by Roberto Unterladstaetter K.
Some years ago, even in this country that is beautiful as landscapes, on October 12 although not celebrated but remembered for the fortuitous fact that a certain Christopher Columbus, the Genoese, arrived on that date in 1492 to the island of Guanahani, then called San Salvador, now part of the Bahamas, then he landed in Cuba and which he called Juana, then Hispaniola, today Santo Domingo, thinking that he had arrived in India. and for what would later be known as the “West Indies.”
This fact was undoubtedly one of the fundamental moments in universal history and represented a meeting between Afro-Euro-Asian people (the humanity known until then) converging with very different and isolated populations and cultures as far as we know.
The surprising and abrupt appearance of the bearded people of Castile in what would later be known as America caused the dismantling of the natives, later known as “Americans”, disrupting and forever interrupting the course of great civilizations and important cultures, among them some criminals that They practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism, which is why the native peoples preyed on by the Aztecs in Mesoamerica collaborated with Hernán Cortez to get rid of those who needed their blood to satisfy their gods.
We must remember that Hernán Cortez, according to some historians, had less than 700 men, 16 horses and mares and a few cannons, but also thousands of indigenous people of many groups who suffered under the Mexica (Aztec) yoke. For warrior peoples in the process of territorial expansion such as the Aztecs and Incas, defeat was interpreted as the abandonment of part of their gods and the end of their cosmic cycle.
One of the consequences of the defeat of their gods was the vital reluctance that took hold of many natives, which currently translates into resentment, an inferiority complex, this being taken advantage of by populists, great ignoramuses, thieving and corrupt demagogues who continue to prey on and maintain people in the darkest slavery such as ignorance, using and entertaining them with fallacies.
Something similar was that of Francisco Pizarro who, with only 168 starving and hungry men, began the conquest of Peru in 1532.
The traditional conquest of America was certainly not a loving, harmonious, delicate and loving process, nor were the great conquering movements that influenced the Iberian Peninsula, the Celts, the Visigoths, the Sephardim, the Arabs, the latter who influenced for 7 centuries. in the Iberian Peninsula, leaving a lot of science and culture and its own stamp on the characteristics of the now Spanish citizens.
Some time ago AMLO asked the King of Spain and the Pope to apologize for the abuses committed by both in the conquest of Mexico. Others of the same ilk are out there with the same thing. But let’s leave that topic to people who know the subject, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political statesmen, non-troops, etc.
What did the American continent contribute to humanity? Corn is the second cereal cultivated in the world, it is the basis of the diet of millions of people and the basis for feeding birds, pigs, cattle, etc. The domesticated potato in Chile, Peru and Bolivia. Beans, pumpkins, tomatoes, cocoa, cassava, pineapple, cayu, chili, cherimoya, quinoa, amaranth, coca, sunflower, avocado, prickly pears, guapuruces, tutuma and the achachairú and some other species.
The Spaniards who fortuitously arrived in what we now know as America brought steel, the wheel, Spanish and writing. Before 1492, phonetic writing did not exist in America, apart from what the Spaniards mentioned, not much else. However, the Spanish brought the World to the New World.
They brought cattle from Europe, horses from the Volga plains and Asia, donkeys from North Africa, sheep and goats from northern Iraq, domesticated chickens from China and Southeast Asia, as well as pigs from China, rice from Japan. and from China, domesticated wheat, rye, oats from Asia, sorghum from Africa, coffee from Ethiopia, Africa, sugar cane from India and the Indo-Malay peninsula. Many of the animal and plant species became and are now important pillars of regional economies.
In March 2019, the president of Mexico asked the king of Spain and the Pope to apologize to the indigenous peoples of Mexico for the abuses committed during the conquest of the country, 500 years ago. The request of AMLO and now Mrs. Sheinbaum is an artificial and grossly demagogueous, populist and purely politically motivated demand.
The historical reality is much more complex and extensive. This manipulated controversy that only fits with the most dogmatic, ignorant, ideologically corrupt Latin American current. It is hard to think that the majority of the indigenous people were not necessarily uncomfortable with those of the crown and whose conditions did not improve in the times after independence. In fact, when Mexico achieved its independence from the Spanish crown in 1810, 80% of the Mexicans were or considered themselves native, currently only 20% are or consider themselves to be.
Spanish colonization did not ruin America, in fact, Mexico City, Lima, and a short distance away Potosí had a commercial strength greater than Madrid and on par with London and Paris. Everything we know today about Mexico, the Quechua domain and many other Ibero-American cultures we know from the Spanish and the mestizos. It is absolutely absurd that the Spaniards of the 21st century, due to what happened in the 16th, agree to this request to satisfy the ego of some rulers who read their own nonsense.
History belongs to historical specialists and it is not up to politicians to judge it according to their own ideological interests. On an ethical level, each person can feel responsible for the part of the story and the circumstances of the moment that they believe involves them. If this article is presented in Spanish it will probably be read by around 600,000,000 (six hundred million people) if we publish it in Quechua it will doubtlessly be read by around 10,000,000 (ten million people in Aymara) possibly about 2,000,000 (two million people would read it). Do we celebrate or mourn?
