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Letter To Sor Philothea Vitoria Analysis

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Vitoria’s main objective in Political Writings is to qualify Spanish presence in the New World and create a logical and just path for Spanish domination of the natives following the logic of St. Thomas Aquinas. Vitoria uses just and an unjust titles to outline what native offenses justify the Spanish to wage war against them and subdue them. Just titles create a sort of contract between the natives and the Spaniard, that if broken justify Spanish subjugation of natives. His first just title declares that Spaniards have the right to dwell in native lands, carry out trade with the natives, and take natural resources from the lands. His second, third, and fourth just titles declare that Spaniards have the right to spread Christianity in the natives’ …show more content…

Throughout Sor Juana stresses how her intelligence, along with every other part of her being, and her thirst for knowledge were given to her by God. She says that she has prayed that God would rid her of her addiction to truth, but her incessant drive has not relented, by God’s will. She even details the birth of her inclination to knowledge as an extremely young child, indicating her free will is not the cause of her draw to knowledge but her predetermined fate chosen by God. She speaks of a time when she was stripped of her books for three months. Despite her famine of writing, her mind continued to ponder, to think, to experiment. In telling this story, Sor Juana emphasizes that her intelligence is completely out of her control. She appropriates the notion of predeterminism indicated by Catholicism, exemplified by the notion that God creates everything in his infinite wisdom. She can justify her own actions by stating that they are predetermined and therefore completely out of her control. How could holy men punish her for the faculties that God bestowed upon her, if everything God gives and makes is perfect? To finish this line of thought, Sor Juana closes the letter with a summary of women in the Bible who were also bestowed great gifts of character and reason, such as the wise Queen of Sheba who was not punished in the slightest for her extreme

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“My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature and now I tremble as I write.”. "[There are] endless testimonies [that] prove the pacific and temperament of the natives... but our work was to ravage, kill and destroy." He was so determined to meet the needs of Spain 's royal family that he disregarded basic human nature. "The admiral was so blind as those who came after him and he was so anxious to please them [royal family] that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians".

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This American Columbus and colonization mythistory influences the highest American statesman in Theodore Roosevelt to the lowest American marine to preface the Native American genocide as excusable for the sake of Western society. As Zin notes, an American officer in the Phillipines drew the aforementioned parallel between American Native and Filipino colonization: “There is no use in mincing words.. We exterminated the American Indians and I guess most of us are proud of it..and we must have no scruples about exterminating this other race standing in the way of progress and enlightenment, if it is necessary…” Indeed, as the American officer spoke of “progress and enlightenment” in exterminating the Natives and Filipinos, so Chauncey DePew spoke in reference to Columbus’ colonial triumph as marking American progress in terms of wealth and power. Suffice to say, the American officer’s account of the Native American colonization and genocide is replete with similar glowing and progress-driven terminology as present Chauncey DePew’s account.

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In “The Brief Account of The Devastations of the Indies” Bartolome de Las Casa is an account that speaks on the unfair treatment that indian people went through and endured during the early parts of the conquest to the island of Hispaniola. The spaniards were treating the indians cruel and were receiving less of their basic human rights. The author’s opinion was able to shine most throughout this account not only because of the sacrifices he made in order to make a change but how heavily he was against some of the ways of the Spaniards. He felt that the behavior of the Spaniard christians was unfair and unacceptable. He spends time being very detailed about the loss of indies people on the islands.

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The author gives insight on how many ways the Spaniards used their power to assist in the downfall of the Aztecs. The reason why the Spaniards became victorious, was because the Spaniards were looked upon as if they were gods because of their outer appearance. The Aztecs broke bread and welcomed the Spaniards with gifts and parties. The Aztecs triggered their relationship with the Spaniards by holding a ritual for the arrival of the god which included a human sacrifice. The Spaniards didn’t agree with the rituals and began to despise the Aztecs.

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Las Cases begins his essay “Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indes” by giving a brief history of the discovery and an account of the characteristics of the ingenious peoples that lived there. Las Cases then goes on to describe the evils those people were subjected to, by the Spaniards, in the name of God and greed. “...they behaved with such temerity and shamelessness that the most powerful ruler of the islands had to see his own wide raped by a Christian officer.”, Las Cases writes. Las Cases' sympathizes with the native people, and his position in his writing appears to be to portray the Spanish as wholly evil, with no redeeming qualities.

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His letter to the Queen and King of Spain, after “discovering” the New World, tells the finding of great resources and lands that is his for the taking. All the while, ignoring the Natives, only later to create mass genocide. At this time, Spain is a true world power, so they would benefit greatly from the resources and lands. Right away, he sees the natives of the New World as “others” through renaming their lands to his Highnesses’ liking. He completely ignores the people and is boastful about the wondrous possessions and numerous islands he finds by

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She didn’t want to be tied down serving a man for her whole life when she can fulfill her own needs. Sor Juana lives for solitude and silence so she can construct her writing. Sor Juana defends the rights for women to be educated through the poetry that she writes. In the movie I, The Worst of All, she tells her young group of sister nuns that it is not a sin against god to curious, explore, and seek out information to learn how to do things. She tells that intelligence has no particular gender requirements.

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This power imbalance and these payments are key in the subjugation of the natives. Furthermore, the paternalism of the Spanish toward the Indigenous peoples is obvious: “Captain [Cortes] stared at him [Cuauhtemoc]…then patted him on the head” (p.117). Post-conquest, and still today, “difficult relations” between the descendants of the Indigenous peoples and the “others” (p.117) still exist. The European view of the natives “as idolatrous savages” or, on the contrary, as “models of natural virtue” (p.175) demonstrate the versatile and often contradictory views held. Similarly, the Aztecs at times saw the Spaniards as gods, and other times as gold-hungry savages who “fingered it like monkeys” (p.51).

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