On pg. 62, Todorov asks: "Did the Spaniards defeat the Indians by means of signs?" Well, did they?
When it comes to defeat against the indigenous peoples, it was something that Spaniards seemed to have perfected and held pride in. With their historical accounts of their conquests they very clearly and proudly boasted of their triumphs, hardly shying away from topics such as rape, torture, and erasure of culture in said accounts. They possessed means of destruction that the natives hadn't even imagined yet and were far from developing. Using their advanced weapons, "Christian" ideologies, and diseases, they wreaked havoc on their "newly discovered" civilizations. They left nothing for salvation and had intention to do so if it didn't directly benefit them (embedded liberalism, maybe?). As listed and stated, the Spaniards had many means in which they defeated the Native people of these regions, but the one I am going to primarily focus on in this post is the means of "signs". To me, signs is their means of communicating with the natives. They used sabotage, misinformation, manipulation, aggression, and intimidation in their sabotage to bend the natives to their will. They capitalized on their "superiority" to bring down those they deemed as less intelligent than themselves. In the first chapter, Todorov mentions that Columbus feigned knowledge of the native language, acting as though he could understand what they were saying, when he really, really couldn't. This is an example of the sabotage and manipulation that was utilized during the times of colonization. I believe that in the end, the Spaniards utilized many modes of destruction to defeat the natives, and although the signs aided them greatly, it was not the only means in which they did so. Like Olivia, I wanted to mention Todorov's point that history is written by winners. Olivia made great points in her post about the array of "victories" for the Spaniards: the defeat of the indigenous people and the erasure of their culture and voice and that this is proof that defeat goes far beyond a physical overpowering, but can be seen socially and systematically. I think this was a very important thing to touch upon because too often we only think of the physical repercussions of countries and people touched by the impacts of war. In my first year seminar class we focus a lot on the psychological and culturally damaging aspects of war/conflict and prior to this year, it wasn't something I had considered too much. I was more caught up in logistics and historical accuracy, but I now see how detrimental war is to the identities of those impacted by it.
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Hey there! I'm Halle Jaymes and I'm a first year SIS student from Southern California. I'm hoping to focus on Europe as my region of study and hone in on sustainable fashion and general fashion in International Relations. Archives
December 2018
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