![\"De](\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/files\/2014\/09\/De-Las-Casas-298x300.jpg\")
<\/a>“The Indies were discovered in the year one thousand four hundred and ninety-two. In the following year a great many Spaniards went there with the intention of settling the land. Thus, forty-nine years have passed since the first settlers penetrated the land, the first so claimed being the large and most happy isle called Hispaniola . . . densely populated with native peoples called Indians. This large island was perhaps the most densely populated place in the world. . . . And of all the infinite universe of humanity, these people are the most guileless, the most devoid of wickedness and duplicity, the most obedient and faithful to their native masters and to the Spanish Christians whom they serve. They are by nature the most humble, patient, and peaceable, holding no grudges, free from embroilments, neither excitable nor quarrelsome.<\/p>\nYet into this sheepfold, into this land of meek outcasts there came some Spaniards who immediately behaved like ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions that had been starved for many days. And Spaniards have behaved in no other way during the past forty years, down to the present time, for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons.<\/p>\n
Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate disproportionate to their merits. It should be kept in mind that their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world, is the cause of their villainies. And also, those lands are so rich and felicitous, the native peoples so meek and patient, so easy to subject, that our Spaniards have no more consideration for them than beasts. And I say this from my own knowledge of the acts I witnessed. But I should not say “than beasts” for, thanks be to God, they have treated beasts with some respect; I should say instead like excrement on the public squares” (from\u00a0Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies<\/em>, 1542).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In their Spotlight presentation, Kelly and Jeremy Elliott call our attention to the following extended quotations from the writings of Christopher Columbus and Bartolome de las Casas. As you read, notice how the authors construct narratives to communicate meaning. Columbus “All these islands are very beautiful, and distinguished by a diversity of scenery; they are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6436,"featured_media":0,"parent":2421,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3277","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P3T2tB-QR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6436"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3277"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3288,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3277\/revisions\/3288"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Columbus\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstone\/files\/2014\/09\/Columbus.jpg\")
<\/a>All these islands are very beautiful, and distinguished by a diversity of scenery; they are filled with a great variety of trees of immense height, and which I believe to retain their foliage in all seasons; for when I saw them they were as verdant and luxuriant as they usually are in Spain in the month of May. Some of them were blossoming, some bearing fruit, and all flourishing in the greatest perfection, according to their respective stages of growth, and the nature and quality of each: yet the islands are not so thickly wooded as to be impassable. The nightingale and various birds were singing in countless numbers, and that in November, the month in which I arrived there. There are besides in the same island of Juana seven or eight kinds of palm trees, which, like all the other trees, herbs, and fruits, considerably surpass ours in height and beauty. The pines also are very handsome, and there are very extensive fields and meadows, a variety of birds, different kinds of honey, and many sorts of metals, but no iron” (writing to Gabriel Sanchez, 1493).<\/p>\n