The Memory of Fire Trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind
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By Archbishop Cisneros’s order the Muslim sages of Granada troop off to prison. Lofty flames devour Islamic books—religion and poetry, philosophy and science—the only copies guarding the words of a culture that has irrigated these lands and flourished in them.
Kaylor Singleton
^^Erasure of Islamic culture in Spain
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with all his lies, promises, and ravings, he has still fallen short. The supreme admiral of the ocean sea still believes he has reached Asia from the rear.
Kaylor Singleton
get fucked Columbus
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those who choose death by hanging themselves or drinking poison along with their children are many. The invaders cannot avoid this vengeance, but know how to explain it: the Indians, so savage that they think everything is in common, as Oviedo will say, are people by nature idle and vicious, doing little work. For a pastime many killed themselves with venom so as not to work, and others hanged themselves with their own hands.
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Hatuey, Indian chief of the Guahaba region, has not killed himself. He fled with his people from Haiti in a canoe and took refuge in the caves and mountains of eastern Cuba. There he pointed to a basketful of gold and said: “This is the god of the Christians. For him they pursue us. For him our fathers and our brothers have died. Let us dance for him. If our dance pleases him, this god will order them not to mistreat us.” They catch him three months later. They tie him to a stake. Before lighting the fire that will reduce him to charcoal and ash, the priest promises him glory and eternal rest ...more
Kaylor Singleton
Everything the Spanish Christians do they do for gold
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Hatuey, Indian chief of the Guahaba region, has not killed himself. He fled with his people from Haiti in a canoe and took refuge in the caves and mountains of eastern Cuba. There he pointed to a basketful of gold and said: “This is the god of the Christians. For him they pursue us. For him our fathers and our brothers have died. Let us dance for him. If our dance pleases him, this god will order them not to mistreat us.” They catch him three months later. They tie him to a stake. Before lighting the fire that will reduce him to charcoal and ash, the priest promises him glory and eternal rest ...more
Kaylor Singleton
Bro would rather "burn in hell" than be in the same place as Christians, who treated his people so terribly
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Antonio de Montesinos, Dominican friar,
Kaylor Singleton
Greatly influenced de las Casas (author of A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and advocate for Indian rights)
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“By what right and by what justice do you hold the Indians in such cruel and horrible bondage? Aren’t they dying, or better said, aren’t you killing them, to get gold every day? Are you not obliged to love them as yourselves? Don’t you understand this, don’t you feel it?”
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One bewildered man remains silent. He came to these lands nine years ago. Owner of Indians, gold mines, and plantations, he has made a small fortune. His name is Bartolomé de las Casas, and he will soon be the first priest ordained in the New World.
Kaylor Singleton
Bruh! The guy!
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Their muscles almost burst through the skin. Their yellow eyes never stop flashing. They pant. They snap their jaws and bite holes in the air. No chain can hold them when they get the command to attack. Tonight, by order of Captain Balboa, the dogs will sink their teeth into the naked flesh of fifty Indians of Panama. They will disembowel and devour fifty who were guilty of the abominable sin of sodomy, who only lacked tits and wombs to be women. The
Kaylor Singleton
Brutalizing Native people with attack dogs
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St. Augustine authorizes war against those who abuse their liberty, because their liberty would make them dangerous if they were not tamed;
Kaylor Singleton
Using Christian writings and beliefs to justify mass killing
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He makes it known to the Indians of the Sinú that God came to the world and left St. Peter as his representative, that St. Peter’s successor is the holy father and that the holy father, lord of the universe, has awarded to the king of Castile all the lands of the Indies and of this peninsula. The soldiers bake in their armor. Enciso slowly and meticulously summons the Indians to leave these lands since they don’t belong to them, and if they want to stay to pay their highnesses tribute in gold in token of obedience.
Kaylor Singleton
They are further justified in their conquest because God (through the pop) has determined that it belongs to the conquistadors and not the Natives
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in case of refusal or delay he will make war on them, turn them into slaves along with their women and children, and sell and dispose of them as such and that the deaths and damages of that just war will not be the Spaniards’ responsibility.
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the long speech will be read at dead of night, without an interpreter and half a league away from villages that will be taken by surprise. The natives, asleep, won’t hear the words that declare them guilty of the crime committed against them. (78, 81, and 166)
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he has discovered the isle of Utopia off some coast of America. The sailor relates that in Utopia neither money nor private property exists. There, scorn for gold and for superfluous consumption is encouraged, and no one dresses ostentatiously. Everybody gives the fruits of his work to the public stores and freely collects what he needs. The economy is planned. There is no hoarding, which is the son of fear, nor is hunger known. The people choose their prince and the people can depose him; they also elect the priests. The inhabitants of Utopia loathe war and its honors, although they fiercely ...more
Kaylor Singleton
REEEEEEE COMMUNISM
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A thousand men sweep the path of the Inca into the great square where the Spaniards wait in hiding. The multitude trembles at the passage of the Beloved Father, the One, the Only, lord of labors and fiestas; the singers fall silent, and the dancers freeze up. In the half light, last light of the day, the crowns and vestments of Atahualpa and his cortege of nobles of the realm gleam with gold and silver. Where are the gods brought by the wind? The Inca reaches the center of the square and gives the order to wait. A few days ago, a spy penetrated the camp of the invaders, tugged at their beards, ...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
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The oven receives gods and adornments and vomits bars of gold and silver. Officers and soldiers shout to have it divided. For six years they have had no pay. Of each five ingots, Francisco Pizarro sets one apart for the king. Then he crosses himself. He asks the help of God, who knows all, to see justice done and asks the help of Hernando de Soto, who knows how to read, to keep an eye on the scribe. He assigns one part to the church and another to the military vicar. He handsomely rewards his brothers and the other captains. Each soldier of the line gets more than Prince Philip makes in a ...more
Kaylor Singleton
***oven destroying cultural artifacts for gold***
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A black rainbow crossed the sky. The Inca Atahualpa didn’t want to believe it. In the days of the fiesta of the sun, a condor fell lifeless in the Plaza of Happiness. Atahualpa didn’t want to believe it. He put to death messengers who brought bad news and with one ax blow decapitated the old prophet who announced misfortune. He had the oracle’s house burned down and witnesses of the prophecy cut to pieces. Atahualpa had the eighty sons of his brother Huáscar bound to posts on the roads, and the vultures gorged themselves with that meat. Huáscar’s wives tinted the waters of the Adamarca River ...more
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Seated on Atahualpa’s throne, Pizarro told him he had decided to confirm his death sentence. Atahualpa replied: “Don’t tell me those jokes.”
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as step by step he mounts the stairs, dragging his chains, in the milky light of dawn.
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Atahualpa is bound by the hands, feet, and neck, but still thinks: What did I do to deserve death?
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At the foot of the gallows, he refuses to believe that he has been defeated by man. Only gods could have done it. His father, the sun, has betrayed him.
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Before the iron tourniquet breaks his neck, he weeps, kisses the cross, and accepts baptism with another name. Giving his name as Francisco, which is his conqueror’s name, he beats on the doors of the Paradise of the Europeans, where no place is reserved for him.
Kaylor Singleton
Christianization
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Fifty Indians killed for refusing to work in the excavations. Less than a year since the first vein appeared, and already the slopes of the mountain have been stained with human blood.
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From the Náhuatl Song on the Transience of Life We have but one turn at life. In a day we go, in a night we descend to the region of mystery. We came here only to get to know each other. We are here only in passing. In peace and pleasure let us spend life. Come and let’s enjoy it! Not those who live in anger: broad is the earth. How good to live forever, never to have to die! While we live, our spirit broken, Here they harass us, here they spy on us. But for all the misfortunes, for all the wounds in the soul, we must not live in vain! How good to live forever, never to have to die! (77)
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