The rhetoric by the Spaniard accounts make it difficult to re-tell history from the indigenous people’s perspective. For example: how do you explain human sacrifice today after the Spaniards gave their account of the situation? Bloodletting is a difficult ritual to explain. The Spaniards would have you think that the indigenous people of Mesoamerica were uncivilized savages and performed human sacrifices, but did not tell the reason behind the ritual. The reason for the Spaniards to speak ill of the indigenous people of Mesoamerica was to justify the cruelty they put the Indians through and to gain support and continued funding from Spain. The Spaniards will also have us think that they came in as Liberators, Conquistadores which would imply the conquest of an enemy and an eventual assimilating of the conquered into their society adding land and people like the Roman Empire. …show more content…
It was not a military conquest, but an invasion and genocide. The interest was gold, silver and any other resources they could strip from the Indians and to enslave them as well. They were more like a hoard of locust killing and contaminating everything in their path. Who really were the uncivilized savages? According to Vigil in his book “From Indians to Chicanos”, “In the Early 1500’s the indigenous population was reduced by eighty percent from disease the Spaniards brought with them and those that survived were expected to keep up the work quotas” (Vigil.) In reality, I would venture to guess that the Indian population was reduced from not just disease brought by the Spaniards, but also from the Spaniards taking and raping their women impeding procreation among the indigenous people as
- “Black Legend”- False concept held that the conquerors merely tortured and butchered the Indians, stole their gold, infected them with smallpox, and left little but misery behind. - Spanish did erect a colossal empire, sprawling from California and Florida to Tierra del Fuego. - Spanish would fuse with the Indians, as to the English would shun
One of the lasting impact the Spanish settlements had; the settlers created a bad relationship with the natives. The natives had several purposes to contemn the settlers. One reason being, in document c, that it states that the natives inculpated the settlers, or more specifically priests, for transporting disease from Spain to the native’s motherland. Corresponding to the natives, the settlers also have their motives for resenting the natives. For instance, the Apache and Comanches tribes had slaughtered several innocent settlers and soldiers, as well as raiding a couple of missions around San Antonio and La Bahia (doc b).
With the resources found, they saw an opportunity for monetary gain, which lead to the Spanish to become greedy for power and wealth. Their greed for wealth and power lead the Spanish to treat the Native Americans with brutality and oppression through terroristic threatening. They made the Native Americans become slaves and work on their sugar plantation, pearl diving, and mining for silver and gold. Not only did the Spanish put the Natives through slavery, but did not hesitate to put to death any of the Native Americans who defended themselves. The Spanish did not have mercy on the Native Americans, even though people like Bartolome de las Casas tried to speak in favor of the Native
Only after the Spaniards has used violence against them, killing, robbing, torturing, did the Indians ever rise up against them." (Las Casas pg
Europeans exchanged letters to the royal throne, and claimed that by accumulating new territories it would further open the possibilities, and boundaries for Europe to expand their economy. This would also include bringing light to the indigenous cultures, and helping to maintain the balance of power in Europe, all in the name of God. This of course was a cover-up to allow them to fulfill their greed, and desire for status and wealth. The Europeans had an almost legitimate reason for being able to journey into the indigenous land.
The colonisation by the Spanish had a detrimental effect on the Aztec and Inca civilisations.” The remains of these once powerful empires are hardly recognisable due to the impact that the colonisation of their empires had on them. The Spanish motivation behind conquering the Aztec and Inca civilisations was driven by one of the these concepts: desire for wealth, lack of trade, seeking opportunities and an increase in wealth. Spain’s empire had one of these concepts that drove its conquistadors to the expansion of their empire into the Americas.
Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, many cultural groups flourished but among the most popular were the French Jesuits, French traders, and the Native American tribe know as the Savages. They all started off doing their own thing on their own land but when curiosity arose and it was time to move, bumping into other groups was inevitable. There were both friendly and hostile relationships between these groups. It was all based on the time, place, and how the groups met. Even groups of the same kind may have had a bad relationship, like two different native American tribes, same people but if they started off on the wrong foot then they might not get along for a variety of reasons.
The personal satisfaction in being the most dominant and powerful group of people inspired the Spaniards to persevere through the colonization. The Europeans considered themselves an advanced population, individually, and collectively. They were confident in their European superiority over other indigenous cultures. During colonization, the European people encountered a wide range of communities of people, yet “with very few exceptions, Europeans felt powerfully superior to virtually all of the people they encountered, even those like the Aztecs who had technological and organizational skills the Europeans could recognize and greatly admire”(Greenblatt 9). This attitude of dominance made it easy for the Europeans to justify their brutality
On these islands I estimate there are 2,100 leagues of land that have been ruined and depopulated, empty of people.” (Las Casas) Nothing positive came from the people of Spain setting foot on the land of the Indians. Depopulation was just one of many hazardous effects that the Spaniards
If the triumph over the Aztec empire had not been due to the Spanish, there would eventually have been another empire/colony doing the same thing. Even without the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec had their own enemies in their native lands. The Tlaxcalans (another powerful empire) were just one of the many indigenous groups that tried to overthrow the Aztec. In fact, some historians claim that it was “other Indians” that conquered the Aztec empire.
In the 16th Century, Spain became one of the European forces to reckon with. To expand even further globally, Spanish conquistadors were sent abroad to discover lands, riches, and North America and its civilizations. When the Spanish and Native American groups met one another, they judged each other, as they were both unfamiliar with the people that stood before them. The Native American and Spanish views and opinions of one another are more similar than different because when meeting and getting to know each other, neither the Spaniards nor the Native Americans saw the other group of people as human. Both groups of people thought of one another as barbaric monsters and were confused and amazed by each other’s cultures.
When thinking of the Spanish Conquest, two groups often come to mind: the Spaniards and the Native Americans. The roles of each of these groups and their encounters have been so heavily studied that often the role of Africans is undermined. As Matthew Restall states in his article Black Conquistadors, the justifications for African contribution are often “inadequately substantiated if not marginalized [as the] Africans were a ubiquitous and pivotal part of the Spanish conquest campaigns in the Americas […]” (Restall 172). Early on in his article, Restall characterizes three categories of Africans present during the Conquest – mass slaves, unarmed servants of the Spanish, and armed auxillaries (Restall 175).
This power imbalance and these payments are key in the subjugation of the natives. Furthermore, the paternalism of the Spanish toward the Indigenous peoples is obvious: “Captain [Cortes] stared at him [Cuauhtemoc]…then patted him on the head” (p.117). Post-conquest, and still today, “difficult relations” between the descendants of the Indigenous peoples and the “others” (p.117) still exist. The European view of the natives “as idolatrous savages” or, on the contrary, as “models of natural virtue” (p.175) demonstrate the versatile and often contradictory views held. Similarly, the Aztecs at times saw the Spaniards as gods, and other times as gold-hungry savages who “fingered it like monkeys” (p.51).
The Spaniards made a big impact in the Americas. They killed many Incas,Tainos, and Aztecs. These populations lost many including their emperors. On the Spaniard 's side they had power by killing Atahualpa and Montezuma they could create colonies and take riched back to their country. The Spaniards weren 't the only ones to look for riches in the New World.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad made me think about how people go and “explore” other countries and say the natives are uncivilized just because they are not dress like people in modern countries, speak a dialect, run naked, wear different clothings, and many other things that western society sees like uncivilized. Every country or place has different cultures and the “explores” should not go and educate or make the group of people become “civilized”. For example the book talks about how the black people were treated, the natives the actual one that had more rights to the land, they were enslaved by the European “explorers”. The benefit was for the Europeans and not the actually people that live in Africa. This reminded me of how the Europeans