american-holocaust

SEX, RACE AND HOLY WAR 211contended, they were not so low in the order of things that they weretotally "irrational or natural slaves or unfit for government." To Sepulvedaand others, on the contrary, as Las Casas rightly said, the nativepeoples of the Americas were indeed so barbarically inhuman "that thewise may hunt [them] down ... in the same way as they would wildanimals." 41 As if to anticipate and underscore this point, only a few monthsearlier the conquistador Pedro de Valdivia proudly announced to CharlesV that he and his men had just concluded a massacre against a large communityof Indians in Chile: "some 1500 or 2000 were killed and manyothers lanced," he wrote; among the survivors whom he had taken prisoner,Valdivia saw to it that "two hundred had their hands and noses cutoff for their contumacy"-that is, for not heeding the conquistadors' demandsthat they behave in a sufficiently obsequious way, consistent withthat of the natural slave. 42After the debate ended, the members of the Council of Fourteen, selectedby Charles as the best minds in Spain, fell to arguing among themselvesand never rendered a collective verdict-although Sepulveda laterclaimed, and there is some reason to believe him, that in the end all butone of the Council supported his position that the Indians were indeeddivinely created beasts of burden for their conquerors. 43 In any case, if themen considered by the Holy Roman Emperor to be the most learned inthe realm could not agree on this matter among themselves, the same couldnot be said for the Spanish masses. As Bernardino de Minaya wrote, adecade and a half before the great debate at Valladolid, "the commonpeople" had long "regarded as wise men" those who were convinced that"the American Indians were not true men, but a third species of animalbetween man and monkey created by God for the better service of man." 44Or, as Oviedo had written, with widespread popular approval:[The Indians are] naturally lazy and vicious, melancholic, cowardly, and ingeneral a lying, shiftless, people. Their marriages are not a sacrament but asacrilege. They are idolatrous, libidinous, and commit sodomy. Their chiefdesire is to eat, drink, worship heathen idols, and commit bestial obscenities.What could one expect from a people whose skulls are so thick and hardthat the Spaniards had to take care in fighting not to strike on the head lesttheir swords be blunted? 45If that was popular opinion early in the sixteenth century, it doubtlesswas even more widespread after the Valladolid debate was over. For on atleast one topic virtually all historians of this subject agree: as the sixteenthcentury wore on Spanish opinion regarding the Indians was marked by adecided "decline of sympathy and ... narrowing of vision," in J.H. Elliott'swords. 46 Elliott uses as an illustrative example a series of meetingsheld by the Spanish clergy stationed in Mexico between 1532 and 1585,