Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Imagine heaps of indigenous bodies, covered by swarms of vultures, piled so high that they served as a marker for Spanish vessels approaching the shores of sixteenth-century Hispaniola. Among passengers disgusted by such a sight and encroaching smell was Bartolome de las Casas (1484–1566), the first ordained priest to visit the New World, whose stirred soul subsequently beckoned first King Ferdinand and then Charles I and Pope Paul III to take action against the looming genocide of such precious multitudes. Although the church had the formal mission of saving souls – a rationalization that often accompanied the conquistadors' urgent search for gold – its power also stood with the crown on an edifice of great wealth that would be jeopardized by a decree abolishing forced servitude in the region. So it was decided by Spanish authorities in 1517, with the influence of Las Casas's Historia de las Indias (1516), that forced labor would be drawn primarily from Africa, where there were people of the right physical countenance who held no claim to the New World and whose darkness of skin suggested a darkness of soul. Such a position gained popularity, in spite of the presence of darker-hued crew members at the beginning of Spanish and Portuguese exploration and colonial efforts, and so, too, began the debates, theories, and swan-songs to the ever-evolving, inevitably creolized world marked ... log in or subscribe to read full text