A Ruthless Conquest of the Natives of the New World

     Most people are aware of the Aztec's unfortunate experience with Hernan Cortez.  Just as unfortunate for the Inca king Atahualpa was his first sight of Pizarro and his band of marauders, charging on horseback toward him, lopping off heads with glittering steel swords the likes of which no Incan had ever seen.  Later, after the city was looted of its gold and silver, as Atahualpa was ready to be garroted and burned for devil worship, he asked Pizarro why he must possess so much gold.  “We Spanish have a disease,” he was alleged to have told the Incan king, “which only gold can cure.”  Perhaps he was being brutally frank about himself, or perhaps he was just making a cruel joke.  Nevertheless, the statement serves to illustrate the continual brutality with which the Spanish conquistadors treated the Indians of the new world in the 16^th and 17^th Century.

     This was never truer than on the island of Hispaniola shortly after Columbus discovered it.  He reported back to the Spanish King that the indigenous people were gentle and compliant and would make good servants and slaves.  With Columbus’ brother as the first Corregidor of Hispaniola by 1496, the treatment of the Indians became so brutal that an outraged Spanish Dominican Friar, Bartholomew de las Casas, published a book which he called ‘A Brief Chronicle of the Devastation of the Indies’.  It was later translated into French and English, complete with colorful drawings of how far Spanish cruelty had come.  According to Friar Bartholomew, the Spanish demanded that the natives find gold for them and instituted a quota of how much they must bring forth every day, lest they be punished.  This was rather difficult, since there was virtually no gold on Hispaniola or anywhere else in the eastern islands.  When the natives began to resist the demands, the Spanish pursued them with packs of hungry dogs.  Friar Bartholomew even detailed how the Spanish soldiers roasted the natives alive over fires or chopped off their hands and hung them around their necks, a message to the others whom might resist.  It was also noted by the friar that Spanish soldiers herded the natives into their tall wooden dwellings and burned them all alive, while inside. 

     It is hard for a nation to survive this kind of cruelty without stigma, as we’ve seen with Nazi Germany during the holocaust, Japan with the rape of Nanking, the Turkish genocide of Armenians, and even the United States with the starvation and relocation of native Americans in the Trail of Tears (there are many other historical examples throughout the world, of course).  The Spanish slaughter of the Indians became known as the ‘Black Legend of Spain' and haunted the Spanish for centuries.  There were many Spanish who abhorred the way their countrymen treated the native peoples, like Friar Bartholomew, and their numbers were considerable.  However, when it comes to what motivates the deeds of many, greed and gold has far too often trumped conscience. 

     Spanish mining interests in South America kept the natives in terrible servitude, slavery and early death for centuries afterward while Spanish fortune seekers looked for silver in Potosi, Peru, and other places.  However, while Spain's "guns, germs, and steel" was a formidable triad to resist, a few native civilizations fought back, and viciously.  The Araucanian natives of Patagonia fought fiercely and remained free of Spanish domination.  Though Conquistadors tried again and again to defeat them, they were never successful.

For much more on the subject, you can also read my historical novel, The Brethren Prince, available as an e-book at the Amazon Kindle store, Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and other major e-book retailers.