospel and the Christian doctrine.” Because he has been in the New World, he has seen the acceptance of Catholicism from the Natives, unlike the crown whom have never seen such cooperation. He continues by taking shots at the Spaniard colonists who fought with the Natives, even though their kings “have prohibited wars against the Indians of the Indies…” It’s rather confusing to find out where Las Casas

In 11th Century, The Spanish Empire sent men to conquer the Americas and they discovered natives in the area. As a result of their interactions with the natives, a debate as to how they should treat or interact with the natives got to a boiling point, and was settled in a debate in Valladolid in 1550, with two men defending either side of the world’s first debate on morality. One of these men was Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican Catholic friar who spent some time with the American Natives, and debated to defend them against any harsh rule or handling by the hands of the Spanish. On the other end was Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, an Aristotelian philosopher, argued for the enslavement of these natives due to the superiority of the Spanish over them. They both held strong convictions about their arguments, however Las Casas argument was made more effectively because he was more rational in his argument. Alternatively, Sepúlveda chose an exaggerated appeal to emotions as his approach for the argument he was making.

The journey on my first voyage began through the Americas, I know it would be a long route and the directions to my discovery will be of great importance. Yet I was scared, but anticipated the unforeseen challenge in the sea and land that was to be conquered for the King and Queen of Spain. The Highnesses, as Catholic Christians and Princes who love the holy Christian faith, and the propagation of it, and who are enemies to the sect of Mahoma and to all idolatries and heresies, resolved to send me. (Archives, 2003) .That uncharted land that I was about to conquer for my Highnessess and the christianizing of the people was the task ahead of my four day journey. As I set foot on unchartered territory everything that I saw was keenly observed

When he landed on the small Island, natives greeting them with generosity. In one hand, he saw the opportunity to convert the natives that he called “Indians” into the Christianity in the name of the Christian church. On the other hand, he realized that the natives were friendly and illiterate because they did not have arms and iron to defend themselves, “They should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly everything that is said to them”. Last, Columbus and the King of Spain intentions were to find gold and natural resources to enrich Europeans, because he noted that natives were wearing jewelry and ornaments. (Fraser 29).