Europeans vs American Indians: the cultural debate p. 120

READING AND SPEAKING 1.What was new in cultural terms about the discovery of America? For the first time in history Europeans were confronted with a totally different kind of people, whose culture and customs were unknown. 2.There were two prevalent views of the American natives: say what they were? Among the humanists the Spanish Juan Sepulveda declared that they were an inferior race, while the Frenchman Michel de Montaigne and the Spanish Bartolomé de las Casas recognized their humanity respecting their diversity. 3.Who was Montaigne and what was his idea of the natives and supposed cannibals? Montaigne was a great philosopher and writer. His essay Des Cannibales is one of the fundamental works about the New World and its myths. In it Montaigne defends the American natives from the accusation of being savages and man-eaters. To do so he uses two arguments: first of all, the Europeans were guilty of much greater crimes (tortures, burning at the stake in the wars of religion), secondly the natives lived in closer contact with nature. Therefore, they lived in a more perfect state than Europeans.

READING AND SPEAKING Generally speaking, what position did Italian writers of the Renaissance take as regards the inhabitants of the New World and the Europeans conquest? Give examples of specific writers’ opinions. Italian writers like Ludovico Ariosto accepted the Spanish myth of the Conquest as a God-inspired work to convert the American pagans to Christianity. Later on, after the Counter-Reformation, the American natives were seen as demons and cannibals. Both points of view are shared by Torquato Tasso in his “Gerusalemme Liberata” Take a look at the engraving reproduced on page 120 in your literature book and give your opinion of it? It represents the European idea that the American natives were cannibals.