Tuesday Walker
Professor Zahler
History 105
7 February 2012
The Innocent People
By definition oppression is stated to be the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner. In history there are many benefits to some people when oppressing a group of people to conquer land. For example gaining wealth, food, clothing, and even slaves to help on this land. However conquering land can lead to gory results in many cases. In the document, A Brief Account of the devastation of the Indies by Bartoleme de las Casas he explained how unfair, and unjust it is when land is conquered by someone. Depending on how its afflicted it’s degrading, and traumatizing. When the Spaniards came to settle in Central America in 1493 they ultimately changed the living conditions forever with their total disregard for the lifestyle of the natives by killing the majority of them, enslaving them, and poorly teaching them aspects of Christianity.
Taking advantage of innocent Indians the Spaniards came into their land with one goal, which was to gain wealth. Bartolemé de las Casas was a Spanish priest who devoted a lot of his time defending the Indians and their living conditions under the rule of Europeans. For instance Bartoleme de la Casas declared “Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate disproportionate to their merits”. The Indian people are described as being humble, obedient, and loyal to the people whom they serve. They were further known for their humbleness and openness that the Spaniards took to their advantage. Killing and damaging these people for gold, the Spaniards made it clear that there were no intentions of kindness under any circumstances. By brutally torturing the Indians and killing any woman, man, or child they permanently changed the eagerness for the new lands that were discovered, and made living conditions unbearable.
Not only did they make it clear that death is an option for anyone that refused to obey them, they enforced torture upon the Indians. Furthermore Bartalome expressed that the Spaniards, “behaved with such temerity and shamelessness that the most powerful ruler of the islands had to see his own wife raped by a Christian officer”. The Spaniards made the Indians face the most uncomfortable situations. Due to this the Indians became vulnerable and hopeless because they received no help to escape. Raping, and killing the wives of the men destroyed them emotionally, and physically. This caused the Indians to hate the Spaniards, and changed their views on the Spaniards all together. Finally Bartoleme illustrated that “Spaniards have behaved in no other way during the past forty years” and further clarified, “Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons.” Land that could have been put to good use by the Indians vanished before them rapidly. The Spaniard’s arrogance, and determination to gain status and wealth, demolished future lives of many. Again the living the conditions the Indians are facing are traumatizing and not fair.
Christian faith was important to both the Indians and to the Spaniards during this time period. The Indians were defined as being open to the Christian faith, and very peaceable. They also looked to the Spaniards as role models of this faith. Bartolme was appalled at this idea and he stated “The common ways mainly employed by the Spaniards who call themselves Christian and who have gone there to extirpate those pitiful nations and wipe them off the earth is by unjustly waging cruel and bloody wars”. The Spaniards should have been teaching them the sacraments to live by, and what to believe in. The people who once looked at Spaniards for help and for guidance no longer could trust them nor look up to them. Being leaders of Christian faith, Spaniards failed to pass on the beliefs and sacraments due to their ruthless behaviors. Christianity is taught by the word of God, meaning he knows everything. God never states that killing innocent people and robbing them for their possessions was just thing to do. Consequently the Indians try to put their focus on surviving the terrors they were living in. As explained in the document Bartolome says, “From that time onward the Indians began to seek ways to throw the Christians out of their lands. They took up arms, but their weapons were very weak and of little service in offense and still less in defense”. However doing this did not help them in the long run. The Spanish were known for having a lot more advantages than the Indians for example horses. This gave the Spanish the advantage of being high up and killing them with their weapons more efficiently. The Indians did not have these things, and this resulted in many fatalities. The Indians had the lower hand and the Spaniards took that into their power. Finally Bartoleme discussed “After the wars and the killings had ended, when usually there survived only some boys, some women, and children, these survivors were distributed among the Christians to be slaves. The Spanish sold the Indians to devote their lives to some new Spanish crown against their will. Trying to survive the Indians were forced to change their every day lives. Bartolmeme de las Cases witnesses how demanding the Spaniards were and how easily they changed the Indian’s lives. The living condition for the Indians during the time of the Spaniards invading was horrendous. The Spaniards were barbaric, ruthless, and greedy. Even though the Spaniard’s point of view is not clear, it is apparent that they did anything in their power to obtain wealth and status. They robbed the Indian’s of food, family, and the Christian faith. They further destroyed the Indians lives by the cruelty they afflicted on them, and the hardships they made them endure. Over all they changed the new lands discovered and corrupted many innocent individuals.

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[ 1 ]. Bartolome de las Casas, A Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies |

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[ 2 ]. Bartolome de las Casas
[ 3 ]. Bartolome de las Casas
[ 4 ]. Bartolome de las Casas
[ 5 ]. Bartolome de las Casas
[ 6 ]. Bartolome de las Casas