1. Joe Emerson
Professor Sayre
English Capstone: Remix
October 15, 2015
Apostles of Conquest: The Agency of Christian Rhetoric in the Colonial Discourse
Of
Hans Staden’s Veritable Historie
And
Bartolome’ De Las Casas’s A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
The New World of the Americas was first and foremost a land of mystery,
inhabited by peoples only known through the literature produced by adventures returning
to the Christian-European world. In large part their representations of the native
inhabitants were that of “wild, naked, savage, [and] man-eating people” (as Staden
describes in his subtitle of Veritable Historie), who were if nothing else naïve to both the
powers which foreign civilizations possessed in the greater part of the world as well as
their relentless ambitions. If we take colonial discourse as being an extended
conversation constructed over time by the first hand accounts of numerous authors and
their varying experiences in the reordering and reclaiming of the New World as to
establish a general consensus of conquest, then it should be expected that in time
discrepancies within those accounts would arise. It is precisely this fact that lead to more
subtle modes of agency in the literature of colonial discourse. A prime example of such a

2. Emerson
shift is the difference between Staden’s captivity narrative, Veritable Historie, and Las
Casas’s, Short Account, where the roles of the civilized European “self” and barbarous
native “other” are transmuted. But, what is similar is how they both use their Christian
faith as an instrument of power to exact dominion over the non-Christian “other(s)” they
either encounter or witnessed in the New World. Therefore, while their accounts of the
New World stand in stark contrast to one another they still remain the vanguards of a
Eurocentric worldview endowed with the divine authority of Christendom.
It is from the vantage point of Staden that we must begin our examination of
Christian rhetoric as a means of agency in the New World. Staden’s account by and large
paints that all too similar portrait of the monstrous and mysterious “others” who without
reason or ethos inhabit the fertile lands of the Americas. This portrayal is in fashion with
popular depictions of the era and being that Staden was well aware of what his audience
wanted to read, he gave it to them in a truly demonizing way. Staden plays the part of the
good, Christian European, held captive under the threat of cannibalization, witness to
numerous unthinkable rituals and feasts. His Christian audience had no choice in who
they should side with; Staden had clearly established the binary oppositions of right and
wrong, good and evil, “self” and “other”. From this position Staden’s account progresses
into several anecdotes where he is able to legitimize the sanctity of his Christian faith
while simultaneously establishing a perceived power over his captors.
The first instance in which Staden derives power through faith is when the natives
demand that he pray to his god in order to subvert a coming storm: “Thou heavenly and
earthly lord…vouchsafe me Thy mercy, so that I may perceive that Thou art still with me
and that the savage heathens may see, that Thou my God hast heard my prayer” (58).
2

3. Emerson
Either by actual chance, divine intervention, or pure fictive creation, the storm does
indeed pass, thus Staden begins his manipulation of the natives through an unseen power
derived from Divine Authority. His choice of words in calling the natives “heathens” may
directly represent the fact that these primitive “others” are uncultivated or unlearned in
the true Christian faith. But this idea of cultivation also indirectly suggests that not only
the land may be cultivated but the people as well (a sentiment that is more openly
displayed later in Las Casas’ work).
Not long after this first account does Staden further differentiate and concretize
the validity of Christendom in saying while he is lassoed around his neck, unsure of his
fate: “I remembered the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and how he suffered
innocently at the hands of the vile Jews,” (63). In this quote we see Staden playing to the
Christian readers of the European world with the idiom “if you’re not with us, then
you’re against us” stance, and in doing so legitimizes the actions of any Christian
adventurers in the New World. This quote not only states the equivalence of Staden (the
European) to Christ (God) but also equates the natives to the Jews and in doing so
demonizes both in a way that couldn’t be anymore Christian. Staden continues to muster
gusto as opportunities are presented for him to act as an instrument of divine authority,
despite the ever present threat of his own death by cannibalism. What follows is Staden’s
rapid ascension from mere captive to Holy Man. He visits a Portuguese (fellow
European) captive who is to be eaten and in a sense through their brief conversation
administers the last rights of a true Christian. In this act Staden is uniting all of Christian-
Europe as the common good against the common evil of the natives; the argument has
shifted and become less about race than it was about Christianity.
3

4. Emerson
Staden soon transforms from the metaphorical Charon (ferryman of the dead) to
the physical embodiment of God. After another bout with inclement weather supposedly
caused by a young boy eating human flesh from a bone Staden tells the natives that “my
God was angry…had he but eaten it so that I had not seen it, the weather would have
remained fine” (87). Here Staden has become God’s eyes in stating his agency “had I not
seen it” and in doing so becomes an agent of divine authority, fully capable of
manipulating the physical world of the non-Christian “other”. Shortly after this Staden
tells of Alkindar, a native who would have liked to kill and eat him but was stopped by
his brother “for he feared that greater plagues might come upon him” (87). Now, Staden,
as he has manipulated the native people, is believed to have the ability to reign over
earthly misfortune. But this is not necessarily the Biblical plagues that his Christian
audience would have assumed in reading such. The Christian rhetoric of “plagues” is
evidence of concretizing Christian beliefs within the text to European readers as a means
of unification. The concept of “plagues” can not be truly understood by the natives who
have never heard the word of the true God and thus once more Staden differentiates the
“self” from the “other”, those with the knowledge and subsequent power, and those
without it.
This is where Las Casas’s Short Account intervenes in the discourse, for as he
describes them: “They [the natives] are innocent and pure in mind and have a lively
intelligence, all of which makes them particularly receptive to learning and understanding
the truths of our Catholic faith,” (Las Casas 10). In this quote we see the beginnings of
Las Casas’s thesis of persuasion in so much that these peoples of the New World should
learn the word of God and be made subjects to the Holy Church and Crown. We are to
4

5. Emerson
understand that these people are not only blank slates or empty vessels by stating that
they are “pure of mind” but also that they are “particularly” (chiefly in this respect)
capable of being converted to the true faith. This message will carry on throughout the
remainder of the text, driving home an overarching theme of a Euro-Christiancentric
worldview. But, in order to do so with subtle agency Las Casas must first not only undo
the binary oppositions that had been established by previous participants in colonial
discourse, but also reassign those labels of “self” and “other”, all the while keeping them
intact. The quote above provides one instance of the undoing of popular descriptions of
the natives as uncivilized savages, and so forth Las Casas’s Account is abound with
positive descriptions of a race of people who embody “virtue” and are “fittest to hear the
word of God,” (71), therefore making his plea for what would seem to be Divine
intervention for the salvation of would-be Christian souls.
Principally Las Casas’s Account is a work of persuasion to the Christian Royal
Crown and from his opening statements “As Divine Providence had ordained that the
world shall, for the benefit of proper government of the human race be divided into
kingdoms and peoples and that these shall be ruled by kings,” (5), it is clear that Las
Casas holds true the concept of colonization by Divine Rite. In this quote Las Casas
establishes an unshakable truth, one that is derived from God, bestowed unto Royalty and
further propagated by subjects to the Crown in the New World. By putting this decree
outlining the way things should rightly be, above all else, first in his narrative is a clever
method of exercising Christian agency. From this point forward Las Casas will not so
subtly describe the barbaric and un-Christian behavior of the Spanish Europeans but he
will use with great repetition a Christian rhetoric aimed at affecting his true Christian
5

6. Emerson
reader(s). This is important to keep in mind because although Las Casas demonizes the
“self” in this case, he is still firmly entrenched in the division of power that Christianity
has over any “other” non-Christian civilization.
This is where lines drawn by both authors using a Christian rhetoric intersect and
further cement the binary divisions established within colonial discourse while at the
same time opening doors for different interpretations. While Staden’s narrative depicts
loathsome scenes of cannibalism and the typification of “otherness” in the native peoples,
he excludes the fact that he was not killed, nor eaten (which is obvious due to his
authorship), and attributes that “solely to [bring to light] the vouchsafed mercies of God”
(Staden 93). What is curious about this attribution to God’s mercy is that in the preceding
paragraph Staden threatens the natives with his “angry” God (likewise Staden himself as
a Divine Instrument) who “has put into [their] minds that [they] should kill and eat [a
treacherous captive],” and “at such words they were much terrified,” (93). There are
several implications at work here. First, there is the suggestion by Staden that God has
the power to invade the minds of men and influence their actions covertly. Does this not
open up the possibility that the “vouchsafed mercy” of God was actually instrumented
through the minds of the natives? Had they not shown the Christian quality of mercy in
sparing his life for so long a time as to facilitate his escape, as well as a Christian
compassion in not subjecting him to no more torture than the shaving of his eyebrows
and beard? Could these divine attributes in the natives come from a Christian God who is
both benevolent and wrathful? If this idea can be accepted then isn’t it possible that the
natives do in fact have a “natural goodness that shines through [them]” (Las Casas 10)?
The second implication in Staden’s remarks is one that underlines the concept of
6

7. Emerson
Christian rhetoric as a means of agency, for the “word” presumably of God (whom
Staden has become a representative of) has the ability to terrify. The idiom “ I don’t want
them to respect me, I want them to fear me” comes to mind; fear is the ultimate
conquering power, and if one can manifest it through Divine Authority, what better a tool
for conquest.
A Godly instrument indeed is the “word” of the true Christian faith and both
authors whether unintentionally or subtly use it to exact dominion over foreign peoples of
unknown lands. In Las Casas’s more politically aimed description of the natives he
relates to the Crown a people who are “the least robust of human beings…no tougher
than princes…who spend their lives shielded from the rigors of the outside world,” and in
being so “are totally uninterested in worldly power” (10). Thus, Las Casas makes the
point clearly that these native peoples are subject to colonization, with little to no
opposition. What is happening in this quote is at once a role reversal of “self” and “other”
but what is more is the persuasive justification of conquest as laid out by Divine
Providence previously mentioned. Las Casas further establishes these sentiments in the
conclusion of his Account in stating first that his work should be used “in order to help
ensure that the teeming millions in the New World, for whose sins Christ gave His life,
do not continue to die in ignorance, but rather are brought to knowledge of God and
thereby saved” (127). In this quote Las Casas is not only expressing the belief that
Christian conquest in the New World is a justified apostolic endeavor (if done in the true
Christian way) but also solidifies the binary opposition of the redeemed Christian and the
unredeemed native, the “self” and “other” that his work has in large part turned on its
head. His conviction being so strong that the aforementioned work of conversion and
7

8. Emerson
rectification of injustices becomes an imperative “for [he does not] wish to see [his] dear
country destroyed as a divine punishment for sins against the honor of God and the True
faith” (127). Here the further work of conquest and conversion through Christian agency
in the New World has but one true motive, to save the Church and Crown from Divine
Wrath.
Armed with the true faith, Las Casas implores His Majesty as well as the loyal
Christian-European subjects of the Crown to proceed with the work of God in the New
World. Although the contributions of Staden and Las Casas to colonial discourse appear
to stand in stark contrast to one another they in fact impart the same message of a Euro-
Christiancentric worldview through their use of Christian rhetoric as a means of agency
in the New World. This claim is highlighted in the second stanza of Staden’s poem which
concludes the first part of his narrative: “No comfort, weapon, shield, is found to man at
any time, But who alone is armed with faith and God’s own word divine” (116, 9-10).
Herein lies the central claim that both Staden and Las Casas impart on colonial discourse;
with the true faith and word of Christendom, Europeans (mankind as it were) can not
only survive, but conquer and thrive in the New World. It is to be “armed” with
Christianity that enables the ability to exert power, whether through manipulation or
conversion, salvation of the “self” or salvation of the “other” all is justified through
Christian rhetoric. Therefore Staden and Las Casas remain at the forefront of a tempest
surging towards the reordering of the New World through the agency of Christianity.
8

9. Emerson
Works Cited
Casas, Bartolomé De Las, Anthony Pagden, and Nigel Griffin. A Short Account of the
Destruction of the Indies. London: Penguin, 1992. Print.
Staden, Hans, Albert Tootal, and Richard Francis Burton. The Captivity of Hans Stade of
Hesse: In A.D. 1547-1555, among the Wild Tribes of Eastern Brazil. London:
Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1874. Print.
9

10. Emerson
Works Cited
Casas, Bartolomé De Las, Anthony Pagden, and Nigel Griffin. A Short Account of the
Destruction of the Indies. London: Penguin, 1992. Print.
Staden, Hans, Albert Tootal, and Richard Francis Burton. The Captivity of Hans Stade of
Hesse: In A.D. 1547-1555, among the Wild Tribes of Eastern Brazil. London:
Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1874. Print.
9