Originally posted by Triple C
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3. There had been no consistent campaign to exterminate the Indian Americans. The European colonists simply did not have the intellectual equipment to concieve something like that. The Americans did believe the Indians to be of an inferior "race" of sorts but insofar as most were concerned, the Indians were to be Christianized and assimulated, and their lands to be administered by more capable and productive hands. Identity back then was less a matter of ancestry than religion and customs. Manifest destiny, Indian administration, missionary schools and all that.
4. The Spanish empire was unfairly maligned by Anglo sources because it was Catholic and the historical enmity between the English and the Spainards. However I would not characterize the Spanish conquest in its first couple of centuries as anything remotely benign.
After all, the Indians dug out thousands of tons of silver from the mines and filled the treasure ships, under slave labor conditions, with little to no regard for their safety or well being. The Spanish conquest of the Americas occurred at the period roughly sandwiched between the reconquista, the pan European Wars of Religion, and the Inquisition. A terrible time to be a pagan ruled by Christian overlords. The plain truth was that the Spainards infected most with deadly diseases, killed the resistance, and then forcibly converted the surivors, put them to the mines to squeaze every last ounce of bullion out of the land. They throughly wiped out the Aztecth and Inca civlizations which were among the most prosperous and populous in the world. No accurate census was available, but by the conquistador's own admission, the devastation was horrific and the surviving population a fraction of what it used to be.
After all, the Indians dug out thousands of tons of silver from the mines and filled the treasure ships, under slave labor conditions, with little to no regard for their safety or well being. The Spanish conquest of the Americas occurred at the period roughly sandwiched between the reconquista, the pan European Wars of Religion, and the Inquisition. A terrible time to be a pagan ruled by Christian overlords. The plain truth was that the Spainards infected most with deadly diseases, killed the resistance, and then forcibly converted the surivors, put them to the mines to squeaze every last ounce of bullion out of the land. They throughly wiped out the Aztecth and Inca civlizations which were among the most prosperous and populous in the world. No accurate census was available, but by the conquistador's own admission, the devastation was horrific and the surviving population a fraction of what it used to be.
My friend says it is true that the Spaniards looted the country for gold but at least there were no slave labour although the conditions could be described as slave labour conditions. There were institutions and reforms designed to uplift the natives's working conditions and assimiliation into the government and social life.
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