John Steinbeck Quotes

The conquistadors and their followers were very rough people, and they were fixated on gold and silver. They were oblivious to the astonishing achievements of the Inca civilisation.

When America was first made known to Europe, the part assumed by France on the borders of that new world was peculiar, and is little recognized. While the Spaniard roamed sea and land, burning for achievement, red-hot with bigotry and avarice, and while England, with soberer steps and a less dazzling result, followed in the path of discovery and gold-hunting, it was from France that those barbarous shores first learned to serve the ends of peaceful commercial industry.

Spanish colonial policy has been a failure. All the defects of character and administration which produced such disastrous results at home had naturally fuller scope for development in the colonies. The discoveries of Columbus did not open up a new continent to be settled by industrious immigrants coming to found states and develop their resources in peaceful industry. The marvelous exploits of the Conquistadors were performed in the craziest thirst for gold, and those who succeeded them came in the hope of speedy enrichment and return, to accomplish which they exploited to the utmost the unhappy natives, and when these were no longer available replaced them with African slaves.

Our great national drama was a westward expansion that conquered a native population rather than coexisting with it.

Spanish Explorers celebrated Christmas in 1539 in the area we now know as the State of Florida.

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.

To say that certainly America was very lucky to get a large amount of land, and the native Indians were extremely unlucky to have white men coming over here, is one thing. But to say that the whole of the American prosperity was based on exploiting the indigenous population would be a great mistake.

Every exploration is an appropriation.

Eduardo Galeano notes that America was conquered, but not discovered, that the men who arrived with a religion to impose and dreams of gold never really knew where they were, and that this discovery is still taking place in our time.

America, when it became known to Europeans, was, as it had long been, a scene of wide-spread revolution.

The history of exploration across nations and across time is not one where nations said, 'Let's explore because it's fun.' It was, 'Let's explore so that we can claim lands for our country, so that we can open up new trade routes; let's explore so we can become more powerful.'

A pioneer destroys things and calls it civilization.

That was when the Spanish came in and conquered the Aztecs. I thought that was a clever thing.

Much as I lament the fate of these misguided men, it was not to be expected that the Natives of the countries adjacent to the Colony would suffer themselves to be overrun by those invaders.

The same motives have, in all ages, compelled the strong to encroach on the weak, and the powerful and unprincipled to wrest by force or fraud, from the comparatively feeble and defenseless, wealth or property or dominion, richer pastures, more numerous herds, and a wider range of territory—opportunities for uncontrolled self—indulgence and freedom from the restraints of law and settled society.

Look how the whole capitalist world is stretching out long arms towards the barbarous world and grabbing and clutching in eager competition at countries whose inhabitants don't want them; nay, in many cases, would rather die in battle, like the valiant men they are, than have them

I ought to be judged as a captain who set out from Spain to the Indies to conquer many warlike peoples of very contrary creed and customs, where by divine will, I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen, Our Lords, another world, by which Spain, which was once called poor, is now the most rich.

This uneasy desire to augment our territory has depraved the moral sense and blighted the otherwise keen sagacity of our people.

Other nations struggle to gain more territory, more food, more petroleum. Spain has battled and will continue to do battle so that there are more Catholics and honourable men in the world.

Those countries cannot be in better hands, my fear is that the Spaniards are too feeble to hold them till our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece.

The pioneer army perpetually... strikes to the front. Empire plants itself upon the trails.

Only a few years after the permanent settlement of Virginia, some fifty missionaries arrived to begin the massive task of converting the heathen. The Indians on their part, did not respond with alacrity to the idea of adopting a culture that to them, in many cases, seemed barbarous, indeed.

Spain stooped on South America, like a vulture on its prey. Everything was force. Territories were acquired by fire and sword. Cities were destroyed by fire and sword. Hundreds of thousands of human beings fell by fire and sword. Even conversion to Christianity was attempted by fire and sword.

Annexation of new land for America is injudicious in policy and wicked in fact.

The Spanish voyager, as his caravel ploughed the adjacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination, and dream that beyond the long, low margin of forest which bounded his horizon lay hid a rich harvest for some future conqueror; perhaps a second Mexico with its royal palace and sacred pyramids, or another Cuzco with its temple of the Sun, encircled with a frieze of gold. Haunted by such visions, the ocean chivalry of Spain could not long stand idle.