<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: a must read book before bio of Columbus
Review: "Other" side of "discoveries". Like it or not, first hand knowledge of crimes in name of God and greed. With details. Book should be mandatory reading in all elementary schools. The only intro you will need before reading about Columbus. Book itself has a good intro. You will be finished with reading in one sitting. Guaranteed!
Rating:
Summary: a must read book before bio of Columbus
Review: "Other" side of "discoveries". Like it or not, first hand knowledge of crimes in name of God and greed. With details. Book should be mandatory reading in all elementary schools. The only intro you will need before reading about Columbus. Book itself has a good intro. You will be finished with reading in one sitting. Guaranteed!
Rating:
Summary: the truth can be painful
Review: Bartolome De Las casas has provided contemporary historians and ethnographers (such as Francis Jennings, Jared Diamond or David E. Stannard) with a detailed account of the atrocities committed by Columbus in Hispaniola. Las Casas' account is not only detailed, it is a horific and terrifying tale of the conquest and subjugation of a lovable, tractable, peaceable, gentle, decorous people. According to Las Casas, Hispaniola was "perhaps the most densely populated place in the world," "a beehive of people," who "of all the infinite universe of humanity, ...are the most guileless, the most devoid of wickedness and duplicity." Driven by "insatiable greed and ambition," the Spanish fell upon them "like ravening wild beasts, ... killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples" with "the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree" that the population is barely 200 persons, he wrote in 1552, "from my own knowledge of the acts I witnessed." "It was a general rule among Spaniards to be cruel," he wrote: "not just cruel, but extraordinarily cruel so that harsh and bitter treatment would prevent Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings." "As they saw themselves each day perishing by the cruel and inhuman treatment of the Spaniards, crushed to the earth by the horses, cut in pieces by swords, eaten and torn by dogs, many buried alive and suffering all kinds of exquisite tortures, ...[they] decided to abandon themselves to their unhappy fate with no further struggles, placing themselves in the hands of their enemies that they might do with them as they liked." The leading chronicler of Spanish barbarity in the New World, Las Casas wrote near end of his life: "I believe that because of these impious, criminal and ignominious deeds perpetrated so unjustly, tyrannically and barbarously, God will vent upon Spain His wrath and His fury, for nearly all of Spain has shared in the bloody wealth usurped at the cost of so much ruin and slaughter." "Short Account Destruction W Indies" is a must-read for those historians suffering from the same amnesia-like affliction as David Irving: that the wholesale slaughter of the Native population of the Western Hemisphere is somehow a historical untruth and is somehow not borne out by the historical facts. Las Casas elegantly provides the facts needed to refute that argument.
Rating: 
Summary: Where is skepticism when it is really useful?
Review: Bartolome in fact, within his short account has structured the seminal treatise on the arrogance and abuse remonstrations that have become a core thesis of liberal and socialist political philosophy. While I read in horror the stories of body parts ceremoniously bartered in the local butchery, and the accounts of the depopulation of the lush tropical islandry, a growing skepticism began to encroach on my mindset. Bartolome, who was seeking funding for a new order of monks (under his charge no less) in the new world was in the process of petition to Prince Philip of Spain in regard to a significant level of funding for establishment of the christian church in the new world. He claims that the Christian Spanish exterminated the 500,000 inhabitants of the Bahamas. That set of islands currently holds around 300,000 souls, including tourtists. With daily arrivals of numerous cargo ships and advanced soil alteration techniques for crop growth, the Bahamas still cannot support the number of persons Bartolome claims existed even in this day and age of top logistics practice. Of similar question is Bartolome's claim that the mailand was inhabited by over 4 billion native inhabitants, all of whom were characterized by the noblest of human traits, "lambs" as such; eager to recieve "the blessing of our Lord and Savior." All exterminated by the Spainiards. Bartolome also claims that one European consumes in one day what would feed an entire houshold of new world persons for a month. Hmmmm let's see. 3,600 calories (and Europeans did not eat that many calories then) divided by 120 person-days equals 30 calories per day, which is the equivalent of two lifesavers candies. Maybe that is why 4 billion of them died off in 40 years. Come to think of it, how did they ever get to be a population of 4 billion? Just sleeping and breathing expends 550 calories per day in a 90 lb person. Bartolome does demostrate one lesson of history, and that is the common thread of liberal socialism: Fast with the facts, quick to identify the bad guy, and predating on guilty, gullible, rich, young aristochracy for funding. While the core thesis of this work concerning the abuses of the Europeans in the new world stands as a lesson from history, and is a worthy subject in its own regard, one should read the account with a dose of skepticism. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. At best, my fear is that we who have inherited history are left at the mercy of Bart's pen and overzealous haters of Western legacy. At worst, Bartolome was the UFO nut of the 16th century, hoping that pulling off some quick urban legends would allow him to cop a load of money before anyone was the wiser. And like most urban legends, the account is short as it is in title here, because it does not take much space to make extraordinary claims, but would take a War and Peace sized document to establish objective facts surrounding his most outlandish proclamations. Sadly, no such depth is provided in this, mantra of liberal profiteering and the reader is left having to fall back on Treddor's Law: The older the manuscript the greater its perceived veracity.
Rating: 
Summary: Warning: wholesale propaganda, ad nauseum
Review: Let me preface my statement that saying that I am not some great lover
of European culture, history, conquest, or Spanish conquistadores.
Now, having said that, I will say that anyone who picks up this book
and believes the horrors contained therein is reacting in a manner
that would have made De Las Casas quite proud of his dubious
handiwork. Now, certainly, I am not saying that the Spanish explorers
were a gentle, peace-loving, pacifistic bunch; but to ascribe to them
the attrocities contained within this book is naive and careless and
speaks of an ignorance that comes from a lack of necessary research
and hard facts and a propensity for the sensational and even the
utterly ridiculous. I know that many of us, especially in today's
"politically correct" climate, are quite eager to think of
the Spaniards as cruel and heartless villains who had no regard for
the basic conventions of humanity - villians who merely butchered and
conquered and enslaved - but as tempting as it might be to resign
ourselves to such a belief, it would also be a case of intellectual
carelessness. De Las Casas wants us to see the "Indian"
population much like the liberals of today would like us to: meek,
helpless, child-like, innocent, ignorant, animalistic. I think this
speaks as much of prejudice as the Spaniards referring to the
"natives" as dogs, but of course educated people don't see
it that way. And the good friar was a hypocrite in more ways than
one: he lived for many years attended to by his personal slaves, all
the while fighting for the "rights" of the natives, all the
while playing master and thinking he was better than the other
Spaniards because he treated his slaves well, like someone might their
beloved pets. One glaring falsity within this book that I can
think of is De Las Casas' account of Cortes' expedition into Mexico
(which of course De Las Casas himself wasn't there to witness
firsthand). Again, the "natives" - the Aztecs, in this case
- are portrayed as nothing more than docile, peace-loving, childlike
creatures. He mentions nothing of the warlike ways of the Aztecs, of
their repeated attempts to wipe out the Spaniards, of their treachery,
of their obsession with human sacrifice, of their cannibalism.
Instead, we are lead to believe that the evil Cortes marched boldly
into Mexico and butchered all the Aztecs and took over without hardly
lifting a finger. And some events are pure fiction in themselves,
bloody massacres and so forth that I'm sure any detractor of Cortes'
would have been more than happy to fabricate. Again, I am not saying
that men like Cortes were saints. But there are always two sides to
everything, and the world is not black and white like some of us would
like to believe. Be careful where you get your information from, and
how quick you are to believe it. And we can only see the truth of
this book if we hold it up to the light in which it was written;
surely, De Las Casas had his own political agenda that was well served
in part by writing this book. That's what propaganda is all
about....
Rating:
Summary: The key to the Spanish Black Legend
Review: The debate below, I think, could have been lifted right from the sixteenth century. You might take a look at it before reading my review, which is intended as a corrective. Bartolomé de Las Casas, born in 1474, came to Cuba with Diego Velázquez's expedition in 1511 as a soldier. In Cuba, he became an "encomendero", receiving Indian labor parcelled out to the conquistadors. The horrors of the conquest of the Caribbean sparked a religious conversion in him and he became a Dominican friar in 1515. Soon, he made his way to the Central American mainland, where he started missionary work among the Maya in Guatemala. Dubbed later "The Apostle to the Indians" for his work on their behalf, he was eventually appointed Bishop of Chiapas. An intimate friend of the Indians, fluent in their languages, Las Casas witnessed Spanish cruelties perpetrated against them between the very year of his arrival and some years before his death in Spain in 1566. In 1552, Las Casas published his empassioned "Short Account" (actually written 13 years earlier), in which he laid bare Spanish cruelties in America. Though generally condemned as slander in Spain, the book rapidly became popular in the rest of Europe, where it served to fuel anti-Spanish hate. Spain's enemies used it to depict Spaniards as evil tyrants and to rationalize carving out their own empires in the Americas. New editions appeared repeatedly, even as late as 1898, during the Spanish-American War. Few credible historians take the "Account" for gospel truth. Much of what Las Casas says is certainly true. And while the rest is exaggerated, it is not "propaganda". Whatever truth the narrative has, though, what I think many people miss when they read it is its importance in understanding the Spanish Black Legend. The Black Legend is the perception of Spain as a uniquely cruel and bigoted nation in excess of reality. Spanish culture is boiled down to the Inquisition and the bullfight. Spain's authors are ignored. The Spanish did nothing in the Americas but kill millions of Indians. This is the legacy of the 16th century. The substance of many European attitudes toward Spain up to about 1950 can be traced right to Las Casas' "Account." Appearing at the time when England and the Netherlands were emerging as major powers, grappling with Spain, the imagery from the book was woven right into their national mythologies. Because of historical circumstance, other nations that committed atrocities far worse than Spain's -- France, Britain, the United States -- never had to undergo the same humiliating scrutiny, the same alienation. Las Casas's book, certainly agaist its author's will, helped shape this. There are more reliable accounts of the "destruction of the West Indies", including some by Las Casas. The account's real value is the key it offers to understanding Western perceptions of Spain. Like so many anti-Spanish documents of its time, the book, in the end, can tell us as much about the fascinating figure of its author and the character of Spain's enemies as about the horrors of the conquest and the nation it vilifies.
Rating: 
Summary: A written protest
Review: There are two sides to every story and the fact that De Las Casas takes the side of the indigenous people as opposed to his native Spain is especially poignant. The writing style is repititive, old world and filled with the horrors of war but De Las Casas does this to especially hammer home his point. He gives examples, over and over, of the injustices carried out by Cortez and Pizarro throughout the Americas from Mexico to Peru, under the auspices of the flag and cross, all in the name of God and country. It is a first hand report on the atrocities that greed and glory created. It was a plea for his King to understand how his represenatives abroad and the encomienda had drifted far from the ideals originally intended and persued. The woodcuts reproduced from a 17th century version are especially telling of the cruelties imposed with graphic examples. There are groups of people being strung up and burned alive with their feet barely dangling above the flames. The violence was inhumane to the point where women hung themselves with their children attached and hung to their bodies rather than be a meal to the hungry dogs that assisted the Spaniards and had to be fed. The genocidal colonization became a perverted vision of evangelization that was nothing short of hell for the Indians. It is important to see the other side of colonization, as written by the "The Defender and Apostle of the Indians" to understand both sides of the story. Our education system is full of European versions of the conquest, this is the anti-European version by someone who lived the experience. Recommended for students of history that want a different perspective from the one we are most familiar with that glitters from behind a golden cross.
<< 1 >>
|
