De Las Casas Genocide

¬¬Marissa Bracey World History and Voices Ms. Phillips & Mr. Cline May 5, 2015 Holodomor: The Eight stages of Genocide Genocide is a term that was created in 1944 to describe violence against a specific ethnical, racial, national, or religious group with the intent to destroy or wipe out that entire group. This is an unfortunate event that has caused millions of casualties and left even more in grief. The famine-genocide of Ukraine took place over the span of 16 long years, killing over 7 million farmers and families, over one third of the lives lost were children. Joseph Stalin is to blame for the horrors caused in Ukraine, his communist ways and power hungry drive allowed him to force millions of farmers out of their land and into poverty.

Casas became a priest after he saw the injustice that the Indians were enduring. He also proposed to abandon the slave system.

De Las Casas did not like how the natives were treated. Although, he released his slaves. De Las Casas gave up his dream of becoming rich. He felt so strongly about the bad treatment of the natives that he just could not be apart of it. In addition, he became a spokesperson for the natives. De Las Casas risked being shunned by his peers. He did this because witnessing this infernal treatment first hand was too much to have on his conscience. Furthermore, De Las Casas became a priest. He felt that he needed forgiveness for the tragedies that he was involved with. De Las Casas wanted to be able to stop the horrific tragedies that the Christians were doing and his way of doing so was with help from the almighty. De Las Casas wasn’t just a good person he

He uses the example of how the Romans conquered the Spaniards in the Caesar Augustus era. The Romans used the same ideology that Sepulveda, another dictator, uses to justify mistreatment of the Indians by making them change their ways of life and conforming to Roman culture. ( Pg 3). He quotes Trogus Pompey as evidence for this information and the same ideologies that Sepulveda uses. He asks Sepulveda questions such as “ Did the Spanish wage an unjust war when they vigorously defended themselves against them?” ( Pg 4) De Las Casas wants Sepulveda to feel ignorant because he truly believes Sepulveda would not have liked it if it happened to him because he feels as though the Spanish are superior, so if older conquistadores thought wrongly about the Spaniards, then Sepulveda is doing the exact wrong doing by believing the same about the Native Americans. De Las Casas actually acknowledges the many strengths of the Native Americans. When describing their skills, he says “ The Indian race is not that barbaric , nor are they dull witted or stupid, but they are easy to teach and very talented in learned all the liberal arts…. “ ( Pg 4) For De Las Casas to acknowledge this was the first step in promoting equality per se and trying to challenge / eliminate stereotypes. He was able to identify the capabilities of Native Americans and challenged basically the idea of what is normal

Document 1 states that going against the almighty God would bring them war against them. Disobedience will result the taking of their “wives and your children.” They would enslave them and eventually murder them, but it would be viewed as “your fault,” your meaning the Indian’s. This comes to show how much the Spanish stressed the Christian conversion. They so dearly want to preach to them. In accordance to them, their decline would leave them wishing “to be converted.” In document 2, it is said that Cortez wished to “follow” the Holy Cross with faith and Indian

As soon as Columbus met the native people of the Bahama Islands, he placed possessional value on them instead of valuing them as humans. He wrote, “They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” Zinn page 1. The indigenous people showered these strangers with gifts, and what did they gain by doing so? They gained nothing and ended up losing their land, freedom and will to go on. The natives of the places Columbus claimed for Spain were subjected to inhumane conditions. Their living conditions were horrid, with the constant torment by the Spaniards. Las Casas’ accounts are horrifying and reveal the truth. Mentioned in his accounts is how the Spaniards treated them and valued them, “thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.” This is just cruel and immoral. Also mentioned in Las Casas’ accounts is the working conditions. The men were nearly worked to death in the mines, with the futile task of unearthing what little gold there was. While the women were tasked with the laborious job of working the land. They were overworked, and as a result could not properly tend to the care of their children.

As a Spanish friar, I, Bartolome de las Casas, came to the New World to aid in converting the Indians into Christians. They have gone against our beloved king’s decision by pursuing war against the Indians. Every action Cortes has orchestrated has ultimately ended in death and hardship for the Indians. Cortes is guilty and consequences need to be served.

He states that the displays of the Spanish to convert through war, and their later exploitation of cheap labor, under the premise of saving the few innocents in harms way was not enough to call for war against a peaceful people, many of whom would be lost in the process. De Las Casas’ passionate argument utilized the same secular philosopher as Sepulveda. He claimed improper assumption of barbarianism and natural law. De Las Casas strove to make connections between the actions of the native peoples and rational logic, though it is interesting to see a secular argument used to support a religious cause. For example, human sacrifice was utilized to show that not only were the natives turned towards a higher power, but that they were willing to quite literally sacrifice “the most precious gift”, human life, for their deity. Finally, de Las Casas argues that war is not just due to the fact that until they accept the Catholic faith, their souls are outside of the papal jurisdiction. Thus, de Las Casas’ emotional argument towards Sepulveda’s points sheds light on the varying opinions of the time in

De Las Casas is careful to make his devotion to the crown apparent throughout the piece, referring to the king several times as “Most high and most mighty Lord”, “most mighty Lord”, and “your highness”. These petitions to the king serve as a mode to concede his faithfulness to the crown, while at the same time appealing to the king’s undoubtable vanity. Recognizing that he is trying to move the king to stop the mass murder of the Native Americans, De Las Casas uses these pleas to keep the king on his side while trying to urge him to revise his colonization methods. Although descriptions of the evil being done by the colonist takes up most of his account, they are not the purpose of De Las Casas’s narrative. Ultimately, all his efforts to convince the king to stop the settlers from killing and mistreating the natives is only to allow him to convert and save their souls. De Las Casas, while obviously sympathizing with the natives, and seeing them as humans rather “piles of dung in the middle of the road” like the rest of the colonist (as he puts it), is primarily focused on the welfare of the souls of those who are dying before they can be introduced to God. De Las Casas prompts his audience to remember that the natives are ready to hear the word of Christ when he informs the king that

Yet, conveying violence and force to these groups is morally wrong. Admittedly, I may not have a popular opinion compared to other individuals of our time. The truth is, that if we continue to take over this land we will be bringing disease, slavery, and a genocide to the “Indians” land for the soul purpose of converting them to Christianity. Columbus without a doubt is a brave man, yet I truly see him as a power-hungry individual who will do anything, no matter the circumstance, to succeed on his mission. As I end this interview I ask you, my Spanish Times readers, do you believe God would rather have us killing others on our missions to spread our religion or would he rather want us to approach these

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.

He felt compassion for the Indians because of the brutalities that Spaniards impose on the Indians. As a man of the church, it was his responsibility to help those who wanted to learn about the catholic religion. Therefore, because Indians had a desire to learn more about this new god who they had no knowledge of de las Casas saw this as an opportunity to unite the two cultures. Because of this I do not believe that de las casas was biased, instead he was taking action to fulfill his

Providing with a mature statement of what are the human rights and the limits on civil and church authority. In fact, Las Casas denounced Spain for causing the deaths of millions of innocent people (Voices of Freedom, P7).Bartolome de Las Casas hoped to make the wrongful Spaniard to understand that God has a plan for everyone and this is not it. That Indians no longer be enslaved. The black legend is true to extend; when Las Casas published a “scathing” and enduring reflection of Spanish behavior toward native populations in the new world.

ChileFrom 1973 - 1977, there was genocide in Chile. The targets were people who believed in the communist government system. The start of it all began on September 11th, 1973 when Chilean commander in chief, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte commanded the Chilean army and police force to overthrow the current president Salvador Allende. The main reason for the overthrow was because of Allende's economic plan. With it, inflation was rising 1% every day. The only reason the coup was successful at overthrowing the government was because America backed them. With Pinochet in power, his army removed everyone who they deemed the remotest rick to his new military junta. He is accused of devising the worst concentration camp regime since Hitler's grand

During genocides many things happen, homes and lands get rected, women get raped and many people die. A genocide that happened in 1981-1983 was in Guatemala. During the Guatemalan genocide it targeted the Mayan civilization. The first stage was classification. It is when they would put people in categories to determine them by their ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality. By the second stage symbolism was used. In this stage, a simple thing or idea represented them. Then the Guatemalan army used their power to deny the rights of the Mayan, which lead to denying the humanity of the Mayan. Organization then began. This meant that plans to start the killings began. Next, the extremist split the group through the use of propaganda. Then, armies