To Europeans, natives of the two Americas were either Noble Savages, or Savage Beasts. Depending on the need.

At first the Spanish tried to fashion them As inhabitants of Earthly Paradise: “They all go naked, men and women,” so Columbus wrote. “Well-built people, handsome Stature…very keen intelligence, Know neither sect nor idolatry. They’re Artless, free with all that they possess, That no one could believe it without seeing.” Vespucci praised them even higher still: “They have no laws and no religious faith, They live according to the laws of nature… There is no private property among them, Everything is held in common….They Have no king, and no one to obey, Each one being his own master….They mate With whom they wish, without much ceremony…. They are all of great longevity And do not suffer from infirmity Or pestilence or from unhealthy air.”

And sitting in the Spanish court and hearing Tales from all the mariners whom Spain Had sent across the seas, Peter Martyr Wrote: “Among these simple souls, a few Small strips of cloth do serve the naked; Weights and measures are not needful to such As know not skill or craft or are deceitful. They have not the use of noxious money, The seed of many mischiefs….It is certain That among them land is just as common As the sun and water; Mine and Thine (The seeds of mischief) have no place among them. They seem to live in that golden world of which The ancients speak, without toil, in open Gardens not entrenched with dikes, divided Up with hedges, defended ‘round with walls. They deal with one another truly, without Laws, or books, or judges. They hold him for An evil and mischievous man who pleasure Takes in doing hurt to other men.”

For Europe, then, at least at first, the natives Of America were noble beings, Savage, yes, but good in ways that Europe Never knew. The books depicting ideal Worlds that followed then—Thomas More’s Utopia, Bacon’s *New Atlantis,*Campanella’s *City of the Sun—*They all were set in what for Europe was The New World.

But then as time went on, And natives proved to be less easy to Control, less willing to be subjugated, They turned out to be the Savage Beast In dire need of being civilized. Columbus now discovered they were “very Wild” and “savage people,” and when he lived Among them for a year, depending on Their kindness for his food, he wrote that he Was “surrounded by a million savages Replete with cruelty.” Other Spaniards, Too, in years when natives were Resisting European settlement And conquest, saw that they were evil: A kindly cleric wrote that “they are brutal… They have no respect for truth….They become like brutal beasts. I therefore say that God Has never made a race more full of vice, Without the least amalgamation of kindness Or of culture.” A noted humanist Would add, “In these men you’ll scarcely find The traces of humanity, who have No science and also have a need of writing. Neither do they have encoded laws, But customs and associations most Barbaric. They do not even fathom private Property.…How can we doubt these people— Uncivilized, barbaric, rotten with Impieties, obscenities—have been Legitimately conquered?….Indians Are as different from us Spanish as Cruel people are from kind, as monkeys Are from men.” Other Spanish voices: “They live like proper beasts….Stupid, wild, Insensate asses…Only wild beasts.”

The truth of all this is, the only way That Europe could explain and justify Its conquest and despoliation of These simple people and their lands was by Turning Noble Savages, who lived In what would seem to be the Golden World, Into Savage Beasts who occupied A hideous and untamed wilderness.

And thus it happened then, as the times decreed, “Terrorists” or not, depending on the need.

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