Wrongs in Latin America

            Eduardo Galeano’s Memory of Fire is a poetic narration of the contours of American history in the nineteenth century. The entries are in chronological sequence and the focus is on Latin America, though sometimes the scene shifts to North America or another continent. This enables Galeano to evoke disparate aspects of Latin American history and politics, which are grounded in miniatures of time and place. He also employs a wide range of literary elements and infuses his work with elements of magical realism. He vindicates the oppressed like the indigenous leader General Francisco Morazán (158) and describes the experiences of Maya peoples. Thus, the reader becomes aware of the abuses faced by the peoples of Latin America by imperial Spain, international capitalism and the state itself. There is an overall tone of resentment, particularly toward the United States. Galeano, an exile from Uruguay, clearly writes as a partisan of the oppressed.

            In A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé de Las Casas argues that the actions of the Europeans throughout the new World were wicked and unjust. While Las Casas spent much of his life as a priest and colonist in Cuba, he became an outspoken defender of indigenous rights in Latin America, finding it a “criminal neglect of [his] duty to remain silent about the enormous loss of life” (6). He maintains that as the indigenous peoples never did the Europeans any harm, they had “every right to wage war on the Europeans, while the Europeans never had just cause for waging war on the local people” (23). It is most interesting that Las Casas, writing before Hobbes, Locke or Rousseau, claims that "nobody who is not subject of a civil power in the first place can be deemed in law to be in rebellion against that power" (53) - as this statement embodies an essence of contractarianism. Las Casas also maintains that the Spaniards’ unmediated laying of Christian practices, while meant to acquire 'grace' over non-Christian practices, were excessive and unjust. As a result, he claims that the indigenous peoples never “learn[ed] the truths of the Christian religion” (26). He was a fervent Christian but saw the Conquerors as perversions of the Christian faith overcome by greed: “the reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed” (12). The descriptions of the atrocities committed were very disturbing. Las Casas work thus, seems to be an attempt to make sense of the Spaniards inhumane behavior during contact between European normative expectations and the practices of an indigenous culture.