In the context of De Las Casas and early Spanish colonialization,
“History is another country”. In his work, Destruction
of the Indies Las Casas is protesting the process of expropriation (in the
form of Amerindigene labor) in order to bring attention to the mistreatment of
the Indigenous peoples of the present time Americas. What interested me about
this text was the use of human to animal pairings to affect the emotion of the
reader. By this, I mean that stating that a human is reasonable and free, but
an animal can be sacrificed, justifiably because of their “uncivilized” or
“lawless” mannerisms.
Las Casas however, inverts the stereotype of Amerindigenes as
animals by arguing that the colonizers, the Spaniards, are the uncivilized
because of their behaviour towards other human beings.
What I am trying to signify with this image is the major interpretation
of the dichotomy between humans and animals within a single text.
Perspective is everything.
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