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The shocking brutality of the Spanish conquistadores was the thing that stood out to me most in reading Chapter 3. So brutal were the Spanish, in their “conquering and colonization [of] vast stretches of the Americas” (Taylor, 51) that even the other European nations who were also colonizing American lands during that time period were shocked and appalled by their actions. The English, who were competitors with the Spanish when it came to colonizing the “new world”, even came up with the term “Black Legend” to describe the horrifying ways in which the Spanish treated the natives. Now, the English clearly weren’t upstanding in their treatment of the natives who had been living independently for hundreds of years before British arrival, but it says something that even they drew a more appropriate line as to what was acceptable in the treatment of natives than the Spanish.
Before reading these chapters and discussing them in class, it was my understanding that most European nations who were involved in the early colonization of the Americas had the same motivation for being there and mostly went about colonization in the same way. It is clear however, that this is not the case. There were varying levels of violence, peaceful interaction with natives, trade, implementation of religion, etc with almost every European nation that attempted to colonize the land. Taylor made it known early that part of his reason for writing this book was to give a more comprehensive and complete overview of this history; almost as a way to fill in the gaps that are so often left there when American history is told. Him more indepthly describing the differences in which various nations went along in colonizing these lands better gives the reader an understanding of how and why things developed the way they did during early colonization.