HISTORY LEARNING UNIT

history

Discoveries and conquests

Index

The dispute between Las Casas and Sepùlveda

Introduction: discoveries of the period

The discovery of the New World

My thoughts

Pre-Columbian civilizations

Introduction: discoveries of the period

In 1500, period of the Renaissance and Humanism, we find revolutions in various field.In the astronomical field, Niccolò Copernico hypothesizes a universe composed of concentric spheres, which have their center in the Sun and not in the Earth (heliocentric model). We also find revolutions in the maritime sector: new nautical charts, better compasses, more solid and reliable ships.

The discovery of the New World

Starting from 300, Europeans began to explore the Atlantic Ocean. Those journeys were made possible by the technical innovation mentioned above and by the new vision of the world that emerged with Humanism and Renaissance. The first to undertake exploration journeys were the Portuguese and others. In 1492 Christopher Columbus managed to convince the king of Spain to finance an expedition to reach the Indies. He then reaches a new territory, and he will contunue to be convinced that it is the Indies even in the next 3 voyages; it will be Amerigo Vespucci who will demonstrate that the lands discovered by Columbus are actually a new continent.

Pre-Columbian civilizations

The populations that inhabited the America before the arrival of Europeans were arrived from Asia 30-40,000 years before Christ through the Bering strait. These population were the Maya, the Inca and the Aztecs.

The Aztecs

The Aztecs settled in Mexican plateau and had a centralized monarchy: the capital Tenochtitlàn had 300,000 habitants. They archieved formidable architectural skills and a notable expertise in the cultivation of corn. Like the Maya the Aztecs also believed in the cynical nature of time and the inevitable destiny to which men would be subjected.

The dispute between Las Casas and Sepùlveda

The intellectuals of the old continent immediately became passionate about the questions of the relationship with the new populations: we find a wide debate on the nature of Indios, which focused above all on the presence or absence of soul in the natives on their availability to being "civilized" by the conquistadores.Various positions were born and that animated public disputes, such as the one between Bartolomeo de Las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepùlveda. Las Casas extolled the goodness of the natives and denunced the cruelty of the conquistadores. Sepùlveda instead considered the indigenous people that are human but brutal; Furthermore, Sepùlveda maintained that, given the existence of races less advanced than others, the submission of the rudest peoples to the superior ones represented a service to civilitation.

My thoughts

Was the war against the Indios a fair war?

In my opinion it was not right, even if they were unknown people with different habits and religions, this doesn't mean that they are not equal to the rest of the population in the rest of the world.

Could Europeans claim the right to govern those people?

In my opinion no, because they were unknown people and therefore foreign to Christian dominion, this is why the pagan rulers had to consider legitimate in all respects. So no Christian king or emperor could claim the right to rule.

History

The end