Justifying Conquest Summary and Editorial

• Paragraph 1 "They Say": a summary of each author's ideas from the history readings (this paragraph should show an understanding of Chapter 2, TS, IS)
• Paragraph 2 "I Say": your response to the ideas put forth by the authors of the history readings

During Spain's colonization of the New World, there were different viewpoints concerning the treatment of the native population of New Spain. Sharp criticisms on behalf of a select few of Spaniards, illuminated the abuse, mistreatment and exploitation of the Indians by colonists from Spain. These few Spaniards, mainly Catholic priests, preached the inhumane brutality of the colonists from their pulpits in the New World. These outspoken few blamed the lustful greed of gold as the reason for colonists desensitizing themselves from their treatment towards the Indians. Returning to Spain, the brazen Dominican friar, Antón Montecino outlined to the Spanish monarchy the abuse mistreatment of the Spanish conquistadors to the Indians. However, the Spanish monarchy responded with "The Requerimiento", a document which failed to understand the true situation occuring in the New World.

In 1552,the Dominican Friar, Bartolomé de las Casas, composed a declaration outlining the development of brutality in New Spain entitled "Destruction of the Indies". In this publication, he manifested the cruelties of the Spanish conquistadors, giving an electrifying description of the firsthand accounts he witnessed. His narration describes how the conquistadors aggressively assaulted the Indians, who had given them no reason to attack and only retaliated when provoked by the conquistadors. It chronicles the desensitization of Christian men towards the Indians, who were fellow men, into believing and treating them as "not as beasts, which I cordially wished they would, but as the most abject dung and filth of the earth". Bartolomé de las Casas outlines a reason for the desentization of the conquistadors was because they turned their own animalistic slaughtering into a game between eachother, making wagers on "who should with a sword at one blow cut, or divide a man in two; or which of them should decollate or behead a man, with the greatest dexterity". These Christian men, who had justified their conquest into the New World by the spreading of Christianity, mercilessly slaughtered the Indians, that about fifteen million, according to Bartolomé de las Casas, died "without understanding the true Faith or Sacraments".

Long before Bartolomé de las Casas publicized the cruelty of the Spanish conquistadors, the outspoken Dominican friar, Antón Montecino was preaching from his pulpit in the New World directly to the Spaniards committing these atrocities. Antón Montecino blamed his Spanish parishioners in a sermon in 1511 that their lustful greed for gold had caused them to be brought into mortal sin. He boldly revealed the reason for their damnation to be their destruction of an innocent people, the native population of the Americas. Fearing for the Indians of the New World, Antón Montecino returned to Spain to illuminate the mistreatment of the conquistadors towards the Indians to King Ferdinand of Spain. However, his passionate campaigning for the rights of the Indians was met with "The Requerimiento", which was the document of King Ferdinand that concluded that the Spanish had the right and holy duty to spread the Christian Faith. It outlined that if the Indians received Christ and pledged allegiance towards Spain and and the Christian God, the Indians would be received with open arms. However, if Indians refused to be converted to Christianity, or delayed to do so in a timely manner, they themselves forfeited their rights to their lives. Those Indians that retaliated against the Spaniards or resisted or refused the domination of Spain and the Christian God, they placed the blood of their lives into their own hands and absolved the Spanish from the sin of murdering them.

In response to each of these three men's positions concerning the conquistador's treatment of the Indians and the justification for these, one must understand the miscommunication and ignorance that fueled the decisions of the Spanish monarchy and the conquistadors. The primary reason for the Spanish's conquest in the New World, or at the very least the justification for it, was clearly stated by "The Requerimiento" as the Spanish had a holy duty to educate the Indians and spread Christianity to them. However, between the pious intent of King Ferdinand in Spain and the actions of the Spanish conquistadors was thousands of miles of ocean. What King Ferdinand believed to be possible in educating the Indians was incongruous with the actions of the Spanish conquistadors. King Ferdinand's misconception of what was possible in the New World was based off trying to make a solution to a conflict he could not see, he could not witness. His decisions were purely based upon the ideas of men who had never been to the New World or men that's beliefs were fueled by their own greed.

The primary reason for King Ferdinand's misconception is that he did not seem to have a firm grasp on the cultural and language barriers that were faced between the Indians and the Spanish conquistadors. His proposal in "The Requeriminto" of gaining the allegiance of the Indians and educating them was a blatant example of how he did not realize that words spoken in Spanish by conquistadors could not be understood by the ears of the native population of the New World. The Spanish conquistadors, who had a lustful desire for gold which would bring them wealth and status, two of the very things human nature craves, turned a blind eye to properly explaining to the Indians what exactly they were signing on for. The Indians could not read "The Requerimiento" and learn the rights that the King of Spain had granted them; they did not understand when the Spaniards achieved conquest upon them that they were doing it in the name of a religion they had never heard of and knew nothing about.

Another reason for the Indian's misunderstanding of the intent of the Spaniards would be the sharp contrast between the loving Christian God of the Spanish preached by the Catholic missionaries and the greedy, lustful Spanish conquistadors. The conquistadors were driven by greed, they desired the wealth and status that Hernán Cortés had achieved. Because of this, they turned a blind eye towards their supposed religious conviction and drove through whatever was in their path and unfortunately for the Indians, they were what was in their path. Of course, when the Catholic priests attempted to explain the situation in New Spain to the Spanish monarch, King Ferdinand made a decision that was uninformed and ignorant to the decision and the conquistadors capitalized on this. The conquistadors used the rights to slaughter the Indians granted to them in "The Requerimiento" by abusing the clause that stated, "or if you maliciously delay in doing it", meaning converting to Christianity and accepting the rule of Spain. How did they abuse this clause? By not giving the Catholic missionaries the time to preach the love of the Christian God to the Indians and to inform them of their rights granted in "The Requerimiento". And it is because of this, this miscommunication and obvious abuse of interpreting rights, that the Spanish conquistadors, as Bartolomé de las Casas put it, "first assaulted the innocent sheep... like most cruel tigers, wolves and lions".

Beginning Writing Philosophy

What are types of writing that you do?

There are several types of writing that I have encountered and familiarized myself throughout my life. Since, I was a child I have dreamed of being a writer and have always challenged myself to improve my creative writing, which is the main type of writing I do. Outside of an educational assignment, such as an essay, the only kinds of writing that I do is creative writing. Creative writing could also be considered one of my few recreations that I entertain myself in my spare time. I have become acquainted with the art of the short story, the poem and the novel throughout my artistic attempts. Suffice to say, my earliest encounters with these notions was elementary in its method or form. In my educational experiences, I have become quite fond of the essay, almost all of my impressions of this institution have been thoroughly positive. Those few that have not been positive have simply because of my own disdain for the instructor's method of teaching and evaluating. Otherwise, I adore the method, the logic, the structure and the pure joy of the construction of the thesis essay.

How do you approach writing or start that writing?

Throughout my life I have devoted my time to the reading of several self-help type articles and books that try to explain the best way that the writer begins the writing process. I have also found that I cannot understand anything that the majority of these authors are even doing in their writing process. To be completely frank and honest, I don't even know how I approach writing. I suppose that the standard answer to this question would include the usage of an outline of thoughts, going through several drafts and finally arriving upon some plucked, fussy and flawless manuscript. I will say honestly that I do not understand this sort of a process nor have I ever implemented into into my writing. Perhaps you could also accurately describe my writing process and my final result also to be lacking on account of this. It's possible to say that my own enchantment and infatuation with my words could be a reason as to why I very rarely go through any massive editing process.

So, to clearly and adequately describe how I start my writing process or approach any type of writing I am going to be doing, I don't know how. For any sort of creative writing that I am going to do be writing, I will admit that I have completely no control over my own ability. My words are prompted solely by inner inspiration from my muse, who controls all of the words are penned to my paper. With my educational struggles in writing I can only complete my assignments based upon my own hands reaching the keyboard, beginning to type and some time later I will have a completed product, like I am doing this moment. Simply then, my writing, even in my essays are my streams of thought as they are coming from my muse. That is the only way that I can describe how I approach writing, or perhaps more specifically, how my muse approaches my writing, a power I cannot make the decision to ignore. So to make a long story short on how I approach writing, I request of and channel the voice of my muse.

How do templates affect or impact that process?

This question is somewhat amusing, reflecting on my response to how I approach writing and my process and the answer will have to be somewhat ambiguous. The only templates that I have ever implemented into my writing process would be with an essay and that is only in the format of following a logical line of thought as I have been instructed. Otherwise, templates, simply in supposition, could have no affect on a process that is not technically a process. I suppose if I made the decision to employ a template into this process of writing then, I could in fact structure my writing around that sort of an idea. To be frank however, I think less of the idea, at least thus far, as being more of simply using a line of logic rather than using a template. In that case then a line of logic would affect my process, but only in the bettering of the line of logics that I already use. Perhaps I will learn more lines of logic as I further my scope of writing, but otherwise I think that templates would only very minimally affect my process, as they probably would already be something I would already be employing in my writing.

Entering the Conversation

What are the authors saying writing is?

The main point that the authors of this piece are trying to deliver is that writing should follow a structured line of logic in the way it communicates to the reader. The easiest and most basic way to teach this idea is to have young writers adapt to and implement the use of a template. By using a template or formula to guide your writing, you can learn to deliver your thoughts in a clear and concise manner which is understandable to the reader. They are also trying to encourage and impress upon the reader that writing should be a presentation of your own personal ideas, whether they agree, disagree or have certain elements of both to the standard way of thinking. The piece explains how writing should be a response that presents your own ideas to the reader about other individual's views on a certain issue, that your writing should enter into the debate and add your own beliefs about it. It also shows how using this template is both effective, easy to understand and that it also does not stifle one's creative development with their writing. Essentially, writing should be a presentation of your own ideas into an active debate, hopefully making an impact with your philosophies, whether great or small.


What do you think writing is?

Writing is a tangible expression of your thought patterns. In several aspects, I agree with what the authors are saying in this piece. I believe that writing should be fresh and controversial. Writing should ignite debate and the prompting of new and revolutionary ideas that influence or revise our former ways of thinking. If all individuals believed in their ideas and allowed them to be followed to their final conclusion, the entire world would be changed by one person's differing mind. It requires only the passion of one's beliefs to keep others captivated through reading your ideas, and then the world can come to their own conclusion concerning your philosophies are.

If writers use the safe formula of regurgitating respected or widely believed viewpoints, writing becomes stale and vapid. People don't read to be reinformed of what they already know; reading should be an act of engagement, of going on a journey, examining the writer's logic and at the end having the "aha" moment of a lightbulb going off in their head. It's an experience of stepping into another's shoes for a moment, viewing the world from their eyes, and in that you have become someone you no longer were. The powerful element of knowledge is what keeps the world constantly revising, redrafting and becoming more perfect. If all an individual ever does is does not seek to present their own line of logic, the world will have lost a complete and separate mind, a mind which views the world in a way entirely different from everyone else. The writer cannot allow fear of rejection to influence the pouring of his mind, the writer can only trust upon their own muse to create the music of their soul viewable to the entire world.