How Did Bartolome De Las Casas View The Natives

The attitude of the Spanish to the people living in the New World was that they were uncivilized and heathen. The natives were abused, oppressed, exploited, and ill treated by the Spanish Conquistadors. The Indians lost their freedom, their rights, their culture and religion. It’s truly shocking

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.

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.

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.

When it came to the economics, the Spanish did not respond so peacefully; they were acted harshly. Spanish conquistadors originally established their rule in colonial America in search of gold and silver. Throughout their rule, they have not forgotten their main goal. For example, the Spanish deprived the Natives of their resources, and forced them into slavery. The Native Americans were ordered to work in gold and silver mines. Another example of the Spanish behaving brutally towards the Natives was when Cortez conquered the Aztecs. After he had besieged their capital city, Cortez had already robbed the Aztec’s resources. The Spanish did not play nicely when it came down to wealth and resources.

Las Casas viewed the indigenous people in a good light, having said that they were humble and peaceful. He also stated that, for the most part, they were the type of people who wanted to mind to their own business and not get concerned with others. He was a spokesperson for the indigenous people in the new world, feeling the pain that these Spanish intruders forced upon them. The Spaniards didn’t share the same view, they were very cruel and unjust in the way that they treated the indigenous people. They had no respect for their culture or for what the indigenous people had created. Even so the indigenous

They tortured the Indians, who at first, had thought that the Spanish were Gods. They first landed on Hispinaloa, where the slaughter began. De Las Casas wrote such terrifying accounts that truly illustrated how savage, the Spanish really were. “They snatched young babes from the Mothers Breasts, and then dash out the brains of those innocents against the Rocks; others they cast into rivers scoffing and jeering them, and call’d upon their Bodies when falling with derision, the true testimony of their Crustily, to come to them, and inhumanely exposing others to their Merciless Swords, together with the Mothers that gave them Life,(pg. 13).” Diaz del Castillo on the other hand, disagreed with how De las Casas depicted their conquest. His accounts made it seems as though they didn't have a choice, but to fight. He made it seem as though they weren’t savages, just to be savages, but rather,they saw no other opportunity of keeping the peace present itself and so, they had to fight back. “When the three prisoners whom we had sent forward began to speak to the Indians, it only increased their fury and they made such an attack on us that we could not endure it… and we attacked them with such impetuosity that we killed and wounded may of them with our fire and among them three captains.” Castillo made it seem as though they were jaded of war, however, they were left with no choice. I certainly believe that De Las Casas was closer to the truth. In fact, other historians, shared the same accounts. For example, historian, Gomara states in his book Histories of Infamy, “The spaniards slashed open many Indians in the wars and even in the mines…They made them slaves…(1552, 1:18v).” The indians were enslaved and overworked and the Spanish were so in lust with the greed and wealth that had newly fallen upon them, their ambitions took them to another level of cruelty in order to get what they

Las Casas mocked the belief that Indians benefited from Spanish control/forced Christianity. Indians did not have liberty or justice. Las Casas witnessed a death rate of over 90% in the native population and felt compelled to speak up. It was largely due to Las Casas’ efforts, that Spain created the New Laws in 1542 where the Indians would not be slaves anymore.

A. Bartolome de las Casa was an early Spanish historian and Dominican missionary who was the first man to show the wrong doings and oppression of the European people towards the native people in the Americas. Bartolome was also an accomplished writer and had published many works, one includes a book called Historia de las Indias, which reflects on the accounts of the treatment and oppression of the natives in the Americas (Bartolome de Las Casas). Why Bartolome is so important during the period of Spanish exploration is because he was one of the first people to fight for the rights of the natives in America. He went to Spanish Parliament in Barcelona to fight for the rights of the natives. He purposed to Parliament that the colonist and natives

Bartolome de Las Casas, was a friar and latter a Dominican, who is considered by many as one of the few authors who does justice to the native people of the New World. Casas has a particular purpose on his writings, that being letting the King of Spain at that time Charles V know, of the miseries that were being done to the native people of the New World. De Las Casas does not condemn the arrival of the Spanish in this new land, nor does he condemn the conversion of these gentle and innocent people to Christianity, however, he condemns the measures taken to convert these people into Christianity. He is one of the few writers that extends in different places, and it is certain that he was one of the few who travelled all around the New World.

It shows that while the Spanish had an original goal of converting the natives to Christianity, somewhere along the way they lost control of their greed and their cruelty spiraled out of control. The Spanish conquistadors wanted the natives to give them gold, but the fact was that the natives simply didn’t have it in the enormous amounts that the conquistadors wanted. The conquistadors worked the natives until they died, or simply killed them. “For it is the Spaniards’ custom in their wars to allow only young boys and females to live being to oppress them with the hardest, harshest, and most heinous bondage to which men or beasts might ever be bound into.” p.2 This quote explains how when conquering the natives, the conquistadors killed everyone except young people, who were then subjected into human slavery. Over the summer, we had read a book called “Sold” by Patricia McCormick. The main character, Lakshmi, has her innocence taken advantage of and is sold into sex slavery. She is routinely tortured in the job she once thought was being a maid in the city. Although different in some ways, these two events are alike. THe natives never meant any harm, but the conquistadors took advantage of their innocence. “Terrible things that the tyrants did

Bartolome de las Casas acted as benefactor for the Native Americans in the Indies. He and his writings only served to offer descriptions of the cruel conditions that were imposed on Native Americans. His works additionally and rightfully depicted that Native Americans were people as well. In his recalling, A Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies, he goes on to specify all the cruel and inhumane conditions that Native Americans were put through. Bartolome also describes a huge plummet in the number of inhabitants in the Indies which only further solidifies his standing as a benefactor. His humane behavior derived from the injustice he felt and saw when witnessing the unjustified slaughter of the Native Americans. However, there was a downside to Bartolome’s depiction of the Native Americans. His account of their situation in the Indies was so critical that it basically belittled the Native Americans as a people.

The Spaniards had the opposite kinds of thoughts and actions. They wanted gold, and saw that the ‘kings’ or Native American tribe leaders had some jewelry made out of gold. Known for being ruthless, the conquistadors took over the land. They took over the Aztec Empire, killing off thousands of Aztecs. When the conquistadors traveled through todays Texas to what is now today Florida with the Pueblos Indians, they took over their land and forced them into Christianity. The laws enforced by the Conquistadors caused for a revolt back against the Spaniards, the Pueblos started to practice their old religion, causing for the Spaniards to have a counter reformation killing off thousands of the Pueblo Indians. As Langston Hughes says in his poem Let American Be America Again “I am the red man driven from the land,” this particular piece of his poem ties in with what happened to the Native Indians being driven from their home lands when the settlers came and

Las Casas actions were biblical because he looked at the Indians as human beings who were just as capable of God’s love as the Spaniards. Las Casas continually viewed the Native Indians as neither “ignorant, inhuman, or bestial.” Rather he understood that the Indians were created by God. In Genesis 1:27 it says, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”. Las Casas believed that

One of the favorite methods of terrorizing the natives of the indies the Spanish used was pillaging. The Spaniards would go onto a village, loot the village and leave. As shown in Casas’ writing, he claims that the natives are a peaceful and very gently people. This is a widely accepted fact that many Christian missionaries have conveyed in their writings as well. There tends to be a trend of the Spanish coming to a new world, taking over, killing off the natives and then where it all went wrong. This is a fact marked by many areas of the Spanish history. We can look at the Aztecs for one example. When the Aztecs met the Spanish conquistadors, they experienced much of which the natives in the indies experienced. After all history does tend to repeat itself quite often.