That’s the official reason my office will be closed on Monday.
They might have fared better if smallpox vaccine had been discovered before Columbus.
Or Canadian Thanksgiving. Here’s what you get with US Thanksgiving:
Here’s what you get with both Canadian Thanksgiving and US Thanksgiving:
3 Likes
Here’s Charles Mann (author of 1491, the book Maggie pointed out) giving an excellent talk about the subject of his book. (Between 14:00 and 16:00 he draws a connection from a calamitous post-Columbian population decrease in the Americas and the carbon and carbon dioxide formerly but no longer emitted to the Little Ice Age, as one of the contending theories. My mind is a little bit blown.)
I’m not sure why being charitable or not is an issue: I’m worried about accuracy. De las Casas can deal either way.
Think of it as analogous to those situations Foucault describes in his work, say, in Discipline and Punish. A typical Foucauldian reading would stress that, regardless of surface improvements and changes for the better–in moving from public executions to incarceration, say, or, here, from “Indians are devils/pagans/soulless/etc.” to “Indians are potential Christian souls”–actually masks a re-entrenchment and furthering of mechanisms of power, surveillance, and control. So while it’s good not to be drawn and quartered in the public square (or, here, killed outright by Conquistadors), incarceration (or conversion) is actually in many ways much more controlling: execution is a kind of escape from the state, after all, one that incarceration and its underlying message–the State always wins; we can reasonably subjugate you in the name of state power, law, and rationality; we can do this at any time–wholly prevents at once and forever. Similarly, regarding the Indians as wholly Other at the very least preserved a certain aspect of their independence: the Spaniards could kill, torture, maim, them, but there was a part of their native identities left untouched. Replace this with mass conversion and the attendant burying of native identities, cultures, languages, etc., and I’m not sure that the kindler and gentler colonialism preached by de las Casas wasn’t far, far worse than the more direct and brutal hack-and-slash kind. They’re both genocidal, and at least with one, you can see the blood and thunder directly: the other achieves genocide by much more subtle and indirect–and thus, much more difficult to combat and counteract, even in the realm of discourse–means. I’d say that for de las Casas to be even mentioned, with any seriousness, as a kind of proto-humanitarian philosopher rather proves my point: that we might see him as radically different from Columbus (and, even more disturbingly, as one of us) should be chilling to us moderns.
And I wholly disagree with you re: the “weeds” passage, which reads as unmistakably racist and Eurocentrist to me, however bedecked with nods to love and Christian brotherhood. Positing an quintessence of equality common to all humans–here, the soul-- is one thing: but using this construct to deny other aspects of identity such as language, culture, local practices, etc., is deeply problematic, and not without its own brand of evil.
1 Like
My point was that although he was a product of his time and phrased things in very Christian terms, we should be able to celebrate a positive desire to see natives as equally human and of equal value to Christian Spaniards, considering how big a jump that was to many people at the time. It was an obviously flawed viewpoint that demonstrated far too little criticism of his own culture (you get the idea that he felt Europe was imperfectly following a perfect model), but the innovation in his viewpoint is what interests me the most. Considering native cultures to be as valid as European ones, or suggesting that Christianity was less than the objective truth would be ridiculous to almost any Christian European at the time, especially in the aftermath of the Reconquista and the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Spain. Suggesting that the gospel was not the answer to the world would be heresy for a friar, so it doesn’t surprise me that he still came from that perspective.
Nowadays de las Casas’ views would rightly be considered bigoted, but I would still consider him to be a proto-humanist as his main break from the culture of his day was overwhelmingly positive. Even if we do hold his views responsible for a kind of cultural genocide, the point of the letter was not to say, “don’t kill all of the natives, they might still be useful”, but rather, “mistreating the natives denies the fact that they have the same inherent value as us. If we are enlightened, it has nothing to do with our better nature, but rather from our being taught better, which BTW is not obvious from our actions at the moment”.
The subtlety of the damage done by people like de las Casas doesn’t excuse it at all, but it at least makes it easier to understand how someone who wished the best for the natives could significantly harm them by his actions. I would consider him to be worth celebrating (although definitely not ‘deifying’) in the same way that I would celebrate Sir Patrick Moore. He may have been anti-immigration, homophobic and paternalistic, but he did a great service to science during his life. We can celebrate the positive contribution he made without excusing his negative actions or canonising him, by recognizing that he was a product of his time who brought his culture forward in an important area.
@timothy_krause, thank you so much for taking the time for such a considered, and lengthy, exposition! Understand that if I draw a different conclusion from the same evidence, neither of us are crazy, stupid or evil! Also, forgive the brevity. You obviously took time that I will not. However, I did read carefully!
First, I’m ok with not liking de las Casas! If someone more appropriate to de las Casas is available, let’s start promoting. I’d love to see something of the form 'de las Casas won’t work for x reasons, but instead how about we promote person A who is much better for reasons y. My objection is to what appears to be negative dismissiveness pitched at Matthew Inman, who is guilty only of eloquently underscoring why Columbus should not be celebrated, and to suggesting an viable alternative.
Secondly, so, I challenge you: given your extensive knowledge of the history of the time Who is a better alternative to de las Casas?
Thirdly, while I absolutely understand the importance of elevating an Indian over a European as an alternative to Columbus, I don’t agree with your analysis of de las Casas’ motives, there, at least, given the quotes you cited. I’m reading sincere caring, there. Yes, only within the context of Catholicism and Spanish interests, but this was his only context. He was not able to draw on the rich understanding of oppression that we have today. It seems that he pushed the boundaries for the time.
Anyway, as I said, I’m happy to hear a civil difference of opinion!
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
