It is somewhat true that the Spanish and Portuguese treated the natives harshly, though no harsher than were their own condition. But they sent a Catholic contingent with them, as chaplains, to evangelize the natives, not to subjugate them. As a matter of fact, the Franciscans and Dominicans in the American SW often sent reports back to the crown demanding an order to cease and desist in the treatment the Conquistadores were foisting on the natives. They wanted converts, not slaves. The English Crown, on the other hand, wanted subjects and considered the natives to be highly inferior. In fact, they scalped native Americans that they captured.
If your numbers are correct, how is it that 9,000,000 Mexican natives were converted by the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. That was 1531? Cortez was the conqueror of Mexico, by and large, and he was a warrior, warriors are brutal, but his brutality was also chastised by the Franciscans reporting on his actions. Truth is, the Aztecs were killing their own in greater numbers than the Conqustadors, with their constant need of human sacrifice to appease their gods, and their constant infighting, which Cortez used to his own benefit. It is true, the conquistadors were exploiting for gold, but the Franciscans that accompanied them were exploring for souls.
Thank you for noting this, as the fact of the matter is that the Conquistadors are not sanitized simply because Fransicans were with them. That was part of the battle and other Franciscans noted the problem that happened when others said they were concerned for people's souls and yet they did nothing to say they would resist the Crown for commanding problems. This is something Latino Catholics have mentioned repeatedly and it's something I wish others would take seriously...
Brilliant to see the way history has shaped for Hispanics and the dynamics behind how there has always been a distinct Catholicism for Hispanics...as he said "We are descendants of two great mystical traditions: the pre-Reformation evangelically renewed Iberian and the Native American. Both were quite different from Reformation and CounterReformation European Christianity"...and "Protestants have not yet discovered and reclaimed as their own the marvelous aspects of our Iberoamerican Catholic heritage that they left behind in becoming Protestants" (more at Justo González | Theological Graffiti - Digital Etchings ):
So you could say that the Plague was a genocide, then?
In fact, the Franciscans did resist the conqustadores. Often times, their mail was censored and stolen, and efforts to mitigate the issue were stalled most of the time.
The priests were going against the Mexican Government, rather than the pope.
There were other priests who rebelled actively against the crown, such as Jose Gabriel Tupac. Gonzalez noted how Jose believed himself to be a descendant of the royal Incans and was able to lead the Indians of Upper Peru in a rebellion while claiming to be the true representatives of Catholicism. They did not see the church as administered by the Spanish crown to be anything but a representation of power used to oppress the marginalized. There were repeated admonitions from the Bishop of Cuzco toward his priests to tell the Indians about the benefits that came from resisting riots. However, while those of Spanish descent and colonials chose to resist rebellion, others living in large towns priests who lived in rural areas chose to support the rebellion while those who were in the upper classes of Spanish society chose to resist and even arm themselves against rebels. Although the Tupac Amaru rebellion did not succeed as well as had hoped after it ended in three years, other rebellions arose decades later the sustained oppression. The most memorable rebellion was done under Fr. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, identifying with the Virgin of Guadalupe, as Mexico sought independence and demonstrated that there was always a willingness among the Christian grassroots community in marginalized camps to resist others claiming Christ if they supported the hierarchy that represented the upper-class power structures in Church of Rome (more shared here ).
Seeing the history of revolts in Latino Catholicism, it has been interesting to see the reasons behind why things have been so complicated. What follows is an excellent presentation on the issue of Catholic Hispanics and theology for Hispanics that I thought I would share here since it seemed to bring the issue
Father Virgilio Elizondo (author of Mestizo) is someone heavily involved in the documentary - one I came across after recently finishing an amazing book with him giving an intro called "Manana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective" by Dr. Justo González,perhaps the most prominent Hispanic theologian of the 20th century - as he grew up in Cuba and is an exile, as he grew up Catholic and later became Methodist but also works with Catholics and sees himself more so as a "Protestant Catholic"
Everything - from the missions to the ways Hispanics interacted with the world - has been very different for Hispanic believers and it's something I have long been fascinated by.
You mean those folks who practiced infanticide and genocide to appease their gods?
What's your point? That the Spanish and Portuguese soldiers did bad things? No doubt. But British and Dutch soldiers scalped Natives and subjugated them. There was a religious element to Spanish and Portuguese expeditions which mitigated much of what the soldiers wanted to do.
Unfortunately, there is A LOT of defense of what happened on all sides. Protestant, Catholic, etc.
