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The Spanish Empire in the New World was
a disaster for Native Americans. The Spanish for their part
could never really decide what to do with the Native
Americans. On the one hand, they believed that they were
introducing Native Americans to Christianity and to the arts
of civilization and some believed that Native Americans had
a right to their lands and should not be economically or
politically exploited. This benign attitude was
paternalistic: the Spanish would introduce Native Americans
to salvation and school them in European civilization. On
the other hand, the Spanish druthlessly massacred native
populations and freely enslaved them in some of the most
cruel slave practices ever seen on the face of the earth.
The average Native American slave lasted barely a year under
his or her Spanish masters.
When Isabella declared that Native
Americans were subjects to her crown, that allowed
conquistadores to collect tribute and labor from the
Native Americans. It also meant, however, that the Native
Americans were to be protected and cared for, physically and
spiritually, by the Spanish conquistadores .
In reality, the Spanish collected the labor but by and large
ignored the protection part. Native Americans were put to
work in gold and silver mines as well as plantations. They
were not fed well and were often forced to labor for
impossible stretches of time; as a result, the Native
American slaves of the Spanish died off in droves. It is
believed that somewhere around 40% of the Native Americans
under direct Spanish control died in the sixteenth century,
some through Spanish cruelty and the majority through
diseases unwittingly introduced by the Spanish.
To be sure, while we universally condemn
Spanish cruelty in the Americas, it was outdone by the
English treatment of African slaves in the Caribbean. The
English promulgated what the Spanish called "the black
legend" in order to justify their conquests in the
Caribbean. The English claimed that they were more benign
than the Spanish, who they depicted as monstrous and
rapacious; the reality was that the English colonies of
Trinidad and Jamaica were little better than death
camps.
In part to justify their cruelty and
exploitation, the Spanish vigorously debated the nature of
Native Americans. One faction held that Native Americans
were only part human and so had no legal or spiritual
privileges. Another faction, a much smaller faction, held
that Native Americans were fully human and deserved to be
treated as full spiritual and legal beings. This faction
vigorously opposed the conquest and even settlement of
America, claiming that the Native Americans had full rights
and privileges to lands that they occupied.
The Spanish divided their American
territories into two central divisions: New Spain (Mexico
and Central America along with the Caribbean Islands) and
Peru (the western coast of South America). Each of these
territories was ruled by a viceroy, who was the king's civil
and military representative. The viceroy was advised by
councils called audiencias ; these councils also
served as the judicial branch of the colonial
government.
The primary administrative unit, however,
was economic. The Spanish wanted one and only one thing from
the Americas: wealth. Production and trade was overseen by a
board of trade located in Spain that governed all Spanish
trade. In the Americas, however, the Council of the Indies,
which regulated Spanish production and trade in the
Americas, was the real administrative power in the Americas.
This Council appointed all colonial officials, regulated all
the trade, and even regulated church affairs in America.
Richard Hooker
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