Treatment of the Native Americans

While I was reading about the North American explorers, the thing that jumped out at me the most was Bartolome de las Casas’ telling of the atrocities that were committed against the Native Americans by the Spanish. Not only were the suffering from illness brought by the Europeans, they also had their lands taken away, women raped, and people killed in the most horrific ways. There is no cause for such violent actions, and I believed it happened because the Spanish didn’t see the Native Americans as people, but as animals. Casas wrote that the Spanish soldiers took babies and threw them in the river, saying “Boil there, you offspring of the devil!” (Casas 37). The Native Americans were taken advantage of when they thought that the white people were gods, and when they figured out that this wasn’t the case, they fought back. However, Casas writes that “the wars of the Indians against each other are little more than games played by children” (Casas 37). The Native Americans most likely did not want to cause much bloodshed between tribes. Still, the Spaniards probably used this as an excuse to abuse them even more. These people who called themselves “Christians” slaughtered the Native Americans in groups of thirteen to represent Jesus and his Apostles. Somehow, I don’t think Jesus would agree with this. And then, to top it off, later settlers wanted to convert these people to Christianity.

Whatever government that was set up at the time in the Americas was obviously not doing its job. When Casas talks about the pearl divers that were sent into the depths to retrieve pearls, he writes that “all of [the Lucayan Indians] were publically sold… the unjust judges did nothing to stop it” (Casas 39). The judges at the time had good reason, at least to them, because the Native Americans were making the Spanish money. They were enslaved, fed poorly, beaten, and occasionally eaten by sharks. They did the dirty work that the Spaniards didn’t want to do. If the judges had done the right thing and prohibited the capture and sale of the Native Americans, the Spanish would have to take the risks of diving, and probably wouldn’t have turned up such a profit.

Therein lies the reason that Casas wrote these letters. He was trying to persuade Spanish government to do something about the horrible things that were going on in the Americas. They appointed him “protector f the Indians”, and he tried to remedy the situation by bringing in black slaves, which doesn’t make any since at all for a person that was fighting for human rights. He eventually sees this. Later on, Casas wins the support of the Pope, which leads him to win the support of Emperor Charles V, who outlaws the enslavement of the Native Americans. When Casas tries to enforce this in the Americas, it doesn’t go over well at all. He ends up just going back to Europe to write about it. Meanwhile, the Native Americans continued to suffer for centuries afterwards at the hands of not just the Spanish, but the other explorers as well.