EUROPEAN CRIMES AGAINST NATIVE AMER.   Term Paper ID:25800 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines honest & dishonest portrayals of Europeans' treatment of Amer.-Indians, focusing on Washington Irving's [Life & Voyages of Christopher Columbus].... More...

7 Pages / 1575 Words 3 sources, 13 Citations, MLA Format $28.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Examines honest & dishonest portrayals of Europeans' treatment of Amer.-Indians, focusing on Washington Irving's [Life & Voyages of Christopher Columbus]. Paper Introduction: In Washington Irving's The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, some of the crimes committed by Columbus and his fellow Europeans against the native population are portrayed. This study will focus on those crimes against Native Americans, as portrayed by Irving and other authors, and on the impact of the crimes on the size of the native population. The provided selections from Irving's book do not give a complete picture of the crimes committed by Columbus and other Spaniards in the New World. Irving is largely sympathetic to Columbus and has clearly chosen not to cover at length or in detail the crimes committed by the Spaniards, as depicted more objectively in other works. Instead, Irving glosses over the crimes or minimizes and excuses them as necessary. In the section on Columbus' appearance in court in Spain to answer charges Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. . The author focuses on the inhumanityof the treatment of the native population and of Spanish slaves, and toshow the terrible human, political, economic and moral costs of thoseactions to not merely the New World but also to the nation of Spain. .. and Spain losing money this way." Criticizingthe attitude of Columbus, las Casas adds: "The natives died and wereimpaired in this fashion; but [Columbus] was lamenting the loss of thetithe in gold and other temporal interests" (las Casas 142). . Bigelow writes, concurring with las Casas, that "Columbus tookhundreds of Indians slaves and sent them back to Spain, where most of themwere sold and subsequently died." Columbus also, "in his quest for gold . . . The provided selections from Irving's book do not give a completepicture of the crimes committed by Columbus and other Spaniards in the NewWorld. . . Eds. When it is time to let Columbus speak for himself, Irving presentshis words without questioning their veracity or the obviously self-servingmotivation behind them: I ought to be judged as a captain, sent to subdue a numerous and hostile people. Boston:Twayne, 1981.las Casas, Bartolome de. Irving is largely sympathetic to Columbus and has clearly chosen notto cover at length or in detail the crimes committed by the Spaniards, asdepicted more objectively in other works. . In stead, Irving seems to be arguing that Columbus' enemiesessentially trumped up the charges against him: Having a maternal interest in the we;fare of the natives, the queen had been repeatedly offended by what appeared to her pertinacity on the part of Columbus, in continuing to make slaves of those taken in warfare. As Andree Collard writes in his Introduction to the book, "Spain inthe sixteenth century had Bartolome de las Casas . Referring to Columbus, las Casas notes that "six out of seven Indianshave died since he left the island because of maltreatment: butchered,beaten, starving and ill-treated, most died in the mountains and streamswhere they had fled, . . History of the Indies. Irving fails to note who approved the shipping of such creatures tothe New World when it could have been predicted they would abuse the nativepopulation. . (1474-1566)" to"denounce these human failings." He was a man whose obsession to end theSpanish tyranny in the New World evolved into a scathing attack againstimperialism. Isabella is thereby convinced of Columbus' goodness and no furtherinvestigation into his crimes is pursued. One reads much more of this travelogue sort of reporting than ofaccounts of the crimes of the Spaniards against the natives. They should have loved and praised the Indians, and even learned from them, instead of belittling them by publicizing them as beastly; instead of stealing, afflicting, oppressing and annihilating them (las Casas 82). . These wretches, who in their own country had been the vilest of the vile, here assumed the tone of grand cavaliers, . Las Casas in his Prologue establishes himself as a Christian man whowrites not to please others or to flatter, but rather to cut to the moralbone of the Spanish tyranny in the New World. Oh, vicious blindness! . . . Irving does go into much greater detail on the crimes committed bythose who came after Columbus. It ought to be considered that I have brought all these under subjection to their majesties, giving them dominion over another world, by which Spain, heretofore poor, has suddenly become rich. In fact, themajor conflicts reported in the selected sections of the book have far moreto do with squabbles and outright fighting among the Spaniards themselvesthan with significant conflicts between the Spaniards and the NativeAmericans. Las Casas points out that the Indians were generous in theirtreatment of the Spanish, especially in times of need. . Irving does mention the enslavement of natives, but one notes thatthe author eventually seems to absolve Columbus of much guilt or cruelty inthe matter. He intends to temper the boasting and excessive vainglory of many and to unveil the injustice of not a few who take pride in vicious deeds and execrable evil as if they could herd heroic men of illustrious exploits like cattle (1 ). Las Casas delivers a moral and political critique of the Spanish rulein the Americas from Columbus onward. Las Casas notes that upto the time of his writing, the picture that had been painted of theSpanish experience in the New World was a thoroughly heroic one, and hewants to erase that picture and paint another which includes the brutalityand evil of the Spanish treatment of the Indians. . If thisauthor's figures are correct, the population was indeed almost decimated.However, even if his figures are exaggerated, the deaths attributed toColumbus and his Old World followers are hideous indeed. It was called by the natives Boriquen, but he gave it the name of San Juan Bautista; it is the same since known by the name of Porto Rico (Irving 191). Irving paints here a most rosy portrait of both Isabella andColumbus, two people among many who were responsible for the decimation ofthe native population. Wicked, insensitive and detestable ungratefulness! The gifts and transfers of these unhappy beings were all ascribed to the will of Columbus, and represented to Isabella in the darkest colours (Irving 415). Collard also points out that the inhumane methods of the imperialistwere based on the false belief that the conquered, exploited and enslavednative population were somehow inferior or evil, and that such adehumanizing (for both conquered and conqueror) belief inevitably leads tothat 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). whatever errors I might have fallen into, they were not with an evil intention (Irving 432). To the exploited, imprisoned,enslaved or dead native, however, such distinctions are hardly relevant. . In the section onColumbus' appearance in court in Spain to answer charges against him,Irving once again casts Columbus in the best possible light, emphasizingabove all others' Columbus' words in defense of himself. Bartolome de las Casas, in History of the Indies, presents a muchdifferent history of the Spanish experience in the New World from 1492 to152 . Bill Bigelow, in "Columbus in the Classroom," writes that Columbuswas not the wonderful hero American schoolchildren are taught to believe hewas. The Life and Voyages of Washington Irving. Still, as favorable as Irving is toward Columbus, he is also, atleast at one point, fair enough to note that the crimes committed by theSpaniards against the natives were not always done for the most noblepurposes, as was claimed: The conversion of infidels, by fair means or foul, by persuasion or force, was one of the popular tenets of the day; and in recommending the enslaving of the Caribs, Columbus thought he was obeying the dictates of his conscience, when he was in reality listening to the incitements of his interest (Irving 211). . seizing upon whatever pleased their caprice (Irving 441). . Even here, however, one notes that Irving gives Columbus the benefitof the doubt, accepting that Columbus indeed believes he is actingaccording to his Christian conscience and not out of the desire to exploitand control for fame, power and wealth. Works CitedBigelow, Bill. . Laurence Behrens and Leonard Rosen. he had thought that, when the precepts of religion and the lights of civilization had reformed their savage manners, and cannibal propensities, they might be rendered eminently serviceable as interpreters, and as means of propagating the doctrines of Christianity (Irving 211). . had the hands cut off any Indian who did not return with his or herquota." In Hispaniola, "an entire race of people was wiped off the face ofthe earth in a mere forty years of Spanish administration" (Bigelow 255). In Washington Irving's The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus,some of the crimes committed by Columbus and his fellow Europeans againstthe native population are portrayed. For the most part, Irving presents Columbus' voyage and exploits inthe New World as if he were Jacques Cousteau on a pleasant and amiablejourney to exotic locales, as if Columbus were a sociologist of sortsrather than a leader in a conquering army: Continuing his course, he arrived one evening in sight of a great island covered with beautiful forests, and indented with fine havens. This Christian faith, hemakes clear, is the root of his moral indictment. New York:HarperCollins, N.D., 254-263.Irving, Washington. . "Columbus in the Classroom." The Curriculum. New York: Torchbook,1971.----------------------- 1 . He saw that, on the human level, the discoverer and allwho followed after him were selfish and greedy operators (las Casas ix). He points out thatthe Indians were fully self-sufficient and were not starving or "liv[ing]on air" or in need of the Spanish to feed them and keep them alive: Did we satiate them or, on the contrary, did they satisfy our own hunger and free us from death many times by giving us not only the bare essentials but many superfluous things as well. the effort of anactive genius . Several references demonstrate the Spanish "crime" of seeing andtreating the Native Americans as savages at worst and silly children atbest, in need of Christianizing and civilizing, as if their own religionand civilization were so backward as to be useless: From the roving and adventurous nature of these people, . This study will focus on those crimesagainst Native Americans, as portrayed by Irving and other authors, and onthe impact of the crimes on the size of the native population. and executed with no less courage than perseverance"(Irving 437), Irving goes on to blame later atrocities against NativeAmericans on a rogue element of criminals, painting an indignant picture of the capricious tyranny exercised over Indians by worthless Spaniards, many of whom had been transported convicts from the dungeons of Castile. . Instead, Irving glosses over thecrimes or minimizes and excuses them as necessary. After quoting another writer who believesthat "Columbus' discovery of the new world was . . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.