Lo siento – en InglĂ©s đ
I prefer this account of the invasion of the Indies by the Europeans because it comes in stark contrast to the account relived by Cabeza de Vaca in Naufragios. BartolomĂ© de Las Casas understands that the Europeans werenât helping the natives when they colonized the New World. He writes his book without any compassion for the explorers calling them âmalos hombresâ, âabominables y crueles hombres bestialesâ, and many other things. Iâm glad that he touched on the sexual assault that occurred while the Europeans were in the New World. Although it is a terrible thing to be part of oneâs history, it is an important aspect of the domination and conquering of the Americas. I think his sentiments towards the explorers is epitomized in the sentence on page 19 where he says ây porque toda la gente que huir podĂa se encerraba en los montes y subĂa a las sierras huyendo de hombres tan inhumanos, tan sin piedad y tan feroces bestias, extirpadores y capitales enemigos del linaje humano, enseñaron y amaestraron lebreles, perros bravĂsimos que en viendo un indio lo hacĂan pedazos en un credo, y mejor arremetĂan a Ă©l y lo comĂan que si fuera un puerco.â
He mentions and then describes in detail that in each and every place the Europeans went, the lives of the Indians were changed for the worst. I like how he segregates the novel into specific destruction that he saw in certain places (Nueva España, la provincia de Nicaragua, de isla de Cuba, etc.). This separation gives the impression of authority on the subject and truth of what heâs saying. One point to make is that without using specific names of Europeans, Las Casasâ interpretation appears less authentic that the work written by Cabeza de Vaca because his use of names of actual explorers can be confirmed through historic documents, Iâm sure. It is interesting to notice that Las Casas names certain native kings and queens and regular native people by given native name, Behechio, Anacaona y Higuanama (p.22), but always refers to the Europeans as âlos cristianosâ, âlos españolesâ, or âlos castellanos.â This is yet another example where Las Casas shows his feelings towards the Europeans because this contrasts with Cabeza de Vaca who named many of the Europeans and Christians by name but called the Indians by tribe name or place name (as a group, rather than by their personal names.)