Racial Subjugation in the name of God!
Saturday- I had to wake up little earlier than usual in Zanesville, Ohio to go to Maggie's Wedding in St. Nicholas Catholic Church. After parking the car, Debbie, her Mom, and I entered the church through the side door. It was a fabulously ornate church with great historical designs. When the protagonist bride (Maggie) entered the church everybody rose to their feet. It was a fabulous wedding and we walked out to the front door to wait for the groom and bride to come out so we can blow our bubbles. Standing on the road side waiting for the couple I looked at the front of the church and I was discombobulated to see the following fresco or painting on the wall. Please click to see the fresco of Spaniards subjugating the Indians in the name of Christ. This is the actual picture from the church:
http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc23790.php
The Pulitzer Prize-winning book I read two years back came to my mind named "Guns Germs and Steel" written by UCLA physiologist Jared Diamond. One of the thing explained in this book is how Natives of the American continent were killed in millions by germs of Europeans (Spaniards) like the smallpox virus (Variola) more than by Europeans' guns and steel. Europeans, for hundreds of years before Columbus discovered the American continent, were living in the middle of livestock. The animal germs gave death to a few of them and immunization to many others, and the ones who survived had this immunization part of the human (European) gene to pass on to their offspring. However, the Natives of the American continent didn't have this immunization and so when they come into contact with the Europeans, they died in a large scale. In fact, I learned in another book titled 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Natives had smaller numbers of HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigens) compared to the Europeans and so they are more susceptible to diseases. Also I learned in this book that Natives sit and care for the sick ones as a community, so these infectious diseases spread faster and to greater numbers of people unlike the Europeans (which I learned in other history books), who dumped the sick loved ones to struggle and ran to countryside when the bubonic plague hit the European cities. If you think "oh the Natives didn't know they will die sitting around sick ones" then you are wrong.I know the Europeans and Natives didn't know there was something called "germs" at that time but still in the bottom picture ( "Sixteenth century Mexica drawing of the effects of Small Pox") sick one is portrayed to pass the disease to the healthy one. In spite of their knowledge of its spread they tended the sick (altruistic) and I've read modern psychologist say that empathy and compassion is a form of intelligence. But the Europeans used this windfall for their conquest.
What infuriated me looking at the fresco on that church was that the Spaniard held a holy cross and subjugated the Indians. When Francisco Pizarro the conquistador burned the Incas' (modern day Peru) emperor Atahualpa alive, they threatened him to convert to Christianity a few minutes before his death. However, they ignored crying Atahualpa's religious post-death beliefs by burning his body, which would ruin his chances of an afterlife, as he believed he needed his body for afterlife (that is why the Incas mummified the emperors). Europeans subjugated and killed the natives in the name of Christianity and Spain's king. Is it a paradox to have this huge fresco on the front of a church with good intentions?
http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc23790.php
The Pulitzer Prize-winning book I read two years back came to my mind named "Guns Germs and Steel" written by UCLA physiologist Jared Diamond. One of the thing explained in this book is how Natives of the American continent were killed in millions by germs of Europeans (Spaniards) like the smallpox virus (Variola) more than by Europeans' guns and steel. Europeans, for hundreds of years before Columbus discovered the American continent, were living in the middle of livestock. The animal germs gave death to a few of them and immunization to many others, and the ones who survived had this immunization part of the human (European) gene to pass on to their offspring. However, the Natives of the American continent didn't have this immunization and so when they come into contact with the Europeans, they died in a large scale. In fact, I learned in another book titled 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Natives had smaller numbers of HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigens) compared to the Europeans and so they are more susceptible to diseases. Also I learned in this book that Natives sit and care for the sick ones as a community, so these infectious diseases spread faster and to greater numbers of people unlike the Europeans (which I learned in other history books), who dumped the sick loved ones to struggle and ran to countryside when the bubonic plague hit the European cities. If you think "oh the Natives didn't know they will die sitting around sick ones" then you are wrong.I know the Europeans and Natives didn't know there was something called "germs" at that time but still in the bottom picture ( "Sixteenth century Mexica drawing of the effects of Small Pox") sick one is portrayed to pass the disease to the healthy one. In spite of their knowledge of its spread they tended the sick (altruistic) and I've read modern psychologist say that empathy and compassion is a form of intelligence. But the Europeans used this windfall for their conquest.
What infuriated me looking at the fresco on that church was that the Spaniard held a holy cross and subjugated the Indians. When Francisco Pizarro the conquistador burned the Incas' (modern day Peru) emperor Atahualpa alive, they threatened him to convert to Christianity a few minutes before his death. However, they ignored crying Atahualpa's religious post-death beliefs by burning his body, which would ruin his chances of an afterlife, as he believed he needed his body for afterlife (that is why the Incas mummified the emperors). Europeans subjugated and killed the natives in the name of Christianity and Spain's king. Is it a paradox to have this huge fresco on the front of a church with good intentions?