Bartolome de las Casas – The Pull Of The Land

The Enlightenment temperament, anti-Christian and schizophrenic (see Humboldt), impelled the growth of “indigenismo” in the late nineteenth century and continuing onto the present day. This is a cult that emphasizes Indian America over the Spanish heritage, with bitter and unhistorical disparagement of the latter (see Tree of Hate, p. 116).

The roots of this of course lie in “our own house” with the blatant propaganda of Las Casas, eagerly seized by Spain’s European enemies and by the intellectual elite of the day and of this day also.

This in turn propelled a publishing industry promoting the Discovery as a Spanish invasion of the Americas which was purposefully destructive of Indian cultures which were superior to what the invaders brought from Europe’s Christian civilization.

Such instruction, affirmed with the certainty that proceeds from ignorance, culminated in a neat inversion of reality: a land of noble savages and quiet, peaceful aborigines minding their own business, building enlightened cultures and civilizations, suddenly set upon by blood-thirsty, superstitious, Christian Neanderthal monsters who tortured, destroyed, and murdered with genocidal fury.

And, of course, it did not take long for calumny of Spain and Columbus to bleed into contempt towards anything having to do with the Americas, especially the United States.

Perhaps the culminating event of this ahistorical propaganda was the 1980 publication of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, whose more honest description would be “A Marxist Prescription For Teaching United States History To Our Children”.

It is no surprise that Zinn’s work dedicates many pages to that great genocidal maniac, Christopher Columbus.

So from Samuel Eliot Morison paying homage in 1955 “to Christopher Columbus the stout-hearted son of Genoa who carried Christian civilization across the Ocean Sea” we have come to the National Council of Churches in 1990, pontificating, “What some historians have termed a ‘discovery’ in reality was an invasion and colonization with legalized occupation, genocide …. “

Thanks to such tendentious “teaching”, few today know that on January 2, 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella led a triumphant procession to the Granada city square where both knelt in gratitude to God for the liberation of Spain from almost eight centuries of Moorish rule. The event followed the surrender of the city by the Moors, having accepted the terms of either leaving Spain or staying in allegiance to her with the promise of religious liberty to worship according to their conscience. These terms were accepted and were honored by the royal house.

Among the multitude who accompanied the king and queen was a man committed to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Indian continent by a route that would avoid having the need to go through enemy Muslim lands. Later in that very same year, 1492, with the financial support and fervent prayers of the king and queen, he launched his three vessels to reach India by sailing west from Spain. He would have reached India, except that his calculations were off: the earth was quite a bit larger than he estimated. And the Americas stood in the way.

The man was Christopher Columbus.

For centuries the Americas recognized the greatness of the man: there are more places and sites named after him than after any other man. The capital of Ohio is named after him, as is the site of the capital of the nation, District of Columbia.

However, after the French Revolution, the attacks and slanders and half truths were relentless and eventually took their toll, culminating with the publication of Zinn’s fake history. Zinn, usually known as a Socialist, but actually a radical Marxist, despised our history and was determined to destroy its roots. In this, he has been wildly successful but by the time his work became known, thanks to its promotion by actor Matt Damon in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting, much uprooting had already taken place.

If you would like to know more about Christopher Columbus and also the truth behind Zinn’s polemics, you might want to find and read John Eidsmoe’s Columbus and Cortez, Conquerors for Christ and Mary Grabers’ Debunking Howard Zinn.

The above thoughts come to mind because of my chance “sighting” of a monumental bronze sculpture which began appearing on my horizon as I drove on the northwest coast of Puerto Rico. It was a stunning sight which became larger as I approached.

However, when I came parallel to it, I saw that the area on which it stood was fenced in and locked and the surrounding terrain was overgrown and unkempt. I drove on to my destination and asked about the statue only to learn that folks knew very little about it and did not seem to care to learn more.

Some time later, I returned with several of my children. A gentle rain fell, which added to the grandeur of this phenomenon. A police cruiser happened by and stopped as I signaled him to ask what he knew about the statue and whether it would soon be open to the public. He knew hardly anything about it, other than it was “grande”.

What I later learned was that the statue is the work of Russian artist and architect, Zurab Tsereteli, who built it as The Birth of The New World, intending to dedicate it to Ohio’s capital, Columbus. As I understand it, the work was completed in 1991 in time for the 1992 quincentenary of the world changing voyage.

However, Columbus rejected it. As did New York, Boston, Cleveland, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami. The city of Cataño, Puerto Rico, near the San Juan metropolitan area, offered to accept it but that intent was foiled when the FAA opposed such a tall structure five miles from the airport. Finally, a private citizen near the town of Arecibo accepted it and private funds enabled its assembly and installation.

And so it sits near the coast. A 300-plus foot tall representation of Christopher Columbus, twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty and every bit as impressive, in my layman’s opinion. And if you look into it, as I did, you will encounter vitriol and angst and disgust and ignorance, such as this:

“I am sorry for the artist, but this statue is the same as if the Jews had made a statue to Hitler!”

Or this:

“Columbus is a symbol of Genocide, not a hero to be celebrated.”

Such statements and sentiments are so far from reality and historical truth as to be embarrassing. But shame is no longer something to be shunned or avoided. Ignorance is a point of pride to many today.

We are reminded by Arnold Toynbee, “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder.”

If we cannot understand and appreciate the massive gates that were opened by men such as Columbus, we are a truly ungrateful and arrogant people who need to be re-awakened to the earth shattering — in a very positive sense — impact of the voyage that took place in 1492.

Readers will have noticed something of a reluctance to go much into the mystique of Simón Bolivar (Bolivar) in these posts.

A cursory look at the countless Bolivar-related videos or sites in the internet universe will help explain why this blog has skirted around and about Bolivar. Reactions to Bolivar are often loud if not violent. This does not encourage overall understanding.

Be that as it may, it is simply impossible to consider Venezuela, or South America for that matter, without grappling with Bolivar, one of the most enigmatic figures in history, much more so than Napoleon, in my opinion.

Napoleon at least recognized that a people who could not govern themselves individually could not legitimately seek to be self-governing as a whole. Reading through Bolivar’s voluminous declarations, letters, orders, and musings, one sees that at times he appeared to agree with Napoleon in this regard; at times he disagreed, and vehemently so.

When one reads Bolivar’s denunciations of those who sought to be loyal to Spain, one is perplexed. Perplexed because Spain had devolved greater amounts of self-government to its American colonies than the British crown had devolved to its own. And Spain continued to concede more self-government, while England, a quarter century earlier, was reducing such.

So, where was the beef with Spain?

This is a subject that requires setting aside, or at least tamping down a bit, some anti-Spanish prejudices which Northern Europeans and North Americans have cultivated over five centuries.

It will require questioning the propagandistic reporting of Bartolomé de las Casas, who did far more than the British and the Dutch to besmirch his own country. What he reported was, to put it mildly, highly questionable. And if one takes the time to read through a fraction of his writings, one would see that much of what he said was designed to incite hatred towards Spain.

The British and the Dutch used him to good effect, especially the engravings of the Dutchman, Theodor de Bry. But in so doing, they managed to obfuscate much of South American history for centuries after. And this obfuscation, in turn, facilitates our superficial understanding of Bolivar.

By the way, las Casas’ actions, denunciations, and writings, and the use of such by Spain’s enemies bear a vivid resemblance to today’s use of “narrative” in propaganda and public debate. Nothing new under the sun indeed!

But we need to break away from the mainstream, popular narrative and be as fair as we can in looking back and judging how that narrative has molded our thinking and, where necessary, we need to revise such thinking to be more just. Just thinking will result in just action. To borrow the old Arthur Andersen motto: “Think Straight, Act Straight”.

Did you ever hear that the Spanish colonies in South America enjoyed more political self-government than the North American colonies?

Have you ever wondered why the South American revolutions spilled far more blood than the American? Hint: it’s not because of Spain.

Have you ever questioned why the South Americans rebelled against Spain? Hint: the causes, thought processes, and models they sought to imitate are not a mirror image of those of the North American colonies.

As for Bolivar, at one point he laments the destruction of three centuries of civilization (civilization cultivated by Spain). At another, without so much as a pause for an irony alert, he condemns Spain for having kept the Americas in prehistoric conditions. Well, which is it?

At one point, he condemns Spain for heartlessness; at another, he orders the execution of helpless prisoners.

His military exploits are a wonder. He rivals Hannibal in his crossing of the Andes. Twice.

Some of his writings reach stratospheric heights and are deeply moving and prescient.

But a man is known by his fruits. And it can be argued that the fruits of South American revolution are not a compliment to any man.

I grew up admiring Bolivar. I still admire him because he possessed much that is worthy of admiration and imitation. But we must recognize that he also possessed much that is not. His actions and reactions towards Spain require understanding and mature analysis.

Alexander von Humboldt, the great 18th and 19th century explorer and naturalist, told of an encounter with a savage looking Indian who startled him as he knelt to take some water from a narrow stream deep in the Venezuelan jungle. The Indian stood across the stream. As Humboldt rose, ready to defend himself, the Indian raised his hand and spoke to him in perfect Spanish. He then proceeded to lead the explorers to a mission not far away. The great explorer wrote that he was amazed at finding such a creature speaking a civilized tongue in the middle of nowhere.

As we shall see in future posts, Humboldt was a creature of the Enlightenment; he was no friend of Christianity (though, ironically, he was a product thereof) and this more often than not blinded him to the obvious. For example, he reported that the Waraos lived atop stilts on the shores of the Orinoco in order to keep missionaries from reaching them. This is so preposterous that one marvels how despising Christianity can make intelligent people dumb! However, even Humboldt was complimentary of the work of the Spanish missionaries with the Indians in South America. (The Waraos lived in huts on stilts for protection against the massive Orinoco floods, in case you’re wondering.)

Notwithstanding my comments above, I greatly respect Humboldt, as you shall see in future posts. And I am a fan of the English also, but not uncritically so.

Spain did a phenomenal work in the Americas. Not at all perfect. Sometimes terribly imperfect. But it deserves a more just assessment.

And that assessment will serve to help us better understand Bolivar. And Venezuela.

There will be more posts on Bolivar. And Humboldt. And Spain.