When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death. The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed."
Zinn details similar atrocities committed by Cortes against the Aztecs. He was also a Spaniard whose expeditions were financed predicated "and blessed by the deputies of God" and predicated on the hope of repayment in gold from the New World:
"Cortes then began his march of death from town to town, using deception, turning Aztec against Aztec, killing with the kind of deliberateness that accompanies a strategy-to paralyze the will of the population by a sudden frightful deed. And so, in Cholulu, he invited the headmen of the Cholula nation to the square. And when they came, with thousands of unarmed retainers, Cortes's small army of Spaniards, posted around the square with cannon, armed with crossbows, mounted on horses, massacred them, down to the last man. Then they looted the city and moved...
Queen Isabella initially challenged the basis of Columbus' right to enslave the subjects entrusted to her by the Pope. 4. How did Spain explain the purpose of the Encomienda system? According to their view, the Indians were to be rightfully Christianized by Spanish forces. Since they resisted their efforts, the Encomienda suggested that enslavement was a tool necessitated to overcome the Indians' reluctance to work and their "laziness." Their enslavement into
Cheyenne Indians and the Ghost Dance The Cheyenne people are Native Americans of the Algonquian language family. They are of the Great Plains culture area. The name Cheyenne means 'people of an alien speech,' and was given to them by the Sioux. The Cheyenne call themselves Tsetschestahase or Tsistsistas, which means 'beautiful people' or 'our people.' Originally farmers, hunters, and gatherers in the land that is now central Minnesota, however, during the late
Bartoleme De Las Casas An Analysis of the Activism of Bartoleme De Las Casas Often characterized by modern historians as the "Defender and the apostle to the Indians," Bartolome de Las Casas is known for exposing and condemning as well as exaggerating and misrepresenting the violent practices of Spanish colonizers of the New World against Native Americans. Marked by emotional polemic and often embellished statistics, Las Casas' voluminous works brought him both
Extinction of the Native American The area of the world that is now known as the United States of America used to belong to various tribes of people which are now known as Native Americans as opposed to their old name, Indians, which was a misnomer based on the erroneous idea that explorers from Europe did not know that such a large land mass existed and that by crossing the Atlantic
legend of Christopher Columbus has lasted for five decades and he still remains a very controversial and mysterious figure who has been described severally as one of the world's greatest mariners of all times, a mystic, a visionary genius, an inexperienced entrepreneur, an unsuccessful administrator, and a wicked and selfish imperialist[footnoteRef:1]. He was a master admiral and navigator of Italian origin whose four main transatlantic voyages of 1492-1493, 1493-1496,
This can be seen in the Catholics who were so tightly bound to the Vatican in Rome (17). The textbook points out that this wasn't just the case for Catholics, the Protestants in the New World were also closely tied to their Protestant religion in England. The relationship that the colonists had with the Native Americans was an important one because the European colonists needed the Native Americans to help
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