Spanish Conquests Summary

The two documents written by two eyewittnesses to the Spanish's slaughter of the natives of the new world are at once thought provoking and stomach churning. They not only describe the way's the spanish contridict their own religious beliefs but also how they torture and even sometimes roast their victims of fires like pigs. One eyewittness, a friar named Anton Montecino, condemns them in a sermon proclaiming that it is their responsibility, by command of God, to love their neighboring natives as fellow man created and engineered by God in his image, not as some animal. When he brought this before the king of Spain the king immediately met up with his advisors to make excuses for the the conquistadors actions in torturing and killing the natives. Their reasoning said that Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ, was appointed as ruler and king of the universe when he was made pope. Therefore all of his predecessors have authority over all the land of the earth and so the pope gave the spanish all the land in the new world, giving them authority to do whatever they want. They also decided that if the indians would accept the catholic faith and consent to the authority of the king and queen of spain. All this they put in a Spanish document to be read to the indians before every encounter. Another Eyewittness named Bartolome de las casas described the extreme cruelty of the spanish as the killed people of every age, sex and condition. This included pregnant women, sick grandparents and nursing babys while making bets to see who could kill one in the worse way. Bartolome said also that the spanish killed 10 kingdoms worth of atleast 12 million people while not recieving one injury from the natives. He also saw the natives as void of any evil. When they finally decided to fight the spanish back they had only weapons resembling kids toys.

I agree wholeheartedly with friar Anton when he condemns and points out the wrong actions of the spanish against the natives pointing out their obligation to God their Lord and King to love their neighbors as themselves. The kings response to this however is a disgraceful misuse of Biblical truth as he twists the words of Jesus which he says to Peter calling him the rock of which he would build his truth and say instead that Jesus was appointing Peter and ruler of the whole universe. All this to say that any and all successors of Peter's place as pope have authority to give whoever they wish any and all power over anybody and everybody. Jesus is the Lord and Ruler over the world and he commands us in the Bible to love eachother equally. Bartolome's account of the spanish conquest also slightly exaggerates the totality of their brutality. He says that after they destroyed upwords of 12 million natives only 300 survived, he could not have fully known these numbers. However his statement about the natives not being able to understand the spanish document read to them in spanish and therefore died without understanding the catholic faith is very understandable. He also said that all the spanish wanted was gold. This was obvious in the way they ignored the obvious doctrines of their faith as they roasted the natives above campfires. The way the spanish even call themselves christians is detestable and insults every christian who has ever lived.