history final exam
Over the history of our country, Indians owned the lands and prospered, but a foreign country would always discover the riches of this land, and try to either kill the natives or make them slaves to gain the countries riches for the foreigners benefit. Through different historical documents, one can see the differences in how people felt about the Indians, and what should be done about them. Bartolome de Las Casas, who was born in Spain, and went to Cuba to fight for the Spaniards, later became a priest, a Dominican friar, and Bishop of Chiapas in Guatemala, speaking and getting laws passed prohibiting Indian slavery and safeguarding the rights of the Indians. He was originally given an encomienda for his military services to Spain, which included Indian slaves. Several years later when he became the first priest ordained in America, he renounced all his claims on his Indian serfs. From that time on, he dedicated his life to becoming a fierce advocate for Indians, speaking and writing on behalf of their fair treatment, including traveling to Spain to find support for a series of new towns in which Spaniard and Indian would live together in peace and equality. He was widely admired as an early pioneer of social justice, and widely denounced as an irresponsible pamphleteer and spreader of slanders (through his Brief Report on the Destruction of the Indians, or Tears of the Indians, which was used to stir up English feeling against the Spanish as a cruel race, the so called Black Legend, whom England ought to be aware of). Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was famed for his ability to use violence to make room for the expansion of white culture in America. He proudly announced to Congress that the removal of Indians from white settlements was approaching a happy consummation. He believed that by buying Indian land, paying for their relocation, and supporting them for a year in their new location, would end any and all problems between