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AFTERWORD
- University of New Mexico Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Afterword his book has focused on the violent events of the Coronado expedition that figured in the investigation conducted by Lorenzo deTejada in 1544. Those events were denounced to the king of Spain as wantonly brutal, and punishment of the responsible leaders was sought. Evidence was presented that, indeed, interaction between the expedition and the native peoples it encountered often seemed excessivelyviolent. Certainly by standards at the beginning of the twenty-first century the Coronado expedition systematically disregarded and violated the rights of the native peoples it encountered to self-rule and other basicfreedoms.It employed torture and terror to enforce control overpopulations subjugatedby forcé. It compelled service and sex from non-consenting natives of the Greater Southwest throughout its sojourn there. It was routinely blind to the humanity and legitimacy of the customs and lifeways of Ópatas, Pueblos, Querechos,Teyas, and Quivirans. By and large, the Native Americans brought into contact with the expedition expressed,mosdy by actions, their view of the Europeans and their allies as unprincipled aggressors. There were occasional exceptions to that perception, however.The people of Chia, for example, evidently had a less harsh appraisal. The expedition was manifestly not a non-aggressive geographical exploration or mineral prospecting party. The people of Tierra Nueva and their T 540 Afterword supposed wealth were the raison d'etre of the expedition. The documents demónstrate that the expedition was sent explicitly 1)to subjugate (conquistar) the peoples of Tierra Nueva; 2) to convert (traer en conocimiento) them to the Catholic faith; and 3) to establish Spanish settiement (poblar) in Tierra Nueva.The ultímate aim of most members of the expedition was enrichment from precious metáis. They were expecting, however, that those precious metáis would already be exploited by a sophisticated native population. Tribute and encomienda were the means the expedition had for tapping into that expected wealth.That required establishment ofpolitical control over the diverse populations of Corazones, Suya, Cíbola, Tiguex, Chia, Cicuique, and Quivira, with their voluntary acceptance or not. That said, it must be noted that by the prevailing standards of the day in Spain, and Europe more generally,many of the acts that we view with horror and condemnation today were not seen in that way at the time. Most of the members of the expedition were not actively or intentionally cruel.They certainly did not see themselves as cruel, though some of their compatriots did. Just as certainly, most of them saw themselves as naturally superior to the native peoples they met. As so often happens, that sense of superiority generated pervasive insensitivity and frequent abuse. One result was some very bloody deeds undertaken with a sense of righteous justification. Was the Coronado expedition unique in its resort to forcé in order to incorpórate Native Americans and their resources into the Spanish sphere? The answer must be a resounding, "No." In fact, there were contemporary expeditions much more notorious for inhumane treatment of Indians. Ñor were Spaniards of the era generallymore prone to forcibly imposing their religious , economic, and political structures on the wider world than have been many other powerful, prosperous peoples throughout history. Despite the brutality of the Coronado expedition and the sixteenth-century conquest of the Americas in general, we can point with some pride to the energetic activism of a group of contemporary Spaniards who led Europe in the first modern national debates on human rights. It was their efforts that led conquistadores like Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and Garcia López de Cárdenas to be called to account. [54.198.157.15] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:45 GMT) Appendices ...