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Introduction:

The Americas were the last continents to be populated by humans. The exact time of 
arrival is still disputed but it probably first happened at the end of the last ice age 
around 15,000 years ago. 
 
1000 years ago, Norse Vikings from settlements in Greenland and Iceland visited 
Canada&rsquo;s eastern coast. It is likely that trips were made to fetch lumber until the 
1300s but the contacts ended and these trips were not widely known in Europe. 
In 1492, the Italian sailor Christopher Columbus was contracted by the Spanish king 
to find a sailing route to India. He never reached Asia but arrived to the Caribbean 
islands. Thinking that he was in India he called the island people Indians. Today 
they are more correctly called American-Indians. Later many more Spanish came. 
They wore metal armor; they had firearms and horses; and they ventured all over the 
Americas. Their military technologies were unknown to the Indians and caused great 
fear. 
 
Within 50 years the Spanish had conquered great empires in North, Central and 
South America. They were assisted by the illnesses they brought along such as 
measles and small pox. These diseases were unknown in the Americas and more 
than half of the indigenous Americans lost their lives. The Spanish enslaved people 
to use them in mines and fields. In the Caribbean islands the people would rather die 
than surrender to the Spanish and on most islands the entire population was 
exterminated. 
 
The riches from the colonies of Latin America had an enormous effect on Europe 
where rich traders gather immense fortunes in gold, silver and other valuables. It can 
be argued that the destruction of the peoples of the Americas financed the 
development of Europe and enabled Europe to become the leading continent in the 
world for hundreds of years. 
 
Much of what we know today of the brutalities of the Spanish, has been told by a 
few brave Spanish clergy, who abhorred what they saw. The most important was 
Bartolom&eacute; de las Casas. He was known as The Protector of the Indians. He wrote to 
the king of Spain and to the Pope pleading them to stop the senseless killing of 
Indians. His &ldquo;Short account of the destruction of the Indies&rdquo; was published in 
Europe as a testimony to the atrocities. When he became a bishop in Southern 
Mexico in the land of the Maya Indians he refused to absolve slave owners from 
their sins unless they freed their slaves. Therefore the local Spanish settlers forced 
him to go back to Spain where he continued to fight slavery till he died. 
The South American author, Eduardo Galliano, has over the past 40 years written 
extensively of the history of Latin America. In the file you will read a small text by 
Galeano on the Spanish destruction of the Maya culture, a story that he has built on 
las Casas&rsquo; reports written almost 500 years earlier.

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