Spanish conquest of Mayas,Incas

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HabemusFrancis

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Wasn’t the Spanish conquest of the Mayas, Incas, and other indigenous tribes, ultimatley a good thing? I keep hearing from the secularist establishment how bad it was. Yes it is true the Aztecs etc. lost their land, culture, etc. But they GAINED access to heaven!

Any thoughts?
 
As in everything humans do, some good and some bad is the usual outcome. I think all the future human sacrifice victims and their kin would have thought it a darned good thing. It’s very easy and satisfying to take a simple-minded, self-righteous view of history. And totally unserious and unhelpful.
 
HabemusFrancis said:
Wasn’t the Spanish conquest of the Mayas, Incas, and other indigenous tribes, ultimatley a good thing? I keep hearing from the secularist establishment how bad it was. Yes it is true the Aztecs etc. lost their land, culture, etc. But they GAINED access to heaven!

Any thoughts?
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When I was taking historiography – a requirement for my MA in history – I had a great professor who was a Native American Specialist (his specialty was European-Indian relations in the Appalachians and the old Northwest), and he summed up the whole Spanish conquistador v. the pre-Columbian peoples perfectly. We were discussing Keith Windschuttle’s The Killing of History as well as some of the leftist “revisionist” historians Windschuttle railed against, and the good doctor basically said that its not so much who do you root for as it is who do you dislike least.

I am not a fan of Cortez or the Conquistadors, but I am by no means a fan of the Aztecs either. As for your question, certainly the people the Aztecs subjegated felt the Spaniards were better and less oppressive (reference how they eagerly fought for Cortez and co.). Perhaps this is because Cortez thought human sacrifice was barbaric. Anyways, long story short if you are looking for a hero you could do better – much better – than either the Conquistadors or the rulers of the great pre-Columbian American empires. However, yes in the long run the Spaniards effected more good for the peoples they subjegated than the pre-Columbian powers.
 
I wasn’t aware that the Conquistadores got their marching orders from the Church.🤷
 
They did not get their marching orders from the church per se. They did indeed to barbaric things such as pillaging and enslaving. Im just saying it was a good thing they came ( once the dust settled that is) and gave those poor natives Catholocism.

For with Catholocism they could have Mary, Jesus, the Blessed Sacrament, and thus a more even and certain road to Heaven
 
They did not get their marching orders from the church per se. They did indeed to barbaric things such as pillaging and enslaving. Im just saying it was a good thing they came ( once the dust settled that is) and gave those poor natives Catholocism.

For with Catholocism they could have Mary, Jesus, the Blessed Sacrament, and thus a more even and certain road to Heaven
 
snarflemike said:
As in everything humans do, some good and some bad is the usual outcome. I think all the future human sacrifice victims and their kin would have thought it a darned good thing. It’s very easy and satisfying to take a simple-minded, self-righteous view of history. And totally unserious and unhelpful.
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This.

Note that “ultimately had a good final result” and “was a good thing” are different categories. Crucifying Christ, for example, was a very bad thing that had some very good results.

So that Christianity spread was a good result of the Spanish conquest, but that does not make every aspect of that conquest good.
 
HabemusFrancis said:
They did not get their marching orders from the church per se. They did indeed to barbaric things such as pillaging and enslaving. Im just saying it was a good thing they came ( once the dust settled that is) and gave those poor natives Catholocism.

For with Catholocism they could have Mary, Jesus, the Blessed Sacrament, and thus a more even and certain road to Heaven
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There’s no “per se” about it - they didn’t get these orders from the Church, period. As to the pillaging and enslaving - that is/was obviously wrong IMO whether or not there was mass conversion of the natives as a byproduct of the colonialism. Wrong, though our modern eyes perhaps, but very much a natural mindset of the day.

There’s a poster on this forum - I think it might be “Rolltide” who seems to have an excellent knowledge of the Spanish colonialization of the Americas. Perhaps he’ll/she’ll come upon this thread to lend his viewpoint.🙂
 
apart from the usual atrocities, the spanish conquest was made easy by the population crash caused by old world diseases (smallpox, yellow fever, influenza, etc.) breaking into a dense population and following collapse of social order – estimates as high as 90% dead. totally unavoidable. the spanish could have been saints and the same result would have happened.
 
The pre-Columbian civilizations were by no means innocent. The Spanish brought with them a higher civilization (literacy for one thing) and abolished human sacrifice to the gods. The opportunists who were part of the colonizing of these areas, harsh and unscrupulous as they were, had the friars constantly on their backs to temper their cruelties. The military officers would never know when the friars were reporting their cruelties to Europe, and whether they would be forthwith replaced and punished if they descended to the worst crimes against humanity.

This does not mean that cruelties did not exist, but it certainly means the Church was not endorsing them. The war between savages and Catholics goes on in Mexico to this day.

While it is certainly a Hollywood version of history, Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalypto gives one pause to consider whether the natives should not be thankful for the arrival of Columbus.
 
HabemusFrancis said:
Wasn’t the Spanish conquest of the Mayas, Incas, and other indigenous tribes, ultimatley a good thing? I keep hearing from the secularist establishment how bad it was. Yes it is true the Aztecs etc. lost their land, culture, etc. But they GAINED access to heaven!

Any thoughts?
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“Wasn’t the Islamic conquest of the world ultimately a good thing? Yes it’s true that the Christians etc. lost their land, their culture etc. But they gained access to the one true God! Alhamdulillah!”

Now do you see?
 
lerapt78 said:
There’s a poster on this forum - I think it might be “Rolltide” who seems to have an excellent knowledge of the Spanish colonialization of the Americas. Perhaps he’ll/she’ll come upon this thread to lend his viewpoint.🙂
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I’m here! lol (and I’m a he. lol)

I’m an Associate Professor of Latin American History at a private college in the South, so I can speak as an expert on the conquest of America. (I’m also in the middle of final exams, so I’m very busy the next few days and probably can’t answer as thoroughly as I’d like.)

When I teach the conquest (or as some people now refer to it, the “encounter”), I always use the famous quote that the Spanish came to America for “God, gold, and glory”. However, depending on who you were in the conquest, they did not always hold equal sway. The Spaniards had incredible advantages in taking over America that included:
  1. Diseases which natives had no immunity to. This alone wiped out almost 90% of the Americas (and 100% of the natives in most of the Caribbean, one of the only times that a race has gone extinct from a region of the globe).
  2. Metals. The Aztecs and Inca knew about gold and silver, but Europeans had steel. This allowed them armor and weapons far in advance of the natives.
  3. Guns and gunpowder
  4. Horses. The largest domesticated animals in the New World were llamas. A horse was almost like a tank, and gave invading armies a distinct advantage.
  5. Native American allies.In Mexico, the Aztecs conquered their enemies and sacrificed them. Many, especially the Tlaxcalans, were more than happy to join the Spanish and help overthrow the Aztecs. They knew they would likely be exploited, but they could still bargain for a way of life better than what they currently had. In the case of the Inca, the Spanish took advantage of an Inca civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa to play one side off of the other. In both cases, all of the Spanish advantages in weaponry would still not have allowed them to win due to the sheer numbers of natives. It was 100,000 allies (and disease) that made the difference.
  6. Translators. The Spanish got lucky and had people that could translate Nahuatl (Aztec) and Quechua (Inca). The Spanish knew everything the natives said, but the natives couldn’t understand Spanish.
  7. The Aztecs also had the legend of Quetzalcoatl. They believed that this god periodically returned to destroy civilization and replace it with a new one. The last time he came, he established the Aztecs and looked like a feathered serpent. He was also foretold to be coming in 1519 and appear as a ghostly human with flames coming out of his head. In a supreme coincidence, Cortez was a white European with bright red hair and a beard, and arrived in 1519. He fit the image of the prophecy perfectly.
Did the Spanish brutally exploit the Native Americans? Yes, without question. Did priests try to stop this exploitation? Many did, yes, and both the Spanish crown and the pope attempted to stop it as well. Father Antonio de Montesinos and Father Bartolome de las Casas are excellent examples of this. For a good read, I recommend Bartolome de las Casas: A Biography by Dr. Lawrence Clayton. For a great example of the problems that priests faced in the New World, watch the brilliant 1982 movie “The Mission” with Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
While it is certainly a Hollywood version of history, Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalypto gives one pause to consider whether the natives should not be thankful for the arrival of Columbus.
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Though one should note that there is a HUGE difference between the civilization of the Aztecs, which exploited a population of millions and engaged in human sacrifice, and the Inca, who were exceptional builders, generally peaceful, quite egalitarian, and ran a harmonious empire almost as large as that of the Romans.
 
Read any biography of Blessed Junipero Serra of California. He did much to civilize the Indian tribes of California, though he had to contend with the Spanish military along the way. When he died the Indians greatly grieved his passing. Within a hundred years the missions he established in California were decimated and the tribes scattered due to the unscrupulous Mexican government, not the Catholic Church.
 
HabemusFrancis said:
Wasn’t the Spanish conquest of the Mayas, Incas, and other indigenous tribes, ultimatley a good thing? I keep hearing from the secularist establishment how bad it was. Yes it is true the Aztecs etc. lost their land, culture, etc. But they GAINED access to heaven!

Any thoughts?
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lol. Oh yes they gained from us because they didn’t have anything. No one else does. I can think of a couple of their people who ascended. But no they had nothing and had to be straightened out.

😦
 
lerapt78 said:
There’s no “per se” about it - they didn’t get these orders from the Church, period. As to the pillaging and enslaving - that is/was obviously wrong IMO whether or not there was mass conversion of the natives as a byproduct of the colonialism. Wrong, though our modern eyes perhaps, but very much a natural mindset of the day.

There’s a poster on this forum - I think it might be “Rolltide” who seems to have an excellent knowledge of the Spanish colonialization of the Americas. Perhaps he’ll/she’ll come upon this thread to lend his viewpoint.🙂
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I like view points on this.
 
Rolltide said:
Though one should note that there is a HUGE difference between the civilization of the Aztecs, which exploited a population of millions and engaged in human sacrifice, and the Inca, who were exceptional builders, generally peaceful, quite egalitarian, and ran a harmonious empire almost as large as that of the Romans.
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I don’t know that the Inca were egalitarian when it came men sharing the populations pool of women. A lot of men had to go celibate because the higher ranking males in their socio-professional structure were allowed more wives. The higher your rank the more wives you were allowed.

The Inca were also a very socialist type society (but so were the Jesuit Reductions), which was not bad, it just had it’s costs and benefits like capitalist societies. In Inca civilization you basically would be told what to do as a profession. On the positive side they had no homeless and starving.

Something about the ruins of their civilization in the Mountains with clouds, strikes me as something that was rather holy. Or at least it seems to me it once had some holy (and very romantic) qualities to it.
As for the OP: the Mayan civilization was already in decline by the time the Spaniards arrived. Many of their once great city-states had been left abandoned. The Mayans themselves didn’t even remember the greatness of their once impressive city-states.

It’s thought deforestation might have caused the decline of the Mayan city-states. Others think a combination of deforestation and internal wars–civil wars–led to the abandonment of these cities and the collapse of the Mayan civilization.
 
HabemusFrancis said:
Wasn’t the Spanish conquest of the Mayas, Incas, and other indigenous tribes, ultimatley a good thing? I keep hearing from the secularist establishment how bad it was. Yes it is true the Aztecs etc. lost their land, culture, etc. But they GAINED access to heaven!

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Well the gospel is to be preached to all nations. The church has recieved absolution for some things it has done. So I was told by a priest when I was looking at the Church and before I was baptized. The church has been and is now being persecuted in some places. It has also done its share of persecuting as I mentioned and has received absolution. You might want to check into that a little bit.
 
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