transportable, proselytizing religion that rationalized conquest. (Followers of
Islam share this characteristic.) Typically, after “discovering” an island and
encountering a tribe of American Indians new to them, the Spaniards would
read aloud (in Spanish) what came to be called “the Requirement.” Here is one
version:
I implore you to recognize the Church as a lady and in the name
of the Pope take the King as lord of this land and obey his
mandates. If you do not do it, I tell you that with the help of God
I will enter powerfully against you all. I will make war
everywhere and every way that I can. I will subject you to the
yoke and obedience to the Church and to his majesty. I will take
your women and children and make them slaves.... The deaths
and injuries that you will receive from here on will be your
own fault and not that of his majesty nor of the gentlemen that
accompany me.^13Having thus satisfied their consciences by offering the Native Americans a
chance to convert to Christianity, the Spaniards then felt free to do whatever
they wanted with the people they had just “discovered.”
A fifth development that caused Europe’s reaction to Columbus’s reports
about Haiti to differ radically from reactions to earlier expeditions was
Europe’s recent success in taking over and exploiting various island societies.
On Malta, Sardinia, the Canary Islands, and, later, in Ireland, Europeans
learned that conquest of this sort was a route to wealth. As described below,
textbooks now do tell about a sixth factor: the diseases Europeans brought with
them that aided their conquest. New and more deadly forms of smallpox,
influenza, and bubonic plague had arisen in Europe since the Vikings had
sailed.^14
Why don’t textbooks mention arms as a facilitator of exploration and
domination? Why do they omit most of the foregoing factors? If crude factors
such as military power or religiously sanctioned greed are perceived as
reflecting badly on us, who exactly is “us”? Who are the textbooks written for
(and by)? Plainly, descendants of the Europeans.
High school students don’t usually think about the rise of Europe to world
domination. It is rarely presented as a question. It seems natural, a given, not
something that needs to be explained. Deep down, our culture encourages us to