Recently, my family and I took a trip to Mexico City for spring break. While we were there, we got the chance to visit the Anthropological museum. It was one of the biggest and most impressive museums I have ever been to.
One thing that has really stuck with me from that trip was how the Spaniards destroyed all records of the native cultures. In a way, this confused me at first. Living in a day and age where different cultures are celebrated I was perplexed as to why would someone would want to destroy another culture. Yet, as I learned more details about the society the Spaniards were coming from it began to make more and more sense to me. During that period in Europe, anything that didn’t conform to the beliefs of Catholicism was considered to be witchcraft (Open Learn, 2010). So, when they arrived in the ‘New World’ and saw the natives practicing other religions they were not only disgusted but also bound by their duty to spread Catholicism.
In essence, they didn’t view the local cultures as something that should be saved and preserved but rather as something terrible that should be destroyed. In my opinion, that thought process is horrible because learning and gaining from other cultures is very important.
“6.2 Religion: Reformation and Counter-Reformation.” Early Modern Europe: an Introduction, https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/early-modern-europe-introduction/content-section-6.2#:~:text=Religion%20was%20one%20of%20the,held%20enormous%20power%20and%20influence
Evolutionary Anthropology 