Common threads in genocide
Two quotes MacQuarrie uses in The Last Days of the Incas that pretty much explain all genocides.
As God and my conscience are my witnesses, it was evident to all concerned that it was only because of this maltreatment that the peoples of Peru were finally provoked into revolt and took up arms against the Spanish, as, indeed, they had every cause to do. For the Spanish never treated them squarely, never honored any of the undertakings they gave, but rather set about destroying the entire territory, for no good reason and without any justification, and eventually the people decided that they would rather die fighting than put up any longer with what was being done to them. Friar Marcos de Niza, Order of the Franciscans, 1535, in Bartolome de Las Casas A short account of the destruction of the Indies (165)
Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for it you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1511 (165)
See my other book reports and posts on genocides.
As God and my conscience are my witnesses, it was evident to all concerned that it was only because of this maltreatment that the peoples of Peru were finally provoked into revolt and took up arms against the Spanish, as, indeed, they had every cause to do. For the Spanish never treated them squarely, never honored any of the undertakings they gave, but rather set about destroying the entire territory, for no good reason and without any justification, and eventually the people decided that they would rather die fighting than put up any longer with what was being done to them. Friar Marcos de Niza, Order of the Franciscans, 1535, in Bartolome de Las Casas A short account of the destruction of the Indies (165)
Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for it you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1511 (165)
See my other book reports and posts on genocides.
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