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Spanish Experience in the New World

Bartolome de las Casas, in History of the Indies, presents a history of the Spanish experience in the New World from 1492 to 1520. Las Casas, however, wants to do much more than merely give a factual account of that experience. He more importantly delivers a moral and political critique of the Spanish rule in the Americas, and it is a severe ethical indictment, indeed. The author wants to make the world aware of the inhumanity of the treatment of the native population and of Spanish slaves, and to show the terrible human, political, economic and moral costs of those actions to not merely the New World but also to the nation of Spain.

As Andree Collard writes in his Introduction to the book, "Spain in the sixteenth century had Bartolome de las Casas . . . (1474-1566)" to "denounce these human failings." He "was a man whose obsession to end the Spanish tyranny in the New World evolved into a scathing attack against imperialism. . . . He saw that, on the human level, the discoverer and all who followed after him were selfish and greedy operators." He also pointed out that the inhumane methods of the imperialist are based on a false belief that the conquered, exploited and enslaved native population are somehow inferior or evil, and that such a dehumanizing (for both conquered and conqueror) belief inevitably leads to that maltreatment:

[The Spaniards'] most cherished institution, the encomienda, destroys the humanity of the Indian when it does not destroy his life altogether, and their most cherished concept, that Indians are "tools of the devil," justifies oppression and private interests as well as betrays a blind belief in Spanish superiority (ix).

Accordingly, the author intended his work not merely as a criticism of what had occurred and was still occurring as he wrote, but also as an effort to stop what was happening and to prevent it from happening again: "Las Cases intended his History to be a work of moral enlightenm...

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Spanish Experience in the New World. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 13:41, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1692774.html