Christopher Columbus Perception Of Religion

How do people perceive religion in others? Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortés, and Cabeza de Vaca come from heavily Catholic Spain, and hope to expand their empire. They find religion to be the best way to gain control and persuade the natives into subjecting to their power. However, their use of religion is manipulative due to the fact that it is misunderstood by the Indians. The Indians do not understand this connection due to the culture and language barrier, which leads to failed so-called “peaceful” conquests. Christopher Columbus was one of the first people to report on the New World. His publication is flattering of the Indians and makes them seem very compliant to outside force, as he says “they never refuse anything that is asked

This makes it appear that they are easy to take advantage of, but this is probably due to the language barrier. Neither side has a full understanding of the other. This makes Columbus’ statement of that they “believe I come from heaven” less credible. It is hard know whether this is a valid statement, if they believe that he actually came from heaven as in being a holy, good man, or if they just think he is foreign enough to come from a place such as heaven. However, Columbus reads this statement as their willingness to convert and makes it his job to convert them. He also sees the land as his “possession” now that he sees their willingness to subject to his power as he is from heaven to them. What is interesting about this is that there is no Indians voices within this letter, it is all from Columbus’ perspective. This lessens the accountability of his claims because he could be twisting the words so it flatters him as an explorer. It is important to note that this was made to help persuade the

On the contrary, his religion is not directly used as a way to overpower a group of people, but instead to heal them. His healing does give him power over the Indians but it is not used in the manipulative way that Columbus and Cortes use it to exploit the naiveness of the people to get more resources to take over. Once he has the Indians fully believing that they have special powers, he cites his powers as miracles from God saying that “if they believed in God our Lord and become Christian like us, they would not be afraid of him nor would he dare to come and do those things to them”. Although, the Indian people did not understand this idea and knew them as “children of the sun” who knew how to manipulate supernatural powers. Though this miscommunication of ideas did not end up hurting either party involved. The Indians, regardless of what part of the Christianity explanation they believed, thought the medicine men were powerful enough to protect them and keep them around. This greatly benefitted de Vaca and the castaways who had no one and nowhere to protect them besides these Indians. Cabeza de Vaca spent the rest of his life campaigning for a peaceful colonization and integration, as he believed that he understood how to make a peaceful alliance. This is one of the few encounters where the explorer was striving for a mutually beneficial relationship. While he set up