The translated excerpt taken from Guaman Poma's chronicles provide a fascinating and thought provoking account of the history of Peru during the time of Spanish colonisation of the Americas. Immediately Guaman Poma depicts the Spanish conquistadores as men driven by religion, by greed and by a lust for power. Something that I presume many would not know is that term 'indian' was derived from the term 'indies' or land in the days.
The discovery of a land filled with immense wealth ultimately proved irresistible to the Spanish and soon after Candia returned to Spain with stories of 'cities paved with gold', two of the captains general assembled an army and return to the shores of Peru seeking glory.
It is clear, even from this small excerpt of the chronicles that religion proved to be the sole cause of the destruction of a civilization which held such a rich and beautiful culture. The chronicles speak about the attempts by the Spanish to convert the native Inca's to Christianity however were met with impenetrable opposition. The native believed in the worship of the Sun god, and typical of this time, this could not be accepted by the Spanish conquistadores. As a result, 'Indians were trampled like ants', as the Spanish forced their will upon those who did not deserve. This idea of religious fanaticism bringing about the destruction of civilizations and the killing of innocents is not unique to South America or Christianity. Although historically, Christianity has been the source of millions of deaths through the crusades and holy wars, the majority of religions have been used at some point to justify senseless killing. I hope someday that the world will be able to respect peoples desires to practice their own religion without requiring bloodshed to satisfy their beliefs.
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