Hey, I'm neither a Catholic nor a monotheist. I've got no personal dog in this fight, except that as a rule, my sympathies are generally aligned with indigenous peoples. And yeah, people can be super hypocritical: mote in your eye vs. the beam in my own, et cetera. And yeah, I agree that the genocidal excess commited by the conquistadores was, taken as a whole, the worst thing happening in the Americas at the time.
But Diego de Landa wasn't taking it in as a whole. He was just having his personal experience. There's little reason to doubt the child sacrifice incident: that kind of thing absolutely did occur, and is well-attested both textually and archeologically. He didn't have the 10,000' view of the American genocide: he had a personal view, and he acted accordingly.
Usually I'm not this sympathetic. When I read first-hand accounts of Pizzaro's conquest of the Inca at Cajamarca, for example, I'm appalled. Pizzaro's guys take umbrage at the Incan' Emporer disrespecting a bible by throwing it, incomprehending, on the ground. In retribution for this, they delight -- positively delight -- in immediately slaughtering several thousand unarmed members of the emperor's court. It's absolutely sick and indefensible, driven by a religious zealotry that (IMHO) had stripped them of their basic humanity.
I'd always assumed that Diego de Landa was a similar kind of zealot, but when I read more, I found that it wasn't so simple. That's all I'm saying. Even when things are black and white at a high level, there can be greys in the details.
I read your original comment as a simple historical statement that did it's best to make it clear that it was speculation about a possible cause and not a justification. Not sure why the GP is reading a moral stance into it.
nkoren|5 years ago
But Diego de Landa wasn't taking it in as a whole. He was just having his personal experience. There's little reason to doubt the child sacrifice incident: that kind of thing absolutely did occur, and is well-attested both textually and archeologically. He didn't have the 10,000' view of the American genocide: he had a personal view, and he acted accordingly.
Usually I'm not this sympathetic. When I read first-hand accounts of Pizzaro's conquest of the Inca at Cajamarca, for example, I'm appalled. Pizzaro's guys take umbrage at the Incan' Emporer disrespecting a bible by throwing it, incomprehending, on the ground. In retribution for this, they delight -- positively delight -- in immediately slaughtering several thousand unarmed members of the emperor's court. It's absolutely sick and indefensible, driven by a religious zealotry that (IMHO) had stripped them of their basic humanity.
I'd always assumed that Diego de Landa was a similar kind of zealot, but when I read more, I found that it wasn't so simple. That's all I'm saying. Even when things are black and white at a high level, there can be greys in the details.
hliyan|5 years ago
dntbnmpls|5 years ago
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