The New World

"(the conquistadores/Spaniards) made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow; or they opened up his bowels. They tore the babes from their mothers breast by their feet, and dashed their heads against the rocks...they spitted the bodies of other babes, together with their mothers and all who were before them, on their swords....and by thirteens, in honor and reverance for our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles they put wood underneath and, with fire, they burned the Indians alive"^[34]

"There were 60,000 people living on this island [when I arrived in 1508], including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this?"

"I believe that because these impious, criminal and ignominious acts, perpetrated unjustly, tyrannously, and barbarously upon them God will visit His wrath and His ire upon Spain for her share, great or small, in the blood stained riches, obtained by theft and usurpation, accompanied by such slaughter and annihilation of these people -- unless she does much penance".^[41]

These quotes are from Bartolome de Las Casas, a Spanish priest who accompanied the original Spanish voyages to the "New World" of the Caribbean and current Latin America. It is amazing to come to the realization today that only a short while ago, these lands we the western hemisphere call home, were inhabited and dominated by a different, indigenous people. They have gone from being the "owners" of the land, to non-existent--or if still existen and not completely annihilated by disease and massacre--subjagated and discriminated. This occured by a the most brutal, inhumane, barbaric, and unjust fashion, as anyone who studies the history of the "discovery" of the America's can see, and as the above quotes by a first hand observer reveal. These atrocities and this genocide occured all throughout the Americas, including the United States. In fact, while you can still see vibrant Indigenous communities in many of the Latin American nations, you are hard pressed to find them in the United States...only traces remain.

It is baffling today to hear the debate over immigration. Over who has a right or no right to enter into the countries, namely the USA. Have we become so ignorant of history that we forget the all of us here who are non-Native American are essentially immigrants ourselves, who have benefited from the utter destruction of the Native peoples of this land. How then do we have a right to close the doors to to others who want to come? We are immigrants, and have benefited at the horrible expense of the orignial inhabitants of this land. Our hard heartedness and closed-mindedness towards other would be immigrants is analagous to the story of the debtor who is forgiven a great debt and then goes on to wring the neck of those who still owe him.

Our ignorance of history creates hypocrisy among us. To understand ourselves and to bring out the best in ourselves we must open our minds and hearts to the past.