My favorite story about the Spaniards’ horrific relationship to Amerindians comes from John Campbell’s An Account of the Spanish Settlements in America. In this eighteenth-century report Campbell relays how the Spaniards reached Cuba in the sixteenth century and committed “the most horrid barbarities ever to taint the page of history.” Before burning one native at the stake, a Spanish friar told him “that if he would embrace their religion he would go to heaven, but if not he would burn in hell forever.” The Cuban asked if there were any Spaniards in heaven. The friar responded that there
...more
