Victoria promises from their "heavenly angels” which resulted

Victoria YoungM/W US HISPonceJanuary 9, 2018Primary Source Handout #1The author of this excerpt, Bartolemé de Las Casas, saw the Indians as oblivious human beings who were blinded by the promises from their “ heavenly angels” which resulted in their demise. He believed the Indians to be humble because they had “ no desire to possess worldly goods”. That trait alone made them the “ most fortunate people” who deserved to know of their divine God. He also felt sorrowful for them because most of their souls died “ without the Faith”. He saw the Indians as victims when his brethren he believed to be Christians turned out to be just “ foolish and cruel” as they ruined the lands as well as the population of the Indians.

The Native Americans experience was like the “ Domino effect” whereas every horrendous act he so-called “ Christians” did upon them got even worse as the Spaniard’s presence on the islands increased. At first, the Spanish Christians supposed goal was to let the Indians learn of a higher power, but some /Spaniards took a different approach. The effects of the Spaniard’s vast methods of cruelty resulted in many islands becoming depopulated and “ laid to waste”. The men, woman, children, however, were either killed for sport or sold into slavery.

In the end, many of the captives that were left died from “ exhaustion or hunger” because of the Spanish Christians ghastly ways. The motivation of the colonizers was, for the majority, not a positive goal. The Spaniards saw a community of open-minded human beings willing to believe anything as a motive for their “ terrorizing” ways. At first, their greedy motives were masked with the idea to allow the Indians to be “ endowed by God”. The Indians saw the Spaniards as being “ angels from Heaven”, but as time went by the Spanish Christians greed to obtain gold was the reason for their villainous ways. What started out as a rescue mission ended up as a bloody mess of innocent lives.