TAINOS**
I came across this passage: "Despite women being seemingly independent in Taíno society, coming into the era of contact Spaniards took Taíno women as an exchange item, putting them in a non-autonomous position. Dr. Chanca, a physician who traveled with Christopher Columbus, reported in a letter that Spaniards took as many women as they possibly could and kept them as concubines. Some sources report that, despite women being free and powerful before the contact era, they became the first commodities up for Spaniards to trade, or often steal. This marked the beginning of a lifetime of theft and abuse of Taíno women."
I wrote right after it that in my opinion Columbus and his people were horrible.
A friend responded: That would be in accordance to today's standards and ideals. You can't really judge the past by the ethics of today. You can only judge them if they knew of better ways to live, which they didn't back then. They did exactly what was acceptable at the time: conquer. It's something all ancestors of all civilizations and societies share. Was it right? No. But they learned to do better as things progress. They did what was normal to them at the time. It's like condemning a full grown adult for the violence they did as a child when they didn't know any better.
We should take the examples as ways not to be, not harbor hatred for a past that cannot change. Every "great" person has their darkness just like everyone else in the world. And every civilization has a bloodstained past. Learn from it and put those lessons towards progress. Harboring a grudge won't get anyone anywhere."
Do you think that it is a valid response to say that history cannot be criticized because they people 'simply did not know better' especially in the context of European conquest in the Americas?
The Spaniard Conquistadors certainly did know better, and all they did they did with exploitation in mind. Even in their time, they had ample amounts of critics.
Bartolomé de las Casas, social reformer, Dominican Friar, and Bishop, wrote scathing critiques of the way the Spaniards treated the Native Americans. "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" written in 1542, puts into great detail the misery and destruction the Spaniards caused the natives. Some notable passages were:
"Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate disproportionate to their merits."
"It should be kept in mind that their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world, is the cause of their villainies."
"They took infants from their mothers' breasts, snatching them by the legs and pitching them headfirst against the crags or snatched them by the arms and threw them into the rivers, roaring with laughter and saying as the babies fell into the water, "Boil there, you offspring of the devil!"."
Las Casas had a first person point of view of the horrors committed upon the Native people of America. Kings Charles V of Spain enacted the "New Laws" in 1542, which were an attempt to protect the native people of America from mistreatment. As the Viceroy of Peru attempted to enforce these laws, his was killed in a rebellion in 1546 by wealthy Spaniards who owned native slaves. The "Valladolid debate" in 1550-1551, was the first debate to discuss the treatment of the natives by colonizers. Jesuit missionaries also traveled to the Americas to proselytize and live among the native Americans. French fur-traders also treated the natives with relative respect and kindness.
Without a doubt, the Conquistadors knew what they were doing was wrong and did it anyway. Dehumanization and a thirst for gold led the way for committing violent atrocities upon the people of the West Indies. These people were not clueless or primitive. The Spaniards desired easy and fast wealth, and they did so with no concern for ethics or morality. Committing genocide and raping people was not normal to the urban population that first traveled to the Americas. In a "lawless" land where you have the upper advantage over a people succumbing to disease daily, many of these conquistadors did whatever they can to get whatever they desired.
In short; Yes, you can criticize the past. I have to add that no one is harboring a "grudge" against the early European colonizers. Historians want the truth to be acknowledged, accepted, and taught. The truth of the Spaniards is that they committed genocide.
/u/LateNightPhilosopher gave a great answer to my question about the Church's reaction to the colonization of the New World which complements /u/Kenjammin's answer very well.