Thanks, can you provide a source for that? Was that true for indiginous people in the Spanish colonies in the Americas in the 16th and 17th century already? Cause these people were not better off. Spain’s colonial rule was as brutal and genocidal as any other. The common whitewashing myth goes that the indigenous population of South America ‘was reduced’ to large parts in this era due to not being immunologicaly prepared to the ‘flu’. Well, they were not ‘immunologically’ prepared to the metal swords and armour and the bullets of the conquistadores. Many of those who survived were killed by working themselves to death in the forced labour system in notorious Spanish silver mines (see e.g. Potosí).
Let’s be careful not to portray Spanish colonialism as being something ‘civilized’* by the omission of this, but maybe that wasn’t your intention.
*Well maybe it was civilized, depending on your view on civilization.
I recommend reading this section of the “Spanish colonization of the Americas” Wikipedia article, which has plenty of sources. Obviously they weren’t saints, but, at the time, they were “the dawn of human rights” (cited in the article) and took Christian values very seriously, which is also why they converted all the population forcefully. There’s no denying that, but, as a silver lining, education and religion were almost one and the same, and they did build many universities, schools, etc.
When I visited the United States, they always tried to paint it as “they were all equally bad” when it came to colonizers in the museums I went to. However, I feel like that is because the “situation” with natives was way worse in North America than it was in South America.
Thanks, can you provide a source for that? Was that true for indiginous people in the Spanish colonies in the Americas in the 16th and 17th century already? Cause these people were not better off. Spain’s colonial rule was as brutal and genocidal as any other. The common whitewashing myth goes that the indigenous population of South America ‘was reduced’ to large parts in this era due to not being immunologicaly prepared to the ‘flu’. Well, they were not ‘immunologically’ prepared to the metal swords and armour and the bullets of the conquistadores. Many of those who survived were killed by working themselves to death in the forced labour system in notorious Spanish silver mines (see e.g. Potosí). Let’s be careful not to portray Spanish colonialism as being something ‘civilized’* by the omission of this, but maybe that wasn’t your intention.
*Well maybe it was civilized, depending on your view on civilization.
I recommend reading this section of the “Spanish colonization of the Americas” Wikipedia article, which has plenty of sources. Obviously they weren’t saints, but, at the time, they were “the dawn of human rights” (cited in the article) and took Christian values very seriously, which is also why they converted all the population forcefully. There’s no denying that, but, as a silver lining, education and religion were almost one and the same, and they did build many universities, schools, etc.
When I visited the United States, they always tried to paint it as “they were all equally bad” when it came to colonizers in the museums I went to. However, I feel like that is because the “situation” with natives was way worse in North America than it was in South America.