The world is a chaotic place, filled with violence and discord. Naturally, people fear for themselves and their loved ones as a result. This fear leads to tension, the tension leads to mistrust, and the mistrust often helps facilitate more violence. Within the United States, in particular, tension resulting in mistrust is a rather complex issue. One group or another is seen as problematic, viewed with suspicion, as a danger to the stability of the nation. However, while many point fingers at foreign influence on the nation, and while many question the origin of modern social tension, few acknowledge some of the darker aspects of the country’s origin. Once upon a time, the west belonged to several groups of indigenous people, who were cruelly …show more content…
The simple manner in which they conduct themselves is noted, but perhaps more importantly Las Casas’ describes the spirit of the native people. “They are by nature the most humble, patient, and peaceable, holding no grudges, free from embroilments, neither excitable nor quarrelsome. These people are the most devoid of rancors, hatreds, or desire for vengeance of any people in the world (Las Casas 1). The Native Americans are defined by their kindness, which makes their treatment at the hands of the settlers all the more devastating. With all of the innocence of lambs, Las Casas describes the fate of the Natives at the hands of Spanish settlers, “acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty” (2). Within near half a century, the once prosperous native population of the western isles is reduced to a shell of its former …show more content…
Las Casas does not simply describe the traditional history of conquest and assimilation. He illustrates, a perverse and savage joy in which the settlers devastate the indigenous people. He describes the slaughter of people, regardless of age and sex. For neither “the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed” were spared slaughtered (4). The atrocities became games to settlers, who are described as having laid bets on who could murder the natives in the most efficient and perverse of manners. They are shown to have snatched babies from mothers, tossing them into rivers, and doing so “roaring with laughter”. Violence is never a kind affair, but the glee in which it was carried illustrates a sadistinc level of savagness, carried out by people who considered themselves