I’ve read that a lot of modern historians are super skeptical that the Carib people that the term “cannibal” came from were even cannibals at all, and that it was just speculated by the settlers that they were because they sometimes “used human body parts as trophies,” and then the idea became ingrained In Spanish colonist propaganda as a way to justify why they kept killing, enslaving, dismembering, and/or converting them to Christianity.
So is there any actual archeological or even anecdotal evidence that the Carib people did regularly or ritualistically engage in cannibalism? Did anyone actually write that they witnessed the natives slaughtering and cooking and eating human meat, or was it all based on the fact that they sometimes used body parts as “trophies?” Is there evidence that the natives likely just buried their dead or otherwise normally disposed of their bodies in tact? Is it possible that as the new European diseases were ravaging the native populations that they may have had to resort to cannibalism because nobody was healthy enough to hunt or forage, and that helped reinforce the idea?
Also is it possible that when the natives saw Columbus’ settlement on Hispaniola when they were hanging body parts around the camp as a warning or whatever that the natives thought that they were cannibals?
First of all, the extent to which Mesoamericans practiced cannibalism is not useful in analyzing how the Spanish perceived natives as “barbaric” or subservient. Las Casas wrote about encountering human sacrifice and to some extent cannibalism as a religious practice. He did not, however, condemn then to enslavement or violence against them because of it. Unlike Las Casas, Sepulveda argued that it did qualify for a “just war” agains them as it was in line with the specific Roman history of conquest he was using to make his argument. Sepulveda did not in fact ever go to the America’s or witness anything first hand, this was simply an argument for the historical precedent that allowed the Spanish to conquer barbarians, which the indigenous people were viewed as regardless of cannibalistic practices. Sepulveda does not only use cannibalism to justify indigenous peoples as barbarians. Like Las Casas and Montaigne, he wrote about the meek nature of indigenous people and their lack of institutions, culture, and history, but used this to further presuppose them as ripe for enslavement, that is they were naturally slaves and should be conquered. This had little to do with cannibalism.
Similar to Sepulveda, Michel de Montaigne wrote second hand about indigenous cannibalism. Montaigne recognized the subjective nature of what constituted barbarism, implying that the Spanish were just as likely to be barbarians depending on the cultural viewpoint. While he specifically mentions cannibalism, he recognizes the religious function of the practice in indigenous culture, the eating of only dead flesh for religious purpose, human sacrifice, etc. and is quick to label Spanish practices more barbaric than the cannibalism which they encountered. Saying it was worse to be eaten alive, such as the dogs the Spanish loosed on indigenous people, than to be eaten after already dead. He uses Greek and Roman Stoic philosophy to back this up, and like Las Casas, recognized their closeness to nature and meekness as a virtue, not a precondition to enslavement. Furthermore, the larger arguments made by these three authors focus on naturalness, physical constitution, and nakedness more often than they do on cannibalism, implying that regardless of whether or not cannibalism was invented by the Spanish, the focus on the practice was not needed to justify anything. Indeed, the idea of a “just war” presupposed Christian dominion over indigenous people on the grounds of religious superiority alone. The “Requirement” read aloud before slaughtering indigenous people had nothing to do with cannibalism. Regardless of whether or not the Spanish actually saw Mesoamericans consume flesh is of little use in analyzing why and how the Spanish justified their conquest and is actually harmful to inquiry into other facets, such as the ideas of naturalness and the precedent set by Christian conquest elsewhere to justify the conquest of the “new world.” I take Las Casas at his word as a first hand witness because he would have had little reason to lie, in fact his argument would have been better viewed if he did not mention it. The same is true for Montaigne.
Sources:
Juan Gines de Sepulveda, “Just war against the barbarians” (c. 1544).
Bartolome de Las Casas, “The devastation of the indies: a brief account” (c. 1542 pub. 1552).
Michel de Montaigne, “Of cannibals” (1578-1580).
Sorry for formatting and grammatical errors, I’m on mobile.