The Discovery Of The Americas And Christophers Columbus

The Discovery of America
The discovery of the Americas and Christophers Columbus’s greatest accomplishment is considered to be the greatest misfortune to befall the Native Americans. The goals of the explorers while at first seemed innocent, quickly changed to greed and the eventual extinction of many Native American cultures. There was some dissonance initially between humanity of the native people and rationalizing them to be less than animals. While the Church itself remained neutral for far too long, people used Christianity to further their agendas. Even when the Church issued a statement, it was either too late or it didn’t improve conditions much. They were two main people who argued against and for the humanity of the Native Americans: …show more content…
Las Casas saw the native people as similar to himself, a creature crafted in the likeness of God, able to rationalize and have freedom. Las Casas describes their cities full of reason, justice, and laws that were in places superior to the Spanish (Rivera, 144). He even argued that because some of the native tribes lacked civilization, it doesn’t justify conquering, rather it begs for education (Rivera, 146). Sepulveda saw the wealth of the land and argued for the easiest way to obtain the wealth for the Crown. He was the first of many to establish and maintain the native people as brute animalia. Many people, even after the papal bull asserting their humanity, refused to accept them as humans. History has many patterns and to me this seems very similar to the Jim Crow laws after freeing the slaves. Both were considered to be less than human, and once freed some people did their best to retain the old ways which made them the most money. Even worse, the Church didn’t allow Indians to become priests. “The possibility of entering the priesthood was closed to the natives during the sixteenth century in all of the Americas” (Rivera, 151). So while the Church affirmed the humanity and freedom of the native peoples in Sublimis Deus, it still restricted them because it didn’t believe them to be as capable as the white European men. Many people during the time …show more content…
The cultures that were made extinct and the tribes that cease to exist can never be redeemed. The tribes and cultures that survived were badly damaged and some were forced to Christianize. While I don’t personally believe that a son should be held responsible for the sins of a father, the preservation of the native cultures and artifacts should be a number one priority. While the United States as a government does have an obligation to preserve and help the native cultures, but the damage has long been done. They need to assist the native people as much and as fairly as possible. I don’t believe that the average American, has an exceptional responsibility for something that has happened centuries ago. We aren’t the same people who came over and took these lands. Some of us aren’t even related to those people, while others still migrated here very recently. For every American today to have a great responsibility for the genocide of the native peoples is overreaching. I believe that we live in a system that was built on the genocide of the people and we all have benefited from it, so from that point we do have some responsibility. I don’t think we all should be donating money or giving up everything to try and make it square, but perhaps going to the reservations and dealing with some of the rampant problems they have could be a