The Spanish immediately after seeing what Columbus got away with doing as governor
They couldn't have been too mad given the way they continued to plunder the New World after that. Only thing worse than a Spanish ship captain back then was a Jesuit priest.
I think OP is referencing Bartoleme de las Casa, who was rather more of an anomaly than representative of mainstream Spanish society. He's also complicated by the fact that when he first went to the Spanish colonies, he spent over a decade exploiting the ever living shit out of indigenous peoples. (IIRC, he was studying the book of Sirach and became convicted.) As he transitioned into being an abolutionist (one of the first? if not the first,) he suggested using foreign (african) slaves instead, which the spanish adopted as a law
But I'm not sure it's really fair to say Bartoleme represents all (or even most) Spanish at the time.
There may have been others before the 18th century, but I can't find them.
Bart had me going in the first half NGL
to be clear.. it's pretty clear from his writings he had no idea how the african slaves were being, uh, sourced? I don't know what he thought was going on down there, but he did get to a point where he saw slavery of any form as evil.
but yeah. it's a fascinating progression and thing to settle on. "enslaving local people" is somehow more offensive than "enslaving foreign people and shipping them in." I rather imagine he got to know a few of the locals. came to respect them, see them as humans and not something as lesser, but he never had that experience with african people, until, well, maybe he did. if that makes sense.
Columbus was indeed a bastard by contemporary standards:
One man caught stealing corn had his nose and ears cut off, was placed in shackles and was then auctioned off as a slave. A woman who dared to suggest that Columbus was of lowly birth was… stripped naked and paraded around the colony on the back of a mule.
It got bad enough that he was sent back in chains (though he was released) and stripped of all his titles (permanently). There’s some thought that the report was a bit of a hit piece by his political enemies, but it seems like he, with his equally shitty brother, opened himself up by being such an asshole.
You don’t have to be an apologist for the Spanish regime or think they were enlightened somehow to understand that he was particularly shitty. As the historian in the article says, “The monarchs wanted someone who did not give them problems. Columbus did not solve problems, he created them.”
Is this another one of those weird threads where the internet tries to pretend that the king and queen of Spain were loving benevolent monarchs who cared so much about the natives and hated slavery and believed in equality? Cuz I've seen that bizarre ass propaganda a lot for some damn reason.
Funny how that was really how much of that was actually portrayed at the time.
Basically Machiavellian villains - sending someone to exploit the frontiers of Africa or "New World", someone you know will not be doing things ethically, then convicting them for doing your own bidding. Whilst at the diplomatic table everyone maintains a facade of "we're bringing jobs and higher quality of life for the natives, and teaching them the ways of God" while talking about Belgian Congo.
I have never understood why you wouldn't want to judge the past by modern standards. Sounds like a good way to avoid becoming like them in terms of the wrongs they did, by modern standards.
Otherwise, yeah, I don't know enough about this to add anything meaningful to the conversation around him.
Sorry mate but I’m pressing X on this one
Eh a little of column A, a lot of column B (Column B is just a white washed version of Column A).
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