Reading Robinson Crusoe and came to this paragraph:
...That this would justify the Conduct of the Spaniards in all their Barbarities practis'd in America, where they destroy'd Millions of these People, who however they were Idolaters and Barbarians, and had several bloody and barbarous Rites in their Customs, such as sacrificing human Bodies to their Idols, were yet, as to the Spaniards, very innocent People; and that the rooting them out of the Country, is spoken of with utmost Abhorrence and Detestation, by even the Spaniards themselves, at this Time; and by all other Christian Nations of Europe, as a meer Butchery, a bloody and unnatural Piece of Cruelty, unjustifiable either to God or Man; and such, as for which the very Name of a Spaniard is reckon'd to be frightful and terrible to all People of Humanity, or of Christian Compassion...^1
I was a little surprised by this, as the narrative I had accepted was that Europe was basically okay with or ignorant of the wrongs it was perpetrating against the peoples it came across during the pre-Colonial and Colonial phase of its development.
Can anyone extrapolate on the variegated views of Europe with regards "savages"? If it was popular to think of other races as inferior, were there still dissenting views of this, early in the Colonial period? Was progressiveness (with regards human rights and equality) more wide spread than we currently think?
I'd like to hear anything that complicates or gives greater detail about this period.
^1 Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, Norton Critical Edition, 2nd Edition, page 124-125
Defoe's view is consistent with what is known as the "Black Legend," which undoubtedly arises out of his rather strict Protestant upbringing. The Black Legend was a response to the massive imperial gains of the Spanish in the New World, their wars to maintain the Low Countries during the Reformation, and broader Spanish persecution of Protestantism.
One work in particularly sparked the legend, Bartolomé de Las Casas's Brevísima historia de la destruición de las Indias, or Brief History of the Destruction of the Indies published in 1555. This work was written by the Dominican in order to convince Charles I that the conquistadores needed to be controlled in the New World by religious authorities. His account of the conquest is hyperbolic but somewhat accurate and was used by Protestant nations as a symbol of Catholic blood-lust. Las Casas's life work eventually led to the Spanish Crown prohibiting outright enslavement of the Amerindians, which was certainly not appreciated by Protestant detractors.
A lot has been written about the Black Legend, which is more or less a Protestant philosophy of history that attributes the imperial expansion of Spain to their inherent greed and cruelty and casts their evangelical efforts in the New World as the spreading of papist heresy.
One place to start for this is Hillgarth, J. N. The Mirror of Spain, 1500-1700.