Thursday, January 26, 2012

Las Casas, Sepulveda and the Great Debate

Las Casas, Sepulveda
and the Great Debate

by Ronald A. Barnett
Part Two
In 1550-1551 a public debate was held in Valladolid, Spain, between Las Casas, chief spokesman for the Indians of New Spain, and his opponent, Sepulveda, who regarded the Indians as subhuman and therefore subject to the superior races–slaves; Indians committed crimes against nature, namely idolatry, sodomy, and cannibalism; Indians sacrificed innocent people in sacrificial rites; finally, Indians were infidels who could be converted to Christianity only by force.
Las Casas countered first with a four-part definition of barbarism. Then he argued that the Indians of New Spain did not fall under Sepulveda’s definition of barbarism and were therefore, not inferior to civilized peoples nor were they necessarily subject to the superior races. Moreover, Aristotle’s Theory of Natural Slavery, invoked by Sepulveda did not apply to the Indians of New Spain because the Indians lived in harmonious and organized communities and had a form or written language, although as pagans, they needed help from the Spaniards to save their souls.
Las Casas’ main defense of the Indians and the most difficult part of his argument involved idolatry, human sacrifice, and the use of Biblical scriptures in the Great Debate. Las Casa began by declaring that the Indians, while admittedly pagan, could not be classified as heretics who had dissented against the Roman Catholic faith. Consequently, Indians did not fall under the jurisdiction of Pope Paul III or King Charles V and so could not be punished for crimes against nature, including idolatry or human sacrifice. This counter-argument was particularly important because the early Conquistadores and Spanish missionaries were so horrified at the worship of what they regarded as “idols” and the Aztec practice of human sacrifice that they felt perfectly justified in dealing with the Indians in any way they saw fit.
The cultural gap between the Spaniards and Indians was so wide that the Spaniards could not possibly understand, much less accept, the Aztec concept of human sacrifice as a means of preserving the universe. Furthermore, Spanish missionaries were greatly perplexed by the similarities between many Aztec practices and the rites of the Catholic church. For example, the Eucharist of the Catholic church and the Aztec concept of ixiptlatl had much in common, for they both involved a form of personification. In the former, the bread and wine were not simply symbols of the body of Christ, but the actual flesh and blood of Jesus (transubstantiation), at least for devout Catholics, in the latter the priest who danced in the skin of the flayed human sacrifice personified the deity he was representing (ixiptlatl) at least in the minds of the believers. The Spaniards regarded the Aztec practice as sinful idolatry. The only difference was that the Spaniards had the weapons to convince the Aztecs they were wrong and that the Spaniards were right.
Las Casas’ response was crucial to his whole defense of the Indians, for it involved acknowledging, if not justifying, idolatry and human sacrifice as it was practiced by the Aztecs. Granted that human sacrifice is wrong, so the argument went, it can nevertheless, perhaps be explained by the circumstances in which the Indians found themselves during the 16th century. In any case, the Indians were pagans, not heretics and were therefore to be converted to Christianity by peaceful means and not violently punished for their lack of faith in the Catholic church. Here Las Casas made perhaps his greatest concession as a Dominican priest, for he acknowledged that idolatry and human sacrifice were lesser evils than war, which should be avoided at all cost. The Indians were evolving and therefore needed to be converted, not killed, thus overturning Sepulveda’s previous argument that war was necessary to convince the Indians because in the Bible Jesus is said to have forced guests to attend the wedding feast. Las Casas replied that while the Bible could indeed be interpreted in different ways one should not completely distort the meaning of the scriptures.
The Great Debate ended in 1551. The terms of the discussion were highly academic and theoretical and did not deal with native culture in its own context. Moreover, the Indians were never included in the debate. Sepulveda continued as a spokesman for the encomienda system of slavery in New Spain, while Las Casas became known as the defender of Indians. However, as D. Castro points out in Another Face of Empire, Las Casas did indeed come to the defense of the Indians against the torture and murder of natives by the Spaniards but in fact he was simply substituting another form of paternalistic, ecclesiastical imperialism in place of military, economic and political domination.
Sepulveda never visited the Americas but his arguments in the debate with Las Casas reflected actual practices in the Spanish conquest of the Americas. His work was suppressed from an early time because he told the truth about the racial intolerance and dirty practices of the Conquest. InDemocrates Segundo Sepulveda expressed the general attitude of the Spaniards toward the Indians: “(The Indians are)…naturally lazy and vicious, melancholic, cowardly, and in general a lying, shiftless people. Their marriages are not a sacrament but a sacrilege. They are idolatrous, libidinous and commit sodomy. Their chief desire is to eat, drink, worship heathen idols and commit bestial obscenities. What could one expect from a people whose skulls are so thick and hard that the Spaniards had to take care in fighting not to strike on the head lest the swords be blunted.”
One way or another, the natives of the Americas were destined to be subject to the will and whims of the ruling Europeans. The Spaniards who followed Sepulveda continued with their aggressive policies. Only a few actually adopted more peaceful methods of conversion but as far as the Indians were concerned no real change resulted.

Bartolomeo de Las Casas, Father to the Indians

Product photo

Bartolomeo de Las Casas, Father to the Indians

Dan Graves, MSL

The Indians had a name for Bartolomé de las Casas: "Father to the Indians." It had not always been so. When he first traveled to Spanish America he was twenty-four years old and no priest. To the contrary, he was following in conquistador footsteps. Like many Spanish youth he settled on a plantation where he enjoyed the forced labor of native conscripts.
One day in 1509, a Dominican monk, Father Montesinos spoke from the pulpit, berating Spanish colonists for their cruel treatment of the natives. How could men call themselves Christians and perpetrate the barbarities these butchers daily unleashed against their helpless charges? he asked.
Bartolomé was cut to the quick. While others screamed threats and abuse at the preacher, he went out and freed his slaves. Then he returned to Montesinos for advice as to what he should do next. Montesinos trained him to be a priest. He was the first Spaniard ordained in the new world.
Thereafter, Bartolomé labored for the Indians as few men have before or after. His whole life was devoted to that single cause. He wrote books documenting the cruelty done to the natives. He pleaded with those who ruled the colonies. Five times he crossed the ocean to plead with the king of Spain. The pope had granted Spain its possessions in the New World on the ground that Spain evangelize the Indians, Bartolomé reminded the king. The king agreed. Laws were passed ordering better treatment of the Indians. In the New World these benevolent rules were ignored by men who knew the king was powerless to enforce them. But the Indians knew Bartolomé as their benefactor and revered his name.
As a last resort, Bartolomé prevailed upon church authorities to refuse confession to men who continued their barbarities and did not return stolen loot and free their slaves. Priests who courageously carried out this directive were threatened and had to flee, while wicked priests continued to offer absolution to the brutal men under their charge.
When Bartolomé was old the king offered him the richest ecclesiastical see in gold--wealthy Peru. Bartolomé refused it. Send him to the poorest, he begged, some place where many natives remained unconverted so he would have much work to do for the Lord. He was given a place in impoverished Mexico.
He worked there for three years and then was forced to return to Spain to answer charges his enemies had trumped up against him. He came home fighting. Once again he proved that it was cruelty which had led to the revolts which the colonists tried to blame on his teaching. All the same, he was not allowed to return to his beloved Indians. On this day, July 31, 1566 he died. When the news reached the people he had done so much to help, they lamented in their villages and lighted bonfires in honor of his passing.

Bartolomé de las Casas


Bartolomé de las Casas O.P. (c. 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians". His extensive writings, the most famous "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" and "Historia de Las Indias", chronicle the first decades of colonization of theWest Indies and focus particularly on the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the Indigenous peoples.
Arriving as one of the first settlers in the New World he participated in, and was eventually compelled to oppose, the atrocities committed against the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists. In 1515 he reformed his views, giving up his Indian slaves and encomienda, instead advocating before King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor on behalf of rights for the natives. In 1522 he attempted to launch a new kind of peaceful colonialism on the coast of Venezuela, but this venture failed causing Las Casas to enter the Dominican Order and become a monk, leaving the public scene for a decade. He then traveled to Central America undertaking peaceful evangelization among the Maya ofGuatemala and participated in debates among the Mexican churchmen about how best to bring the natives to the Christian faith. Traveling back to Spain to recruit more missionaries, he continued lobbying for the abolition of the encomiendado , gaining an important victory by the passing of the New Laws in 1542. He was appointed Bishop of Chiapas, but served only for a short time before he was forced to return to Spain because of resistance to the New Laws by the encomenderos, and conflicts with Spanish settlers because of his pro-Indian policies and activist religious stances. The remainder of his life was spent at the Spanish court where he held great influence over Indies-related issues. In 1550 he participated in the Valladolid debate; he argued against Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda that the Indians were fully human and that forcefully subjugating them was unjustifiable. Sepúlveda countered that they were less than human and required Spanish masters in order to become civilized.
Bartolomé de las Casas spent 50 years of his life actively fighting slavery and the violent colonial abuse of indigenous peoples, especially by trying to convince the Spanish court to adopt a more humane policy of colonization. And although he failed to save the indigenous peoples of the Western Indies, his efforts resulted in several improvements in the legal status of the natives, and in an increased colonial focus on the ethics of colonialism. Las Casas is often seen as one of the first advocates for universal Human Rights.

Monday, August 22, 2011


History of Santa Rosa

Saint Rose was born in Lima, Peru in 1586 of Spanish heritage although her mother was part of Inca. She was graced with extraordinary beauty, hence the name Rosa, and profound personal holiness. From a very early age, Rosa dedicated herself to a life of prayer and atonement for the great social and personal sins of her time. She also devoted herself to good works among the many ill and needy persons in the city of Lima. When she was only 20 years old she joined the Third Order of St. Dominic. She died at the relatively early age of 31 years on August 23, 1617. In her own lifetime and among her own people she was viewed as a Saint.She was the first Saint of the New World, an extraordinary occurrence, as not only was she a woman, but she was also part an Inca, Amerindian descent. 
At her canonization in 1671, only 54 years after her death, the Pope proclaimed her Patroness of the Americas and the Philippines.    


The name Santa Rosa and the Moruca Mission

The history of the Catholic mission to the Amerindian of Guyana actually began in Venezuela. Throughout the 18th century Spanish Franciscans ministered to the indigenous people of territories around the Orinoco. Their mission however came to an abrupt and tragic end when on 3 May 1817 Simon Bolivar’s forces put to death 26 priests and two lay brothers. The Amerindians fled from the destroyed mission, some seeking refuge in the British held territory around the Moruca River. Years later, when these Arawaks heard that a Catholic priest had arrived in Georgetown they sent word to him asking for someone to come to minister to them. On 24 June 1830, John Hynes, OP arrived in Moruca to spend three days during which he baptized 75 children and married two couples. 

 The community had always been especially dear to Bishop John Hynes and from 1840 until 1853 it had been well served by a much loved and respected resident Irish priest, Fr John Cullen. With Moruca as his base, this intrepid missionary had made numerous visits to outlying villages even as far as the Orinoco. Under his direction a new church had been built in Moruca in which was solemnly dedicated and opened by Bishop Hynes on 27 October 1844. The saint selected as patroness for this church was St Rose of Lima. From that day to the present Catholics have referred to the Moruca community as “Santa Rosa”.

Reference:

Our Catholic Tradition,p.20, 2004
The Catholic history of Guyana.

Happy Feast of Santa Rosa to all Morucans!!

Medino Abraham 

Monday, July 11, 2011

Universidad Indígena de Venezuela (Indigenous University of Venezuela, UIV) is a public university created in 2010 based in Tauca, Bolívar State. Aimed at Venezuela's indigenous communities, it has campuses in Bolívar and Amazonas, and a 2010 enrolment of 810. Theindigenous peoples of Venezuela make up only around 1.5% of the population nationwide, but the proportion is nearly 50% in Amazonas.



Story:


Venezuela's first indigenous university is preparing to be incorporated into the national higher education system later this year, a move that will bringing extra funding for protecting the country's endangered cultures.
With a 100-strong student body from various tribes, the school has been named the Barefoot University, because most students arrive after wandering shoeless through savannah, watching out for boa constrictors as they go.
The campus spans grassland to thick jungle and a sign at the door asks students to clean their feet before entering to huts to take classes that cover ancient customs and myths, alongside modern law and technology.
Najiru, a 23-year-old from the Warao tribe who is currently writing a forest-farming thesis, said he had more faith in the university than in traditional aid programs that rarely give indigenous people what they need.
"(Improving) the quality of life in the indigenous towns is not from bringing us outboard motors or a toilet or material goods. For us, that is not quality of life. Quality of life is having a small sown field, a boat, a machete and tools for work. With this, we are happy. So the non-indigenous people, without understanding our culture, our situation, offer us things that do not serve us at all," said Najiru.
President Hugo Chavez has placed Venezuela's Indian identity at the heart of his home-spun revolution. Many are grateful, but others say aid projects split villages and draw people into cash economies dominated by non-Indians.
Emajyumi Torres, from the Ye´kuana tribe, is one of the school's first graduates and now a teacher. She, with the help of other students and teachers, is racing to put into writing the wisdom of elders that is not being handed down orally as in previous generations.
"The reason for having and writing knowledge is because almost all indigenous people, the ancient people who are a living library, are getting older and the university is fighting to collect all the history, myths, stories, technology and education," said Torres.
Jose Korta, a 81-year-old Jesuit priest, was among those who founded the university several years ago.
"That it is an indigenous university, that is fundamental and that at this indigenous university they recognise the context of the surrounding society, which is not easy," said Korta.
Indigenous people who attend regular schools in Venezuelan towns often sever ties with their rural homelands, but these students need no city clothes for class. They sleep in hammocks and cook on open fires.
It is hoped the university will help indigenous communities create leaders who can defend land rights and prevent a headlong rush into modernity destroying thousands of years of knowledge about forest and river life.
Meanwhile, a balance between old and new, the government and the people, remains hard to strike.






Learning in the Wilds: Venezuela’s First Indigenous University

South American tribesmen are earnest about learning and preserving their culture while embracing technology at a university located amidst thick jungles.
Every morning, groups of tribespeople cross a jungle creek from their adobe student homes and wander barefoot through the thick undergrowth inhabited by boa constrictors to reach class at Venezuela’s first indigenous university in Cano Tauca.
The original residents of Venezuela’s jungles, these ethnic groups make up only a fraction of the 29 million people in the South American nation, now booming because of its oil industry.
Intellectual exchange: Students putting forth their thoughts and ideas during a discussion at the varsity (Photo: Reuters)
Like similar groups across the world, their habitat and way of life in a vast, long-neglected region of forests and waterways around the Orinoco river are increasingly threatened by illegal mining, ranchers and religious groups.
Adding to the mix of influences are socialist aid programmes from the country’s President Hugo Chavez, who has placed Venezuela’s Indian identity at the heart of his home-spun revolution.
Many are grateful for the help. On a campus that sprawls from grassland into wild thick jungle, about 100 students from many of the country’s 44 recognised tribes come to the university which teaches ancient customs alongside modern law and technology.
River recess: Indiginous Indian students jump into the water from a tree during a break from classes (Photo: Reuters).
“This university is the best hope for saving our respective cultures,” said Najiru, a 23-year-old student, whose Warao tribe lives scattered in the delta at the mouth of the Orinoco river.
He is currently working on a plan for a forest farming thesis on a laptop in a dirt-floor hut.
The goal is to create leaders who can defend land rights and prevent a headlong rush into modernity from destroying thousands of years of knowledge about forest and river life.
Students and teachers are also racing to put into writing the wisdom of elders that is not being handed down orally as in previous generations, which they think may soon vanish.
“The elders are living libraries,” said teacher and Ye’kuana Indian Emjayumi Torres, 27, one of the school’s first graduates.
Unlike peers who study in regular schools in Venezuelan towns and often sever ties with their rural homelands, these students need no city clothes for class. They come bare-chested, sleep in hammocks and cook on open fires.
Casual clothing: Students need no city clothes for class and some come bare-chested (Photo: Reuters).
Founded seven years ago, the Venezuelan Indigenous University is to be incorporated into the national higher education system this year.
While it will bring the much-needed funds for classrooms and curriculum, it also carries some risks.
In an airy classroom, Torres chalks a timeline of Venezuela’s indigenous history across a blackboard.
Students, many of whom have their faces painted with traditional symbols take down notes, while there are others fiddling with mobile phones.
“The doors have opened, so Indians can now participate in state affairs,” said Torres.
Soon after taking office in 1998, Chavez created a new constitution which, for the first time, enshrined indigenous rights, including claims to long-occupied lands.
Some 12 years later, a government presence is common even in the most remote Indian villages deep in the Amazon, where Hercules cargo planes and helicopters deliver food, medicine and doctors.
Therein lies the problem. While aid and government jobs are a welcome relief from the harsh reality of jungle life, for many Indians, the government is creating dependency and weakening traditional elders with politicised community councils.
“They are going to wipe out these cultures in no time if these policies are not corrected,” said Jose Korta, 81, a Jesuit priest who is a founder of the university.
He says money flowing into villages is often spent on alcohol in stores owned by non-Indian ranchers who have invaded their territory, pushing the Indian tribes to shrinking patches of land.
The thorny subject of recognising tribal land, much of which straddles borders with Colombia and Brazil and is rich in minerals, is bogged down as the government tries to balance economic priorities and sovereignty concerns with the obligations in the constitution.
University alumni are mapping territory using GPS (global positioning system) handsets to pinpoint hills and rivers that elders have identified for their tribes.
Out in the villages, many Indians long for modern comforts, including protection against preventable diseases.
In the village of Keipon, about 40 Enapa Indian families live in adobe huts nestled in a lush range of hills near a broad tributary of the Orinoco river. The Enapa hunt birds and grow rice, fruit and vegetables in family gardens.
Most people here work the land, unlike other hamlets where government cash lets many buy subsidised food that can cause dietary issues as pasta and flour replace traditional fare.
Like most Indian groups, the Enapa have been in contact with the world but have to put up with rapid changes.
“We need a more comfortable life,” said village nurse Kushewa, inside a crumbling adobe clinic, stocked with a small range of medicines. Officials have approved funds to build a new brick clinic, but so far only the roof has arrived.
“We have no transport and when someone falls sick here, we have no way of taking them elsewhere,” he said.
The government had also given simple laptops to schoolchildren in April. But there is no electricity supply, so the computers can only be charged with a small generator, when villagers have only gasoline to spare.
Recently a young graduate called Wine returned to his village in Keipon and initiated a project to get clean piped water from a mountain spring into villages houses.
That’s the kind of approach the university is seeking: changes that improve people’s lives without destroying their traditional ways and culture. — Reuters

Indios dominam política em São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM)


Índios dominam política em São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM)

Indígenas formaram chapa e conquistaram a prefeitura.
Em seis meses, no entanto, aliança se desfez.
Do Globo Amazônia, com informações do Jornal Nacional
Tamanho da letra

Em São Gabriel da Cachoeira, no extremo noroeste do Amazonas, assembleia de índio virou febre. Eles hoje dominam a política local e, assim como os não índios, têm de conviver com os atritos e desentendimentos que fazem parte da democracia.


A cidade mais indígena do Brasil sempre foi controlada pelos brancos, fossem eles padres, militares, juízes ou prefeitos. Só que um dia, além de caçar, pescar, fazer roçado, os índios resolveram conversar, negociar, fazer política. Depois disso, tudo mudou e a Federação das Organizações Indígenas do Rio Negro (Foirn) atua há quase vinte anos.

“Nessa maloca que vocês estão vendo aqui, já recebemos vários ministros de estado”, diz Renato da Silva Matos, presidente do conselho da Foirn. Gerenciamos aqui recursos de 11 milhões por ano! Daqui a gente se prepara para ir para políticas públicas”.

A grande vitória da entidade foi a demarcação e a homologação de um território indígena do tamanho de Portugal, em 1998. “Tinha que comemorar muito. A gente sentiu assim como se fosse resgatar um filho que você tinha, mas não reconhecia, não tinha nome”, justifica Abrahaão de Oliveira França, presidente da Foirn. Depois, novas lideranças foram surgindo.

“A melhor escola que eu tive foi esse período de 20 e poucos anos que eu fiquei no movimento indígena”, conta Pedro Garcia, prefeito de São Gabriel da Cachoeira, primeiro de uma chapa 100% indígena no Brasil.

“A dificuldade maior foi unir as etnias tukano com baniwa”, diz Antônio Cardoso de Araújo, vereador pelo PDT. Garcia, do PT, é um tariano criado entre os tukanos. O vice-prefeito, André Fernando, do PV, é baniwa. Eles fizeram história ao conquistar o poder.

“Na câmara, no momento, ainda ninguém levantou a voz da oposição”, afirma Williams Kleber Ferreira Alves , vereador do PRP.
http://www.globoamazonia.com/Amazonia/0,,MUL1315718-16052,00-INDIOS+DOMINAM+POLITICA+EM+SAO+GABRIEL+DA+CACHOEIRA+AM.html