Unit 1: Period 1: 1491-1607

"They... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed the

"And the Christians, with their horses and swords and pikes began to carry out massacres and strange cruelties against them. They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabb

"On the part of the King, Don Ferdinand, and of Doña Juana, his daughter... we ask and require you... that you acknowledge the Church as the ruler and superior of the whole world, and the high priest called Pope... If you do so... we shall receive yo

"The Indians died in heaps, like bedbugs.... In many places it happened that everyone in a house died, and as it was impossible to bury the great number of dead, they pulled down the houses over them.... They died by the scores and hundreds.... Great

"The earth is our mother. She should not be disturbed by hoe or plough. We want only to subsist on what she freely gives us. Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. These laws were good. They told us to treat all men