Final: Deceptive Appearance

De Las Casas, the author of “Destruction of the Indies”, wrote a message in 1542 (published in 1552), to King Philip II of Spain, about the result of the Spaniards’ conquest of the Natives (as he defines them, “innocently simple”) in the New World. His stated motivation for the message was his fear that Spain would be inflicted with divine punishment and his concern for the souls of the Native Americans. Biblical authority, in addition to provocative insights, lends the message a very persuasive power. “Destruction of the Indies” was more than sufficient in its mission to convince the reader (me) of De Las Casas’ opinion, but why wasn’t it adequate in convincing many readers in 1600c?

The ethos (appeal to authority) of this paper is credible to me because De Las Casas is a priest and an eye witness of the agonizing accounts he describes. I am persuaded in response to his recollections of his terrible memories of having to stand by and tolerate the literal execution of innocent Natives of the New World. I don’t assume him to be exaggerating in his descriptive resurrection of the horrible occurrences. In fact, his reflection of the account is probably an understatement of the actual horrifying experience. It is definite that gruesome executions happened; thus, I think it is reasonable to assume that many definitive details furthering an even more evil reminiscence of the occurrence were probably not included. Because De Las Casas is a priest, I want to assume he isn’t a hypocritical speaker, thus furthering his qualification for critiquing the subject.

The pathos (appeal to the audience’s emotions) of this paper impacts my emotions because, as written above, horrifying accounts did occur. Inflicting brutality among people was more primitive in that period, and it appeared awful. I am sensitive to such baseless cruelty, as I know many of us are. I’m not so sure that people of that era (1600c) were nearly as sensitive to open massacre. In my perspective, this made people in that period more comfortable openly committing such seemingly barbaric actions.

The logos (logical appeal) of this paper struck me as valid. The logic was painfully evident. The Spaniards executed a massacre on, as De Las Casas called them, “innocent sheep”. There existed no righteous or justified reasoning for attacking the innocent sheep. The advanced warfare equipment of the Spaniards against the Natives’ primitive weapons can be likened to me taking a twelve gauge shot gun and shooting it point blank at a squirrel two feet away. Now contemplate, what would be the purpose of me doing that? The Spaniards persistently obliterated the Natives until a population of three million became a dwindling three hundred. De Las Casas’ logic produced a convincing argument about the Spaniards’ cruelty and injustice.

Indeed, I recognize the main subject of De Las Casas’ message as being severe injustice. But in the era of 1600c, many Europeans in the New and Old Spain didn’t recognize this injustice as clearly as most would today. I think a combination of factors contributed in helping the people of that time perceive these actions as not so appalling: their religious (‘Christian’) belief that God was on their side regardless of their behavior, an overwhelming sense of superiority over the Natives, simple unsophisticated barbaric behavior, menacing desire for power in an increasingly global competitive world, and a daily accumulative adaptation to these customs. Was it obscured morals or the simplicity of their nature that allowed the Spaniards to engage in primitive brutality? I like to think that the world is evolving toward higher morals. But in truth, today barbaric human actions are simply masked with sophisticated behavior, merely appearing to be less barbaric. And it is just as difficult today to convince much of humanity that complex actions in war or other conflict are comparatively as cruel and unjust. De Las Casas might have as difficult a job convincing them in 2100c as he did in 1600c.