Treatment of native americans by conquistadores?

Question

i heard the "public school version" is different from the "truth".

but how was it?

was it brutal all the time, firm.. but fair, unmotivated by greed, scornful of intermarriage?

i also heard the public school version was good all the time, but i dont believe that. i think firm, but fair.

Answer 1

How about making n***s look like school boys

The other answers say it pretty well

The only good thing we got from them was Horses that we lead away from their dead bodies

Answer 2

Our culture, the American culture - and indeed the world culture - constantly propagates and perpetuates the stereotypical - and totally false - image of American Indians as backward, savage, brutal, uncivilized beings to this day. Talk to the people who are not natives, who live near any of the many reservations throughout North America - and you'll hear comments very similar to those heard throughout America prior to Martin Luther King... but directed at the American Indians... the "injuns," "drunken red men," the "uncivilized savages" who brutally murdered settlers...

Many will object, saying "but they were savage and brutal, not only fighting among themselves, warring with each other and more; but they were even more savage and brutal to the settlers!" - and use that as a justification for suppression and brutalization of American Indian culture and people.

Yes; those charges are indeed true -

But don't forget too that the settlers - with very few exceptions - were making a concerted effort, with the help of the American government, to completely wipe out the Native Americans.

Don't forget that the American government - and by extension, the American people - broke every single last one of the over 350 treaties signed with the American Indians; pushing the American Indians off into unwanted and unusable land - barren reservations - out of site and out of mind.

I challenge you to look at every other culture on this planet. Which nation has not been guilty of warring against their neighbors? Which culture has not at one time or another been guilty of horrendous atrocities against their fellow man? Which people have not fought fiercely, desperately against invaders to defend their own way of life?

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

Worse then they treated African Americans. Yet, all we hear is about the complaints of the latter.

Answer 5

Americans have no respect for other cultures.because  they don't even have a history  of 250  years.

Answer 6

They were terribly treated.

One of the biggest was Hernando Cortez who destroyed the entire Aztec civilization for something as simple as gold.

Answer 7

I think it involved a lot of killing, disease and forced conversions. A few rapes as well.

Answer 8

They were the reason an entire race was pretty much wiped out.   There's a reason a lot of central americans hate Christopher Columbus.

The treatment was really bad, don't let biased school books convince you otherwise.

Answer 9

The whole local population became slaves and yet after a time the Spaniards started importing Africans. And the reason the Spaniards decided to import African slaves to South America is because there weren't enough local slaves to do the work anymore.

That should tell you enough.