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151-160 of 333 Sound Bites. [show all]

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151) No one may beat or whip or call an Indian dog (perro) or any other name unless it is his proper name. (from law #24 of the Laws of Burgos, qtd. in Lewis Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World.  Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959: 15. )

152) But after these things they could not long continue in any peaceable condition, but were hunted and persecuted on every side, so as their former afflictions were but as flea-bitings in comparison of these which now came upon them.  For some were taken and clapped up in prison, others had their houses beset and watched night and day, and hardly escaped their hands; and the most were fain to flee and leave their houses and habitations, and the means of their livelihood.  Yet these and many other sharper things which afterward befell them, were no other than they looked for, and therefore were the better prepared to bear them by the assistance of God's grace and Spirit.  Yet seeing themselves thus molested, and that there was no hope of their continuance there, by a joint consent they resolved to go into the Low Countries, where they heard was freedom of religion for all men. (William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation. )

153) Perhaps the creation of a circular crater resulting from a hydrogen bomb will be considered the "symbolic act" or "visible symbol" necessary to claim possession [of the moon].  Shades of Cabot's proprietary cruise down the coast of North America! (Wilcomb E. Washburn, "The Moral and Legal Justifications for Dispossessing the Indians."  Seventeenth-Century America: Essays in Colonial History.  Ed. James Morton Smith.  New York: Norton, 1972: 32. )

154) Christians settle on lands that the Indians have never been paid for. (Delaware sachem Sassoonan, 1720 )

155) It is to be assuredly hoped, that they [Native Americans] will daily by little and little forsake their barbarous and savage living, and grow to such order and civility with us, as there may be well expected from thence no lesse quantity and diversity of merchandize than is now had out of Dutchland, Italy, France or Spain. (Christopher Carleill, A Briefe and Summary Discourse upon the Intended Voyage to the Hithermost Parts of America, 1583, reprinted in David B. Quinn, The Voyages and Colonising Enterprises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Vol. 2.  London: Glasgow UP, 1940: 357. )

156) Moreover it is declared that this warning in such a case is useless in many respects, and for this reason had never been made, in the first place because it is difficult to do and it was most difficult at the commencement of the war, for it would be so difficult an affair, of such great effort, and requiring so long a time to approach with no common language, so many races, and so barbarous, separated by an immense span of ocean and lands, and not only to wait for what they would reply but also what they would do, that it would easily deter all Christian princes from such an attempt.  Thus, to introduce this warning as necessary were nothing else than to basicly [sic] hinder the pious expedition, bringing salvation to the barbarians, and consequently to impede their conversion, which is the purpose of the war.  [Admonition] is therefore useless and for this reason to be foresworn. (Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Apology for the Book On the Just Causes of War.  Trans. and ed. Lewis D. Epstein.  Bowdoin College: 1973: 30-31. )

157) Because historians report only the basic facts and may choose to gloss over events which do not appear to be significant in the larger frame of chronological records, the task of ferreting out and elucidating the impact of man's inhumanity to man falls on the shoulders of the literati to illuminate and publish this information—such is the purpose of the literature of justification. (Elsie Hamel, Lehigh University )

158) The first Crusade has been described, not without reason, as the "foreign policy of the reformed papacy."  It set the pope, in place of the emperor, at the head of Europe, and assured the papacy a moral leadership.  In this way Urban II's cool, resolute guidance gradually brought about a reversal in the position of the parties, while his diplomacy and tact recovered for the church the sympathy which Gregory VII's intransigence had lost. (Geoffrey Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy.  London: Thames and Hudson, 1968:  91. )

159) Language is the perfect instrument of empire. (Antonio de Nebrija, 1492, qtd. in Robert A. Williams, Jr.,  The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest. New York: Oxford UP, 1990: 74. )

160) And what did Columbus want?  This is not hard to determine.  In the first two weeks of [his] journal entries, there is one word that recurs seventy-five times: GOLD.  {...}  Yes, he was concerned about God.  But more about Gold.  Just one additional letter.  His was a limited alphabet. (Howard Zinn, On History.  New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001: 100. )