Bernardo Veksler, Una Visión Crítica de la Conquista de América

Una Visión Crítica de la Conquista de América
por Bernardo Veksler
(fuente: free eBooks)
no copyright infringement intended

Este día hemos descubierto un planeta desconocido, situado en una constelación vecina de nuestra Próxima Centauri. Está habitado por homínidos extraños, que absolutamente carecen de nuestras habilidades y de nuestro nivel de civilización. Su religión es absurda, sus costumbres son totalmente ridículos, y es nuestro deber de educarlos. Lo que es importante, aquí hay una gran cantidad de recursos naturales que necesitamos. Creemos que es fácil de controlar las poblaciones de este planeta, ya que parecen estar en una guerra mutua perpetua.

(Extracto del informe de la misión galáctica A34SX57C, enviado al centro interplanetario)

Matter of perspective: Fall of Constantinople or Conquest of Constantinople. The remark of Orhan Pamuk (Istanbul) came to my mind as I was reading Bernardo Veksler's Una Visión Crítica de la Conquista de América. Let's put it this way: history is always written by the conquerors, and always lived by those conquered. For Europeans, 1492 was the year they discovered the New World. For the natives, ellos descubrieron que eran indios y que vivian en América (Eduardo Galeano).

Veksler's book is a document keeping down to the fact all along. El primer impacto fue el asombro, luego el miedo ante las armas de fuego y la fuerza mágica del hombre blanco cubierto con armaduras y montado a caballo. Los invasores aprovecharon el desconcierto y la superioridad tecnológica para dominar fácilmente a las sociedades americanas más desarrolladas.

Were the societies of the natives more developed than the Europeans (as Veksler suggests)? There were many populations, some very advanced, some others still in the phase of hunters-gatherers. Speaking about the advanced ones, I would say they had a civilization developed on different dimensions than the European culture. Though very sophisticated they were easily conquered, just for lacking some European elements that proved vital. It was also the total lack of communication between the various natives' countries (it's the opinion of Yuval Noah Harari). Each time the conquerors were able to play the same tricks. Country after country it was el asombro, luego el miedo ante las armas de fuego, las armaduras y el caballo.

Firstly I considered the book of Veksler as radical to the extreme. Then I realized that it was just factual. Europeans discovered a new world with huge reserves of gold and silver. They conquered it, organizing a huge scale genocide of the indigenous populations. As they needed workforce, they brought slaves from Africa - also on a huge scale; actually a second genocide. As a result, immense quantities of gold and silver were transported to Europe (I remember someone's remark in a discussion I had long time ago: the quantities of precious metal robbed from the New World were so inordinately large that Europe witnessed a period of gold devaluation).

And here comes the big picture (splendidly enunciated by Veksler): a triangle made by America (as raw material supplier), Africa (as workforce supplier), and Europe (as consumer). When it comes to Europe, Veksler makes a further distinction, between countries like Spain and Portugal, too preoccupied with preserving their ways, and countries like England or Flanders, with the skill to put the gold to work, so to speak, to build on it what would become the industrial revolution (tanto España como Portugal carecieron de una burguesía industrial, razón por la cual el flujo masivo de riquezas consolidó a la monarquía limitando el futuro de la fugaz prosperidad; los principales acaparadores de oro y plata americanas fueron sólo un puerto de paso de esas riquezas, utilizado para las crecientes demandas del aparato estatal y de las multitudinarias nobleza y clero, su destino final fue capitalizar y expandir a la burguesía manufacturera francesa, flamenca e inglesa).

Thus Veksler's book draws the portrait of a global economy in nuce - a perfect lesson of large-scale history.


(Bernardo Veksler)