Conquistadors and Christians

Like the Crusades, much of what we were taught about the Spanish invasion and conquering of the Aztecs and Incas was incorrect. I would suspect that due to political correctness that now it’s even more incorrect. Like the Crusades, what’s taught is Europeans invaded and just killed lots of people. With the Spanish conquest of the Americas, it was with the support of Christians and the Catholic Church.

The conquest was purely about gold. To accomplish that involved genocide and slavery, neither of which was supported by Christians. Friar Bartolome de Las Casas in his journal at the time:

“The reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed. They have set out to line their pockets with gold and to amass private fortunes as quickly as possible so that they can assume a status quite at odds with that into which they were born. Their insatiable greed and overweening ambition knows no bounds.”

Just before Christmas in 1511, Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos announced he had an important sermon, and the church was packed. What they expected to hear was an endorsement from the Church about their massive rape, murder, theft and enslavement. What they heard instead:

“In order to make your sin against the Indians known to you I have come up on this pulpit, I who am the voice of Christ crying in the wilderness of this island, and therefore it behooves you to listen, not with carless attention, but with all your heart and senses, so that you may hear it; for this is going to be the strangest voice that ever you heard, the harshest and the hardest and most awful and most dangerous that you ever expected to hear...

 This voice says that you are in mortal sin, that you live and die in it, for the cruelty and tyranny you use in dealing with these innocent people. Tell me, by what right or justice do you keep these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged a detestable war against these people, who dwelt quietly and peaceful on their own land?...

 Why do you keep them so oppressed and weary, not giving them enough to eat nor taking care of them in their illness? For with the excessive work you demand of them they fall ill and die, or rather you kill them with your desire to extract and acquire gold every day.

 Are these Indians not men? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not obliged to love them as you love yourselves?”

In this last the most important Christian rule is pronounced, ‘love your neighbor as yourself’. The next Sunday he returned to the pulpit and repeated his message. He was endangering his life doing so. Conquistadors were not soldiers of Spain, but mercenaries, and convicts working for their freedom from prison. They were threatened with excommunication if they didn’t stop, yet still ignored the Church. The Church had no power beyond this to enforce its will.

Montesinos went to Spain and lobbied the King, telling him of the atrocities. The result was the “Laws of Burgos” making the genocide and enslavements illegal, which had no effect. They were unenforceable. The King didn’t have the military power or money.

Back to Las Casas. He was at one time a slaveholder himself. Here’s the thinking that changed his mind:

“Unclean is the offering sacrificed by an oppressor. [Such] mockeries of the unjust are not pleasing to God. The Lord is pleased only by those who keep to the way of truth and justice. The Most High does not accept the gifts of unjust people. He does not look well upon their offerings. Their sins will not be expiated by repeat sacrifices.

 The one whose sacrifice comes from the good of the poor is like one who kills his neighbor. The one who sheds blood and the one who defrauds the laborer are kin and kind.”

The conquistadores threatened the clergy in the Americas with beatings and death. There was an armed revolt in Peru that kicked the King’s Viceroy out. King Charles was fed up at this point and ordered all Spanish conquests stopped until things were worked out. There’s much more to the story, but I wanted to give a sense that the Church, Christians applying the rule of love your neighbor as yourself and speaking out against slavery, did a lot to stop the genocide and enslavement of a free people. It was people that turned their back on Christianity that caused these horrible things to happen.

It was greed that did this. Christians that saw it was wrong and spoke out were beaten and killed, but still got the government to do the moral thing. The problem was, as the ruling council of the Americas, The Council of the Indies, concluded:

“We feel certain that these laws have not been obeyed…. The greed of those who undertake conquest and the timidity and humility of the Indians is such that we are not certain whether any instruction will be obeyed.”

Later in 1573 King Philip II enforced new laws regarding all new Spanish discoveries, that all peoples in these lands were to be treated fairly and enslaving them illegal. The law had teeth, though I’m sure there where plenty of violations, like there is of nearly any law. This was a far cry from what went on initially.

Las Casas:

“…if we want to be sons of Christ and followers of the truth of the gospel, we should consider that, even though these peoples may be completely barbaric, they are nevertheless created in God’s image….They are our brothers, redeemed by Christ’s most precious blood, no less than the wisest and most learned men in the whole world. “