Western Civilization I / Unit 16 WC1 1528 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading Columbus's Letter and Las Casas Against Each Other
The idea
The exam may quote a conquest-era passage and ask what it assumes, and the strongest version pairs two authors. The method is three questions for each: who writes, for whom, and what the writer wants the reader to conclude. Columbus's letter of fourteen ninety-three and Las Casas's account of the conquest, both read in translation from Fordham's Modern History Sourcebook, are the pair.
In practice
Columbus writes to the Spanish court to justify his voyage: the islands are rich, the people gentle and easily converted, gold is near. He wants funding and a title. Assumptions: that the land is the crown's to take, that the people are subjects to be made Christian, that wealth is the measure of success. Las Casas writes to the crown a half-century later to end the encomienda: the Spaniards have destroyed whole peoples by cruelty. He wants law reformed. Assumptions: that the Indians are rational souls, that the crown is responsible for their protection, that the conquest's methods, not its fact, are the sin. The exam's question: what do they share. Answer: Spanish sovereignty and Christian mission; they differ on treatment.
Where people slip
Las Casas is not a critic of empire; he is a critic of cruelty within it, and a distractor will make him a modern anti-colonialist. Keep each author's own assumptions, and note that Las Casas himself rests on the witness texts.
Your place on the trail
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