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Edited on Wed Jan-19-05 02:34 PM by imenja
It's useful to do some reading on how the Spanish understood their mission in the Americas. This, of course, is not to excuse their actions, just as it doesn't excuse the behavior of the English. The Spanish, in general, were far more accommodating of indigenous rights than were the English, who defined Indians as entirely outside of society and treated them accordingly. I have not read Zinn's book, but most historians of the United States are overtaken by the "black legend" that villanized the Spanish in comparison to other empires. It is important to remember that the Spanish truly believed they were fulfilling God's mission. Our modern day society separates the sacred from the secular, but no such division existed in the minds of sixteenth-century Europeans.
A few readings you might consider: D.A. Brading's _The First America_ is a superb though lengthy intellectual history of Spanish America (you can always choose particular chapters); John Leddy Phelan, __The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World__ is a fascinating look at the the most utopian and pro-Indian faction of New World clergy; Inga Clendinnen's, _Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in the Yucatan, 1517-1570_ is quite readable but will almost certainly make your blood boil more, since it is an unusual case of a Franciscan cleric, Diego de Landa, who staged his own inquisition. Another possibility might be Tzvetan Todorov's _The Conquest of America_; or you could always pick up a simple textbook on Colonial Latin American History (such as by Berkholder and Johnson; Schwartz and Lockhart (the best but most difficult); or Jonathan Brown).
There are many more excellent studies of the experience of indigenous peoples under Spanish rule than studies of the Spanish point of view. If you are interested, I could suggest readings some indigenous people's in the colonial era. In general, it's best never to trust a historian of the United States when it comes to Latin America. However well intentioned, they tend to be influenced by a deep-seeded sense of American and English superiority that training in US history only tends to enhance rather than dispel. I realize Howard Zinn is a good and very popular historian who has somehow convinced the public that he is the only historian who studies the oppressed, but that is far from the truth. The field of history for the last thirty years has overwhelmingly focused on social factors. There are many excellent works to read.
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