Christianity & Collateral Damage
“THE DISCOVERY OF INDIANS PRESENTED SOME PROBLEMS FOR EUROPEANS SINCE THEY WERE NOT MENTIONED IN THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE: THE NATIVE AMERICANS DID NOT FIT WITHIN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY’S EXPLANATION OF THE MORAL UNIVERSE.”
"Bikini islanders and their descendants have lived in exile since they were moved for the first weapons tests in 1946. When US government scientists declared Bikini safe for resettlement some residents were allowed to return in the early 1970s. But they were removed again in 1978 after ingesting high levels of radiation from eating foods grown on the former nuclear test site.
The Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal awarded more than $2bn in personal injury and land damage claims arising form the nuclear tests but stopped paying after a compensation fund was exhausted."
"Young teenager Barbara Kent said that several hours after the atomic bomb went off on July 16, 1945, she and some friends in Ruidoso, New Mexico—a part of Lincoln County—noticed white flakes drifting down from a big cloud in the sky. “We were grabbing the white flakes, and putting it all over ourselves, pressing it on our faces,” Kent said. “But the strange thing, instead of being cold like snow, it was hot. And we all thought, ‘Well, the reason it’s hot is because it’s summer.’ We were only thirteen; we didn’t know any better.” Kent says that this photo of her and her friends was taken that day, and that it features them playing in the fallout. Image courtesy of Barbara Kent’s daughter, Kaysie Kent."
When the European arrived in The New World, he found many millions of indigenous people living here. These people had different forms of governance, communities, traditions, and cultures. The Europeans employed deception and genocide to seize land, power, and resources from the native population. These Europeans, were far from what they were claimed to be; this was a showcase of irony on parade.
This reality was compounded by a Papal Bull issued by Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia 1492-1503) in support of Christopher Columbus and The Spanish Inquisitions’ revolutionary and murderous approach to converting the indigenous people of the New World to Christianity. That historic period, delivered the wrath of hell on the population of this new world; a situation made more compelling because it had the blessing of God’s Vicar on Earth, Rodrigo Borgia.
In The Pillory, a book written by John Bond, the writer noted that the Papacy of Alexander VI, “was one of the darkest moments in Christendom”. It is a tale of scandal, crime, concubines and children. He wrote that Romanism and its destructive tenets have not changed since the time of the Borgia. His observation of this institution is correct and supported by the (recent) filings of lengthy streams of litigation against the Roman Catholic Church.
Bond noted, “through the ages, the church has had some good men who protested against popery as a malignant excrescence on the body of the Christian religion. The Protestant Reformation dealt the first great blow to the blasphemous claims of the popes.” German Monk Martin Luther (1463 - 1546) aided by the invention of the printing press, was able to disseminate information and revealed their corrupt policies.
My wise friends often remind me that history is usually written by a conqueror whose main purpose is to impart into the reader, justification for his actions - often hewed to positively impart his version of an event - however distant it may be from reality on the ground. The history of the New World illuminates a profoundly important but sometimes misrepresented or neglected period when Christianity was used to justify the slaughter of indigenous people, whose only sin was that they inhabited the lands on which the Europeans were seeking precious metals and ownership. This reality is quite different from stories about European desire to bring knowledge of the message of Jesus Christ to the Heathens. The irony here is breath-taking.
Chapter 3: The Makings of a Pariah
There is right, there is wrong, then more importantly, there is the reality of power: He who controls the levers of power, usually provides the answer to questions of right and wrong.
The discovery of Indians presented some problems for Europeans since they were not mentioned in the Christian Bible: the Native Americans did not fit within orthodox Christianity’s explanation of the moral universe.
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As stated in Richard A. Haggerty’s, Haiti: A Country Study
The Inter Caetera papal bull by Pope Alexander VI stated, “We trust in Him from whom empires, and governments, and all good things proceed.”
This laid the legal foundation for assuming that government comes only from the Christian god and therefore Christian nations have a legal right to rule over non-Christian nations. The late Vine Deloria in his “Afterword,” for America in 1492: The World of Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus wrote:
“Thus armed with a totally bogus title issued by God’s representative on earth, the Spaniards then began a brutal conquest in the Americas which virtually obliterated the native populations in the Caribbean within a generation.”
The discovery of Indians presented some problems for Europeans since they were not mentioned in the Christian Bible: the Native Americans did not fit within orthodox Christianity’s explanation of the moral universe.
At the time of first contact with the Spanish, the Taíno world stretched across the Caribbean Islands for more than a thousand miles. The Taíno, part of the Arawak language group, had arrived on the islands more than 2,000 years earlier from South America. By 700 CE, they occupied the Lesser Antilles and Puerto Rico. They then pushed into the Greater Antilles-Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Cuba
Pope Gives the Americas to Spain
Following Columbus' discovery, Pope Alexander VI issued a May 4, 1493, papal bull granting official ownership of the New World to Ferdinand and Isabella. To these monarchs, the Pope declared:
"We of our own motion, and not at your solicitation, do give, concede, and assign for ever to you and your successors, all the islands, and main lands, discovered; and which may hereafter, be discovered, towards the west and south; whether they be situated towards India, or towards any other part whatsoever, and give you absolute power in them."
This decree did not go unchallenged. Francis I of France, for example, later quipped: "The sun shines on me as well as on others. I should be very happy to see the clause in Adam's will which excluded me from my share when the world was being divided."
Nonetheless, the Pope's declaration ultimately had dire consequences for native inhabitants of the Americas. Beginning in 1514 Spanish conquerors adopted "the Requirement," an ultimatum in which Indians were forced to accept "the Church as the Ruler and Superior of the whole world" or face persecution. If Indians did not immediately comply, the Requirement warned them:
"We shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their Highnesses may command; and we shall take away your goods, and shall do all the harm and damage that we can."
Often the Requirement was read to Indians without translation, or in some cases read even from ships before crew members landed to kill Indians and take slaves. Thus began a campaign of violence, ignorance and illiteracy that was the precursor of things to come in the New World.
When we look at the historical behavior of the Anglo Saxon towards the other races of people he encountered in the New World, it is difficult to avoid a conclusion that his attitude was one of aggression. His desire was to dominate and to relegate them to a sub human status and treat them as criminals. What other conclusion can we deduce from Christopher Columbus’ reaction to the inhabitants of Hispaniola, as they came bearing gifts to nourish these strangers after their long voyage? Columbus instead, chose that moment to conclude that these people were to be enslaved.
What is it that compels these – so called – messengers of Christ’s gospel, to treat other race of people like common (and convicted) criminals?