#3 History Summary

Two of the three authors spoke generally on the same terms while the third spoke on more of a different note. For the reading in the book, the first author named Anton Montecino, gave a sermon about the Spanish conquest. He spoke that the Spaniards were in mortal sin for slaughtering the Indians. Montencino posed the question, "Are you not under God's command to love them as you love yourselves?" The frair said that their greed and blindness would bring them to damnation. The author, of the second part in the book, who is unknown, had his or her own view. He or she wrote about the Requerimiento which was the Spaniards justification for conquest. It wrote that if the Indians submitted, the Spaniards would welcome them and leave them, their wives, and their children alone. On the other hand, if the Indians resisted, the Spaniards would invade their country, start war, and make them slaves. From what I could tell he was for the conquest of the Indians. Bartolome de Las Casas, author of the primary reading, was also appauled by the treatment of the Indians. He was disgusted that the soldiers would kill men, women, and children without mercy. He appeared to be mostly against the violence that occured against the Indians.
I of course also have my own opinions about the authors ideas. I think that both Montencino and Las Casas were partially right in their thinking if not completely right. Montencino made a good point when he asked if God does not command to love others as themselves. If the Spaniards believed that then why would they kill others in his name? I also believe that it was wrong to kill the Indians in the brutal ways that the Spaniards did. Las Casas wrote that the soldiers would take babies away from their mothers and crush them. I find such acts to be disgusting and barbaric. The unknown author seemed to think it was okay to kill the Indians if they did not submit. I find that wrong because I feel that only God has the right to judge who does and does not die, not the people who represent him. At the least I think the Spaniards should have let the innocents live and not kill everyone they found. As a whole, I feel that the Spaniards conquering the Indians was wrong on many levels. All the lives they cut short, only so they could improve their own wealth and power.