Bartolome De Las Casas Analysis

Bartoleme de las Casas was born on 1484 in Sevilla, Spain. In 1502 he left for Hispaniola to spread the word of Christianity and monitor the progress of religion in that area. Once there he witnessed the brutal treatment of the indigenous people. He continued to participate in the conquest for an additional twelve years. After his services, he was rewarded with territory and indigenous people of his own. Once he met the gentle people, Las Casas realized that the way the Spaniards treated the Native Americans was inhumane. He sailed back to Spain to defend the people and plead for their better treatment. After this, Las Casa believed that “both Spaniards and indigenous communities could build a new civilization in American together” (Pagden).
However, it wasn’t until he obtained territory and personally met the Native Americans that he discovered that they were good natured people. If it was not for that event then perhaps he would not have taken any actions to correct the behavior of the Spaniards. Although, other individuals expressed themselves positively about the Native Americans no one stopped themselves and asked why. They all obeyed orders and kept moving forward. It’s funny because the Spaniards are supposed to be the “civilized” people, but did a horrible job of expressing that. However, it was their job to conquer those land masses and sent items back to their mainland. It is no different then what some individuals do now in order to survive and put food on the table. Now that I have access to this modern interpretation of history I realized that the way that history is taught in lower level course it to tell some part of the truth, but not go in-depth with it or interpret it. So teachers were teaching me the sugar coated basic facts of history, which I found unfair because I found that information to hold true and never questioned those