MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Literary The Conquest of the Incas by John Hemming

Bookpossum · 04-04-2013, 01:18 AM

I was impressed by exactly the same things, fantasyfan. I had never heard of Francisco de Vitoria, but what a man he must have been in those times - centuries ahead of most of the rest of the world.

And I am impressed again with Hemming's ability to pull one up and point out that by no means all the Spaniards were rapacious and inhumane, pointing out that the protests about the condition of the Peruvians were being made by Spaniards in Peru who wanted the Crown to intervene and ensure better treatment. And in describing the ghastly conditions in the mines, he reminds us that they were no different to the conditions in mines in other parts of the world.

Part of the problem was of course that the Crown was receiving one-fifth of the revenue, so despite all the edicts and concern expressed about the treatment of the natives, it had a vested interest in having the system keep on grinding them down. A bit reminiscent of our current situation here with all the concerns being expressed about people destroying their lives with problem gambling, but of course the government is getting revenue from the casinos and is therefore never going to put that genie back into its box, even if it could.

And I have to put in here that so far I have had one laugh-out-loud moment, which I hardly expected in the midst of such a grim and sad history. In one of his footnotes to Chapter 18, Hemming refers to a description of the natives' smelting ovens which is to be found "... in an otherwise insuffferably boring treatise."

04-04-2013, 01:18 AM	#39
Bookpossum Snoozing in the sun Posts: 10,137 Karma: 115423645 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Melbourne, Australia Device: iPad Mini, Kobo Touch	I was impressed by exactly the same things, fantasyfan. I had never heard of Francisco de Vitoria, but what a man he must have been in those times - centuries ahead of most of the rest of the world. And I am impressed again with Hemming's ability to pull one up and point out that by no means all the Spaniards were rapacious and inhumane, pointing out that the protests about the condition of the Peruvians were being made by Spaniards in Peru who wanted the Crown to intervene and ensure better treatment. And in describing the ghastly conditions in the mines, he reminds us that they were no different to the conditions in mines in other parts of the world. Part of the problem was of course that the Crown was receiving one-fifth of the revenue, so despite all the edicts and concern expressed about the treatment of the natives, it had a vested interest in having the system keep on grinding them down. A bit reminiscent of our current situation here with all the concerns being expressed about people destroying their lives with problem gambling, but of course the government is getting revenue from the casinos and is therefore never going to put that genie back into its box, even if it could. And I have to put in here that so far I have had one laugh-out-loud moment, which I hardly expected in the midst of such a grim and sad history. In one of his footnotes to Chapter 18, Hemming refers to a description of the natives' smelting ovens which is to be found "... in an otherwise insuffferably boring treatise."