Write a thesis statement answering
the following question: How would you characterize
European attitudes toward American Indians as portrayed in the two documents
below?
“How the Savages
Roast their Enemies,” 1575. This 16th-century drawing depicts Native
Americans--described as “savages” by this European observer--roasting their
enemies after killing and dismembering them. (Andre Thevet, La cosmographie
universelle)
“On the mainland they eat human flesh. They are more given to sodomy than any other nation... They go naked. They have no respect either for love or for virginity. They are stupid and silly…. They are ungrateful and changeable. They boast of intoxicating themselves with drinks they manufacture from certain herbs, fruits, and grains, similar to our beers and ciders. They are vain of the products they harvest and eat. They are brutal... There is no obedience among them, or deference on the part of the young for the old, nor of the son for the father… Traitorous, cruel, and vindictive, they never forgive. Most hostile to religion, idle, dishonest, abject, and vile, in their judgments they keep no faith or law. Husbands observe no fidelity towards their wives, nor the wives towards their husbands. Liars, superstitious, and cowardly as hares. They eat fleas, spiders, and worms raw, whenever they find them. They exercise none of the humane arts or industries. When taught the mysteries of our religion, they do not wish to change their customs… They have no sympathy with the sick, and if one of them is gravely ill, his friends and neighbors carry him out into the mountains to die there. Putting a little food and water beside his head they go away. …they become like real brute beasts. I may therefore affirm that God has never created a race more full of vice and composed without the least mixture of kindness or culture. …the Indians are more stupid than asses and refuse to improve in anything.”
Letter from Friar Tomaso Ortiz: “Enumeration of the reasons why the Indians are unworthy of liberty” (excerpt from De Orbe Novo by Petri Martire d’Anghiera, 1525. Full text available at http://www.archive.org/stream/deorbenovoeight01anghgoog/deorbenovoeight01anghgoog_djvu.txt)
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