[HN Gopher] An Incan nobleman contested Spanish history
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An Incan nobleman contested Spanish history
Author : Thevet
Score : 36 points
Date : 2021-12-08 17:34 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (daily.jstor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (daily.jstor.org)
| pvaldes wrote:
| Cherry-picking is useful to promote agendas, but I would prefer
| to ask the opinion of a true historian about that.
|
| > one of the most important and idiosyncratic texts of Indigenous
| American literature remained forgotten
|
| Hem, nope. I don't buy this BS.
|
| In the roman empire tradition, Spanish crown registered
| absolutely anything of interest. They funded the first global,
| -global-, scientific studies about American Flora and Fauna. The
| whole stuff. Just one book in the series would gave us a much
| better picture of the history than this text.
|
| And they spent a lot of money in that huge task, just to publish
| and share it with the rest of Europe. We have 'English' tomatoes
| and 'Dutch' potatoes and 'Italian' peppers or avocados because
| they shared the discoveries. Think about it. Try to culture some
| Asian spices in Europe instead.
|
| There are probably hundreds, (if not thousands) of more relevant
| texts about the early history of the New World. And unlike the
| old tale of "boy finds big thing gathering dust in a library"
| they are available to anybody interested.
|
| Spaniards or Portuguese crowns did a lot of things wrong but also
| a lot of things right. The last week somebody was talking on TV
| about if is time to repatriate the remains of Hernan Cortes to
| Spain to protect them from haters, The man was dead for
| centuries, for Pete's sake!.
|
| Lets put it clear, this "miraculous discovering" is just another
| cancel latinoamerican culture stunt.
| djsbs wrote:
| The only Latin Americans _from Latin America_ Ive ever known
| who are resentful of Spain are white, unemployed socialists who
| studied Marxism. And I like to think I've met enough of them.
|
| Spain is fascinating. The "pop" image of her is seriously wrong
| (and this is widely known to historians).
| kuhewa wrote:
| I take indigenous American literature to mean authored by an
| indigenous American. Can you suggest more idiosyncratic and
| important examples?
|
| > this "miraculous discovering" is just another cancel
| latinoamerican culture stunt.
|
| in 1908?
| dang wrote:
| Please do not take HN threads into nationalistic or ideological
| flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what
| it is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| datameta wrote:
| If this is what we did to other Homo sapiens, I have no doubts
| about the majority steakholder in the destruction of our related
| hominin populations.
| hihihihi1234 wrote:
| Was he the one with all the beef?
| cwp wrote:
| It's such a shame that the coding system used by quipus was lost
| for so long. I bet a _lot_ of quipus were just thrown away
| because nobody could read them anymore.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The quipu conventions used by the quipucamayocs, the Incan IRS,
| are still lost.
|
| The Qhapaq Simi language used by the Inca nobility is lost
| forever too.
| ska wrote:
| Wasn't this intentional (i.e. systematic destruction of
| records, and suppression of use) ?
| [deleted]
| vondur wrote:
| The poor natives in Peru were doomed once the Spanish discovered
| all of the silver present. I believe they basically enslaved the
| local indigenous population.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Ironically, all the gold and silver the Spanish extracted and
| transferred to Spain did the Spanish little good, as it simply
| resulted in inflation.
|
| Like what we do today with fiat money.
| chestertn wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_colonial_Spanish_Am...
| djsbs wrote:
| Law of Burgos 1512
|
| Sublimis Deus 1537
|
| Pastorale Officium 1537
|
| New Laws 1542
|
| Laws of Spain, or of Roman Christendom, declaring that America
| belongs to Americans (ie natives) and that they are free.
|
| Bill of rights not seen by any European colonized peoples
| elsewhere.
|
| Ever wonder why all the brown people seem to live _south_ of Rio
| Grande, as soon as the language changes to Spanish? Because the
| Spaniards were, by far, the most benign European imperialists.
|
| There were crimes, Potosi cries out to this day, but the fact
| that an Incan nobleman knew how to write in Spanish and could
| petition the court of Charles V (?) is a testament to Spain.
|
| !Viva Espana!
| kuhewa wrote:
| > Because the Spaniards were, by far, the most benign European
| imperialists.
|
| _Laughs in Pizzaro_
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Please do not take HN threads further into flamewar.
|
| " _Don 't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them
| instead._"
|
| a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| bsedlm wrote:
| > the most benign European imperialists.
|
| "most benign" does not equal "least worse".
|
| sure, they didn't violiently decimate the native populations,
| salmonella took care of that on its own.
|
| And instead of violently killing the remaining natives they
| raped and enslaved them (as compared to just murdered them).
| That is not benign in any way, shape, or form.
| bsedlm wrote:
| sometimes I think that the main difference is that the Spanish
| didn't have a clear idea of where they'd arrived; they had
| sailed looking for new trade routes. But then they "struck
| gold" and they improvised.
|
| But the rest of the europeans sailed to conquer, with a very
| clear picture of what they were doing even before taking to the
| sea: taking over the "new world".
| Darmody wrote:
| And don't forget that in 1593 Felipe II established a 8 hours
| work days. Centuries before socialism. [0]
|
| Interracial marriage centuries before it was legal in the US.
|
| Tens of universities.
|
| And even a vaccine. Not a vaccine as we know them today but a
| vaccine nevertheless. [1]
|
| [0] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Eight-hour_day
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balmis_Expedition
| djsbs wrote:
| Or forget that liberalism has its roots in Spain centuries
| before similar ideas are found elsewhere.
| Burnafter290 wrote:
| There's an interesting position in "The Dawn of Everything"
| by Graeber and Wengrow wherein they argue that the
| isolation that the Americas were allowed gives us a palette
| of alternative social constructions. The influence of the
| Greeks, the Alexandrian, the Roman and the cultural
| modalities of the Mediterranean an no doubt the various
| other groups of considerable power and most importantly the
| emergent interplay. Moreover the eventual concretion of
| hierarchical structure in the most elementary facets of
| life, lead to the assent of man to such hierarchy, thus
| pushing forward the ideological model of European states.
| This, perhaps, leveraged the equalization of man in the
| eyes of god to be convincing.
|
| To put it concisely, Europeans were deluded into the belief
| that hierarchy was ever-present - something which is
| heavily discredited historically. Further rationalizations
| that it _must be_ so for a "developed, complex" society is
| evidently made spurious as well.
|
| The various peoples of the Americas on the other hand,
| lacking in these diverse influences, and instead developing
| their own systems often altogether eschewed hierarchy and
| formalized coercive powers. Men and women in some cultures
| were very explicitly equal, and chiefs held little in the
| way of formal power. They were public speakers, and they
| had to present rational and convincing arguments - the
| rational tradition. This is a _stark_ contrast to the
| feudal system and the heavy influence of the Roman Catholic
| church at the time. DoE suggests that certain figures had
| considerable influence on later though, providing citations
| from philosophers such as Montesquieu.
|
| Their key argument comes from a highly-referenced
| individual named Kandiaronk, who is quite probably the
| basis for Adario in Baron Lahontan's books (evidently very
| popular), of particular interest:
|
| "Finally, Supplement aux Voyages ou Dialogues avec le
| sauvage Adario lambasts institutional Christianity by means
| of a dialogue between de Lahontan and a Huron Chief named
| Adario (The Rat). The author attempts to contrast the
| injustice of Christianity with the _freedom and justice of
| native people._ His idealized view of "natural humanity"
| as a vehicle for criticizing European civilization was a
| forceful early expression of the "noble savage" trope
| associated with the Enlightenment."[1]
|
| Evidently, Lahontan's writings were very popular:
|
| "All these would be rather trivial concerns had Lahontan's
| books not been so successful; but they were to have an
| enormous impact on European sensibilities. Kandiaronk's
| opinions were translated into German, English, Dutch and
| Italian, and continued in print, in multiple editions, for
| over a century. Any self-respecting intellectual of the
| eighteenth century would have been almost certain to have
| read them." [2]
|
| Coming from that point of reference, it wouldn't be
| surprising that Spain, having decades worth of exclusive
| exposure, would come out leading "liberal" thought. But is
| it fair to assert that it was Europeans that initiated it
| if it is so that they were inspired by the natives of the
| New World?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-
| Armand_de_Lom_d%27Arce_d... [2] Dawn of Everything
| notahacker wrote:
| This is some kind of reverse "what did the Romans do for us"
| satire, right?
|
| "But apart from killing 80% of the native population, who
| definitely weren't slaves because in return for their forced
| labour they were forcibly converted to Catholicism, what
| exactly did the Spanish do wrong?" The bills of rights were
| inspired by the extent of the conquistadors' brutality, were
| generally ignored and the New Laws lasted three whole years and
| one dead viceroy before the Spanish settlers forced the King to
| back down. I'm not sure missionaries teaching one nobleman
| Spanish so that he could write a petition to be ignored really
| offsets that.
| Darmody wrote:
| They didn't kill the native population. Horrible crimes were
| committed but not genocide. The crimes committed there were
| not different than the ones committed in Europe between
| Europeans.
|
| The conquistadores were able to overthrow an Empire because
| they made allies with everybody else who was bullied by them.
|
| Sadly diseases killed a lot of people. More than 90% of the
| deaths were caused by said diseases, I think it was close to
| 94%.
|
| If Spaniards were marrying into the native nobility is
| because it mattered to the locals as they were the majority.
| djsbs wrote:
| One minor quip
|
| " The crimes committed there were not different than the
| ones committed in Europe between Europeans."
|
| Just over 100 years ago Belgians were "harvesting" the
| right arms of Congolese for who knows what reason. The
| Spaniards were always much more benign than their Northern
| cousins.
| Darmody wrote:
| Well, I wasn't comparing it to what other countries did
| with their colonies. I was comparing it to what Europeans
| did to themselves.
|
| Oh, by the way. Spain never had colonies. They had
| provinces and everyone in those provinces was just as
| citizen of the empire as someone from current Spain.
| bigwavedave wrote:
| > Oh, by the way, Spain never had colonies. They had
| provinces and everyone in those provinces was just as
| citizen of the empire as someone from current Spain.
|
| Um. Okay. A colony is:
|
| 1. "an area over which a foreign nation or state extends
| or maintains control"
|
| and
|
| 2. "a group of people who establish residence in that
| area and who retain ties with the parent state."[1]
|
| So, to say that Spain had no colonies is patently false-
| it most certainly had pockets of emigrants from the
| homeland who were still culturally tied to it and under
| its rule (the Philippines, Louisiana, any number of
| Caribbean islands, colonial Mexico, and the list goes on
| and on during Siglo de Oro and beyond).
|
| I don't have a horse in this race, but if you wanna act
| like a pedant, you're gonna be treated like one.
| Ridiculous.
|
| [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colony
| pvaldes wrote:
| If you want to accuse other to be pedant, please, note
| first the 'foreign' word in your description.
|
| Living in a province of the -same- nation that has
| granted you a fully citizenship is a different situation
| than living in a colony ruled by a -foreign- nation. As
| everybody knows, the later typically comes with none or a
| restricted set of rights. Ask a Puerto rican friend for
| more details.
| djsbs wrote:
| They weren't killed, they died of diseases. As we see today
| with the pandemic, the respiratory illnesses were
| unstoppable, so you cant ascribe guilt through some assumed
| knowledge of proto-germ theory.
|
| The first law is from 1512, 20 years after the discover of
| the Americas. Given transportation at the time it is clear
| that he vast majority of the troops overthrowing the Inca
| were recruited by the subjugated native peoples. Kinda what
| progressives [1] tried to do in Afghanistan. Pray, what noble
| accomplishment do we have to show in Afghanistan after 20
| years?
|
| The enslavement of natives was against the law of King.
| Ignored by criminals, sure, but the law was clear and its
| violators criminals.
|
| Forced conversion to Catholicism from a blood thirst cult
| that stained their monuments with the blood of innocents. Ya,
| they were real bad for that. Btw, if you insist on cultural
| relativism, what were progressives doing in Afghanistan but
| proselytizing feminism?
|
| [1] I used the word progressive, as opposed to Americans, on
| purpose as the war was a multi nation effort cheered on by
| people, "right" or "left" who believe we have to impose
| democracy and liberalism on others. I remember before 9/11
| when leftist wanted to liberate Afghani women. I remember in
| August, when leftists were aghast we left the women behind
| notahacker wrote:
| The Law of 1512 formalised the econmienda system, which was
| slavery in all but name. The best thing to be said for it
| is that it was intended to be less brutal than what had
| already happened and what continued to happen. Diseases
| decimated the population north and south of the Rio Grande,
| but it was south of it that the much greater populations
| also died from overwork (not that the British and French
| were any better; they just imported their slaves from
| elsewhere).
|
| You will forgive me for not engaging further if you are the
| sort of person that regards the econmienda system as a
| magnificent accomplishment, especially compared with the
| horrors of female education "leftists" inflicted in
| Afghanistan. It is the same reason I don't speak to the
| sort of person that argues the holocaust was basically self
| defence and signs his posts off Deutschland Uber Alles.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > (not that the British and French were any better; they
| just imported their slaves from elsewhere).
|
| I should point out that the Spanish _also_ imported
| slaves from Africa in prodigious quantities. However,
| instead of doing it themselves, the Spanish crown let out
| a single contract for who would be the sole importer of
| slaves into the American colonies (the asiento)--and all
| of the major maritime powers of Europe were vying to win
| that contract at various points in time.
| hihihihi1234 wrote:
| If you find the term "Deutschland Uber Alles" problematic
| then you'd be horrified if you ever watch Germany at the
| football world cup, because "Deutschland Uber Alles" is
| not a Nazi or fascistic slogan but is a lyric from the
| current German national anthem.
| Gabriel_Martin wrote:
| "Forced conversion to Catholicism from a blood thirst cult
| that stained their monuments with the blood of innocents"
|
| Not sure you want to bring into focus Catholicism's history
| as it relates to the blood of innocents..
| djsbs wrote:
| @Gabriel Martin.
|
| " Not sure you want to bring into focus Catholicism's
| history on the blood of innocents.."
|
| Go for it. I'll defend the sins of Rome against the
| depravities of any other civilization, including and
| especially our own.
| [deleted]
| christkv wrote:
| I don't know compared to what major faith. Name of one
| that has not perpetrated mass murder in name of some
| deity or idea.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| A safe bet is this one, which is also one of the most
| ancient ones that still exists today:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| It's funny to reflect on the context, too.
|
| The Inca were probably the most astonishingly advanced
| Native Americans, and they surely had great thinkers
| (definitely great engineers). And here come the
| conquistadors, rock-headed barbarians from the most
| desperate segments of Spanish society (little else drove
| people to risk their life for riches in the New World),
| absolutely slaughtering them, burning their cultural
| artifacts or melting them down into ingots when
| applicable.
|
| It's like if (a much more desperate and destitute version
| of) the January 6th protesters were sent to conquer new
| worlds.
|
| As an aside, a colorful example[0]: they lured the
| Emperor in a plaza (he came to show he was unafraid, and
| his army were disarmed of all but ceremonial weapons),
| and, in the slaughter that ensued, they tried capturing
| him. He was up on a palanquin, carried by servants.
| Unable to reach him, the Spanish began cutting off the
| limbs of the servants, who it's said, without thinking,
| bore the load on their shoulders instead (it was
| unthinkable to do otherwise, as they considered the
| Emperor a god). Eventually, they captured him. In
| captivity, they taught him to play Chess, and I think
| it's said he was good at it. Later, panicked that an army
| was going to come and re-capture him, they killed him.
| Before his death, he was offered conversion to
| Catholicism, which he accepted, which awarded him the
| clemency of being strangled instead of burned alive.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca
| chestertn wrote:
| This is a very colorful view of history. You can also see
| that the first university in America was built by the
| spaniards. The first university in Asia? Also, built by
| the spaniards.
|
| The earlier ships were a mixture of those "barbarians" as
| you mentioned, and very learned people.
|
| The concept of international law and human rights started
| with the discussions in Spain after the discovery of
| America:
|
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/school-
| salamanca/#IusGent...
| dang wrote:
| Please do not take HN threads further into nationalistic
| or (god help us) religious flamewar. It's not what this
| site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Gabriel_Martin wrote:
| Sorry, I took the bait. My bad.
| dang wrote:
| Please do not take HN threads into nationalistic or ideological
| flamewar. You started a doozy with this one and then poured
| fuel on the inevitable flames. We ban accounts that do that, so
| please don't do it again.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the
| intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
| sulam wrote:
| I regret that I only have but one downvote to give to this re-
| framing.
| dang wrote:
| " _Don 't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them
| instead._"
|
| a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| djsbs wrote:
| Let me give you another opportunity.
|
| While you're at it, care to expound a little more than
| "reframing"?
|
| Did those laws not exist?
|
| Did they not grant rights unheard of in the 16th century?
|
| Are there not vastly larger populations of natives south of
| Rio Grande?
|
| Did I not acknowledge that crimes were committed (but were
| leas in intensity and duration than of other colonizers)?
|
| I mean, my comment surely hurts the pride of Anglos (and
| Dutch) - for all their moaning of conquistadors Northern
| Europeans were far more brutal than Spain. Theres no contest.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Perpetuating flamewars like this is particularly against
| the site guidelines. Would you please review them and stick
| to the rules when posting here?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
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