Comparing Christopher Columbus And Vitoria's On The American Indians

Indeed, from their first arrival in the New World, the European explorers treated the native people, and the slaves that they brought, as barbarous heathens, incapable of higher thought or civilized behavior. For example, Christopher Columbus’s letter to the King of Spain from his first voyage intricately shows these original encounters. In this letter, he carefully describes the people of the island, pointing out that they “all go naked, men and women, as their mothers bore them” and that they “are very marvelously timorous.” He then adds that he “gave them a thousand handsome good things, which [he] had brought, in order that they might conceive affection for us and, more than that, might become Christians and be inclined to the love and service of Your Highness.” Though he is not describing forced religious conversion, he is undoubtedly showing how the Europeans treated people with religions that were different from their own. Moreover, numerous laws within the established colonies, with relation both to the Native Americans and to the settlers, disproportionately disadvantaged non-Christians. For example, in Vitoria’s writing, “On The American Indians,” there are numerous laws that create unequal rights for people, but most noticeably are the rights taken from people based on their religion: “Heretics can have no dominion, so unbelievers, who are no better than heretics, can have no dominion either.” Essentially, therefore, if a person was not a Christian, they had no right to own land or to vote.