Spanish minister admits suffering caused by conquistadors in Mexico
ABOUT TIME!
31.10.2025, DPA
Photo: Gustavo Valiente/EUROPA PRESS/dpa
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares officially acknowledged for the first time on Friday the "suffering and injustice" that Spain's conquistadors meted out to Mexico's indigenous people some five centuries ago.
"There was injustice, and it is merely right and fair to acknowledge and deplore this. It is part of our joint history. We can neither deny it nor forget it," Albares said on opening an exhibition on indigenous Mexican women in Madrid.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum described Albares' statement as "the first step" in the right direction.
"This is the first time that a member of the Spanish government has given expression to regret over the injustices committed. That's important," she said during her daily press conference. Apologizing was not humiliation, but rather conferred true greatness on governments and nations, she said.
Albares' admission is not quite the apology that then-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador demanded in a 2019 letter to the Spanish king and the pope in relation to the conquest and subjugation of indigenous peoples in the 16th century.
At the time, Spain reacted with outrage. There was no official response, and certainly not an apology.
Spain conquistadors acted with extreme cruelty during their conquest and colonization of what is today Mexico shortly after the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
Their weapons made them virtually invincible in battles with the Aztecs, and the diseases they brought with them caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.
The main aim of the Spanish colonizers was to secure gold and other resources, along with power in the New World. The pre-Colombian culture was repressed, with temples giving way to churches.
No comments:
Post a Comment