Bartolome de Las Casas, the Devastation of the Indies Essay Sample free essay sample

And of all the infinite existence of humanity. these people are the most transparent. the most barren of evil and fraudulence. the most obedient and faithful to their native Masterss and to the Spanish Christians whom they serve. They are by nature the most low. patient. and peace-loving. keeping no scores. free from imbroglios. neither excitable nor quarrelsome. These people are the most barren of resentments. hates. or desire for retribution of any people in the universe. And because they are so weak and obliging. they are less able to digest heavy labour and shortly dice of no affair what malady. The boies of Lords among us. brought up in the enjoyments of life’s polishs. are no more delicate than are these Indians. even those among them who are of the lowest rank of labourers. They are besides hapless people. for they non merely possess little but have no desire to possess worldly goods. For this ground they are non chesty. embittered. or greedy. Their meals are such that the nutrient of the sanctum male parents in the desert can barely be more penurious. pantie. and hapless. As to their frock. they are by and large naked. with merely their pudenda covered slightly. And when they cover their shoulders it is with a square fabric no more than two varas in size. They have no beds. but sleep on a sort of matting or else in a sort of suspended cyberspace called hamacas. They are really clean in their individuals. with qui vive. intelligent heads. docile and unfastened to doctrine. really disposed to have our holy Catholic religion. to be endowed with virtuous imposts. and to act in a reverent manner. And one time they begin to hear the newss of the Faith. they are so repetitive on cognizing more and on taking the sacraments of the Church and on detecting the Godhead cult that. genuinely. the missionaries who are here need to be endowed by God with great forbearance in order to get by with such avidity. Some of the secular Spaniards who have been here for many old ages say that the goodness of the Indians is undeniable and that if this talented people could be brought to cognize the one true God they would be the most fortunate people in the worldâ₠¬ ¦ . The common ways chiefly employed by the Spaniards who call themselves Christian and who have gone at that place to uproot those pathetic states and pass over them off the Earth is by unjustly engaging cruel and bloody wars. Then. when they have slain all those who fought for their lives or to get away the anguishs they would hold to digest. that is to state. when they have slain all the native swayers and immature work forces ( since the Spaniards normally spare merely the adult females and kids. who are subjected to the hardest and bitterest servitude of all time suffered by adult male or animal ) . they enslave any subsisters. With these infernal methods of dictatorship they debase and weaken infinite Numberss of those pathetic Indian states. Their ground for killing and destructing such an infinite figure of psyches is that the Christians have an ultimate purpose. which is to get gold. and to swell themselves with wealths in a really brief clip and therefore rise to a high estate disproportionate to their virtues. It should be kept in head that their insatiate greed and aspiration. the greatest of all time seen in the universe. is the cause of their villainousnesss. And besides. those lands are so ri ch and felicitous. the native peoples so mild and patient. so easy to subject. that our Spaniards have no more consideration for them than animals. And I say this from my ain cognition of the Acts of the Apostless I witnessed. But I should non state â€Å"than beasts† for. thanks be to God. they have treated animals with some regard ; I should state alternatively similar body waste on the public squares†¦ . I one time saw this. when there were four or five Indian Lords lashed on grids and combustion ; I seem even to remember that there were two or three braces of grids where others were firing. and because they uttered such loud shrieks that they disturbed the Spanish captain’s slumber. he ordered them to be strangled. And the constable. who was worse than an executioner. did non desire to obey that order ( and I know the name of that constable and cognize his relations in Seville ) . but alternatively put a stick over the victims’ linguas. so they could non do a sound. and he stirred up the fire. but non excessively much. so that they roasted easy. as he liked. I saw all these things I have described. and infinite others. And because all the people who could make so fled to the mountains to get away these inhuman. ruthless. and fierce Acts of the Apostless. the Spanish captains. enemies of the human race. pursued them with the ferocious Canis familiariss they kept which attacked the Indians. rupturing them to pieces and devouring them. And because on few and far between occasions. the Indians justifiably killed some Christians. the Spaniards made a regulation among themselves that for every Christian slain by the Indians. they would murder a 100 Indians†¦ . Among the notable indignations they committed was the 1 they perpetrated against a cazique. a really of import baronial. by name Hatuey. who had come to Cuba from Hispaniola with many of his people. to fly the catastrophes and cold Acts of the Apostless of the Christians. When he was told by certain Indians that the Christians were now coming to Cuba. he assembled as many of his followings as he could and said this to them: â€Å"Now you must cognize that they are stating the Christians are coming here. and you know by experience how they put So and So and So and So. and other Lords to an terminal. And now they are coming from Haiti ( which is Hispaniola ) to make the same here. Make you cognize why they do this? † The Indians replied: â€Å"We do non cognize. But it may be that they are by nature wicked and cruel. † And he told them: â€Å"No. they do non move merely because of that. but because they have a God they greatly worship and they want us to idolize that God. and that is why they struggle with us and capable us and kill us. †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ He had a basket full of gold and gems and he said: â€Å"You see their God here. the God of the Christians. If you agree to it. allow us dance for this God. who knows. it may delight the God of the Christians and so they will make us no injury. † And his followings said. all together. â€Å"Yes. that is good. that is good! † And they danced round the basket of gold until they fell down exhausted. Then their head. the cazique Hatuey. said to them: â€Å"See here. if we keep this basket of gold they will take it from us and will stop up by killing us. So allow us project away the basket into the river. † They all agreed to make this. and they flung the basket of gold into the river that was nearby. This cazique. Hatuey. was invariably flying before the Christians from the clip they arrived on the island of Cuba. since he knew them and of what they were capable. Now and so they encountered him and he defended himself. but they eventually killed him. And they did this for the exclusive ground that he had fled from those cruel and wicked Christians and had defended himself against them. And when they had captured him and as many of his followings as they could. they burned them all at the interest. When tied to the interest. the cazique Hatuey was told by a Franciscan mendicant who was present. an ingenuous rogue. something about the God of the Christians and of the articles of the Faith. And he was told what he could make in the brief clip that remained to him. in order to be saved and travel to Heaven. The cazique. who had neer heard any of this before. and was told he would travel to Inferno where if he did non follow the Christian Faith. he would endure ageless torture. asked the Franciscan mendicant if Christians all went to Heaven. When told that they did he said he would prefer to travel to Hell. Such is the celebrity and award that God and our Faith have earned through the Christians who have gone out to the Indies.