Suchergebnisse

Two centuries after Cortés and Pizarro seized the Aztec and Inca empires, Spain's conquest of America remained unfinished. Indians retained control over most of the lands in Spain's American empire. Mounted on horseback, savvy about European ways, and often possessing firearms, independent Indians continued to find new ways to resist subjugation by Spanish soldiers and conversion by Spanish missionaries.In this panoramic study, David J. Weber explains how late eighteenthcentury Spanish administrators tried to fashion a more enlightened policy toward the people they called bárbaros, or "savages." Even Spain's most powerful monarchs failed, however, to enforce a consistent, well-reasoned policy toward Indians. At one extreme, powerful independent Indians forced Spaniards to seek peace, acknowledge autonomous tribal governments, and recognize the existence of tribal lands, fulfilling the Crown's oft-stated wish to use "gentle" means in dealing with Indians. At the other extreme the Crown abandoned its principles, authorizing bloody wars on Indians when Spanish officers believed they could defeat them. Power, says Weber, more than the power of ideas, determined how Spaniards treated "savages" in the Age of Enlightenment

"Two centuries after Cortes and Pizarro seized the Aztec and Inca empires, Spain's conquest of America remained unfinished. Indians retained control over most of the lands in Spain's American empire. Mounted on horseback, savvy about European ways and often possessing firearms, independent Indians continued to find new ways to resist subjugation by Spanish soldiers and conversion by Spanish missionaries. In this panoramic study, David Weber explains how late eighteenth-century Spanish administrators tried to fashion a more enlightened policy toward the people they called barbaros, or 'savages'. Even Spain's most powerful monarchs failed, however, to enforce a consistent, well-reasoned policy toward Indians. At one extreme, powerful independent Indians forced Spaniards to seek peace, acknowledge autonomous tribal governments and recognise the existence of tribal lands, fulfilling the Crown's oft-stated wish to use 'gentle' means in dealing with Indians. At the other extreme the Crown abandoned its principles, authorising bloody wars on Indians when Spanish officers believed they could defeat them. Power, says Weber, more than the power of ideas, determined how Spaniards treated 'savages' in the Age of Enlightenment."--

These lectures chronicle the Spanish Empire's policies toward the Indians of the Americas in the late eighteenth century. Since Indians independently controlled most of the area that Spain claimed to own, the Spaniards began to make significant political accommodations with some of these ''savages'' or ''wild Indians, '' whom they could neither defeat nor convert. Weber demonstrates that Spain's ideal mission changed between the Habsburg and Bourbon eras and, more importantly, local circumstances and local people, including Indians, determined how a mission would measure up to the Crown's objec.