History 476, Fall, 2009

Roman and
Visigothic Spain
Moorish Invasion, 7
11 A.D.
Santiago
Campostelo
Commencement of
Reconquest
To Granada, 1492
Voyages of Christopher Columbus
Searching for Sea Route to the East (see
maps next slide)
Struck the Americas Instead
Set the Stage for the Spanish Conquest
The Caribbean
Sea, islands and
adjoining
mainlands where
Catholicism first
arrived.

Isabella the
Catholic
The Papal donation
[to next page]
La primera bula Inter coetera de Alejandro VI(1)
3 de mayo de 1493

El documento cuya traduccin damos a continuacin ha tenido un peso
notabilsimo en la historia de la presencia de Espaa en Amrica. El mismo
sirvi durante mucho tiempo como base jurdica del dominio espaol sobre las
tierras descubiertas por Cristbal Coln en 1492 e impropiamente llamadas "las
Indias". El Sumo Pontfice, despus de alabar el celo apostlico de los reyes
Fernando de Aragn e Isabel de Castilla, su deseo de extender la fe catlica,
deseo que haba quedado patente con la entonces reciente recuperacin del
reino de Granada de manos de los rabes, reconoce finalmente el papel
fundamental que les ha cabido en la empresa colombina; atendiendo pues a
todos estos antecedentes y haciendo uso de la "plenitud de la autoridad
apostlica" resuelve donar y conceder las tierras recientemente descubiertas y
las que en el futuro se descubrieran a los reyes Isabel y Fernando y a sus
legtimos sucesores en las coronas de Castilla y Aragn, imponindoles al mismo
tiempo la obligacin de evangelizar a los pobladores de dichas tierras.
Mucho se ha discutido sobre el fundamento jurdico en el que se apoy el papa
Borja para hacer semejante "donacin", algunos autores quieren ver en este
documento un exponente preclaro del monismo hierocrtico, mientras que otros
ven en l un simple mandato misionero(2). Lo que parece incontrovertible es
que los reyes espaoles solicitaron este documento a la Sede Apostlica con la
finalidad de resguardar a los territorios recientemente descubiertos, de las
posibles pretensiones de otros prncipes cristianos(3).
[go to link]
Tainos
Arawak

"The natives, finding themselves
intolerably oppressed and overworked,
with no chance of regaining their liberty,
with sighs and tears longed for death.
Many went into the woods and having
killed their children, hanged themselves,
saying it was far better to die than to live
so miserably serving such ferocious tyrants
and villainous thieves... finally, out of two
million inhabitants, through suicides and
other deaths occasioned by the excessive
labour and cruelties imposed by the
Spanish, there are not a hundred and fifty
now to be found."
Theodore De Bry included a graphic
engraving with this text, illustrating the
various methods of suicide, from hanging
to clubbing children to death to self-
mutilation. Such images, along with other
evidence such as Las Casa's Brief Account
of the Destruction of the Indies (1552)
The Sermon of Father Antonio
de Montesinos, OP

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT, 1511--"I am the voice of
one crying in the wilderness...You are in mortal sin and
live and die in it because of the cruelty and tyranny
that you use against these innocent peoples. Tell me,
by what right, with what justice do you hold these
Indians in such cruel and horrible servitude? On what
authority have you waged such detestable wars on
these peoples, in their mild and peaceful lands, where
you have consumed such infinitudes of them,
wreaking upon them this death and unheard-of
havoc?....And what care do you take that anyone
catechize them, so that they may come to know their
God and Creator, be baptized, hear Mass, observe
Sundays and Holy Days? Are they not human beings?
Have they no rational souls? Are you not obligated to
love them as you love yourselves? Do you not
understand this?...How is it that you sleep so soundly,
so lethargically?"
Cuba, 1514
Massacre at the
River Caonao


The regular orders: Franciscans, Dominicans,
Augustinians
Secular clergy
Christianization as the context for conquest
and colonization, no matter how contrived
and hypocritical in some instances.
Syncretic forms of Christianity


SANTO DOMINGO

CHURCH and CONVENT



Due to the significant participation of the Dominicans in the conquest of Peru, the
Spaniards couldn't have chosen a better place to build the church of the order than
over the base of the most important monument of the Tawantinsuyo: the
Koricancha, which is the largest Indian temple to worship the Sun.

According to the chronicles, it was one of the most magnificent constructions of the
Incan Cusco. In the inner part, the precincts' walls, made of finely polished stone,
were entirely covered with gold and silver sheets, idols and the representation of
the sun.

After receiving the old temple's plot during the lots distribution that took place in
October 1534, Juan Pizarro, brother of the conqueror, ceded it to the Dominican
congregation. The first prior of the convent was Friar Juan de Olas, who occupied
this cloister together with a group of Mexican missionaries. [next page for image]

The Revelations
exhibition includes
paintings depicting the
colonial caste system,
which described the
complex racial mixing
of the people of Latin
America. Above, De
Mestizo y de India,
Coyote or "A mestizo
and an Indian woman
produce a coyote"
1763, Mexico.
Real Patronato, or Royal Patronage
Missionary orders vs. secular clergy
Syncretism (already mentioned)
All layers of culture and society imbued with
Christianity
Education
Charity/Philanthropy (cont. with next slide)
Hospitals
Festivals
Church leading financial institution
Expansion of monastic life across urban
Latin America
Inquisition
Control of wealth, haciendas, Jesuits,
Paraguay, Mexico for example
Beginnings of loss of prestige and power
in eighteenth century
Expulsion of the Jesuits, mid-eighteenth
century
Presence of missionaries as frontier
institutions in North America, those lands
that later passed to the United States.
Frontier society and competition for Indian
loyalties by Europeans, etc.
To the Wars of Independence