Latin America: A Legacy of Oppression Essay -- essays research papers

Latin America A Legacy of subjectionWhen the Europeans first arrived in Latin America, they didnt realize the immensity of their actions. As history has proven, the Europeans have compeld galore(postnominal) things on the Latin American territory have had a long, devastating effect on the autochthonous people. In the centuries after 1492, Europeans would control much of South America and impose a foreign culture upon the already established civilizations that existed before their arrival. These compel ideas left the continent weak and resulted in the loss of culture, the dependence on European countries, and a long standing ethnic tension amongst natives and settlers which is evident even to this day. The indigenous people of South America, which included the Aztec, Olmec, and the Maya cultures of underlying America and the Inca of South America, had developed complex civilizations, which made use of calendars, mathematics, writing, astronomy, the arts, and architecture. regr ettably for them, the Europeans cared little about the culture they would be obliterating, and cared more about their bear ulterior motives.Before the influence of the Europeans, the different tribes scattered throughout Latin America would be viewed by western standards as somewhat barbaric. The European friars were horrified by native practices and felt obligated to eliminate them. (Gibson 72) An exceedingly Christianized view of the natives was formed which viewed them as ignorant pagans. Some accounts reported that, The natives were so savage and stupid as to be beyond belief. For the say, these early tribes were bestial, and that many ate human flesh others taking their mothers and daughters for their wives, besides committing other enceinte sins, having much intercourse with the devil, who they served and held in high esteem(Hanson 29). This extremely dark thinking was common in the era of colonization among settled Europeans and sparked a crusade of Christianity on the ab original tribes to westernize their civilizations. The Europeans felt free to do this because they found no native tradition worth preserving and where the Indian element was absorbed almost imperceptibly into the alien (Salas 42). The European powers hid under a veil of Christianity to gain support for the underlying atrocities they were committing to the people of Latin America. The European governments main goal ... ...s, 1966Hanson, Earl Parker. South from the Spanish Main, Delacorte Press, 1967"Latin America." Encarta. CD-ROM. Seattle Microsoft, 2001.Leon, Juana Ponce de. Our Word is Our Weapon, Seven Stories Press, 2001Liss, Peggy K. and Liss, Sheldon B. Man, State, and Society in Latin America, Praeger      Publishers, 1972Lyon, Patricia J. autochthonic South Americans Ethnology of the Least Known Continent, Little,      Brown and Company, 1974McDonald, Ronald H. and Ruhl, J. Mark. Party Politics and Elections in Latin Americ a,      Westview Press, 1989 The Peace of Latin America. National Geographic October 1905 479-480Picon-Salas, Mariano. A heathenish History of Spanish America, University of California Press,      1963Radin, Paul. Indians of South America, Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1942Ribeiro, Claudio de Oliveira. Has Liberation righteousness Died? The Ecumenical Review Jul. 1999 304Toplin, Robert Brent. Slavery and Race Relations in Latin America, Greenwood Press, 1940Veliz, Claudio. The Centralist Tradition of Latin America, Princeton University Press, 1980