estranged from my name
an alien in my own land.
they speak
strange tongues
all together.
divided amongst themselves
by the minority.
our people
enslaved, enchained
in their own backyards.
how will this story end?
our mothers have nightmares.
our fathers
have back trouble,
trying to get by.
our marginalised youth
suffer depression,
they get the blame.
our children
have low self-esteem,
learning becomes a struggle.
frequently we are warned
to shut up
to stay put
to never complain
cause
those dogs will bite.
Spanish Conquistadors -- Roberto Cueva del Río
The Spanish conquest and esnlavement of the native Americans half a millennium ago was accomplished by men, horses, and dogs. On his first voyage Christopher Columbus was unimpressed by the local dogs he saw; one could argue that, having discovered a docile society willing to bend to Spanish rule, when he returned on future voyages he felt little need to take with him the attack dogs regularly bred and used for warfare in Europe at the time. However, archdeacon Juan Rodgriguez de Fonseca of Seville, the personal chaplain of king Ferrando II of Aragon (Fernando II of Spain) who was put in charge of supplying Columbus' second expedition, sent 20 purebred mastiffs and greyhounds in addition to arms. The later conquistadores continued the practice, using armored dogs trained to kill natives in their military campaigns but also as effective tools in cowing the captive populations. They used "dogging" (as they called it) to inflict justice on the native population; a Maya priest imprisoned by the Spanish referred to mastiffs "destroying the faces" of his people. The Domican friar Bartolomé de las Casas, the first official protectoría de indios (protector of Indians) recounted conversations among the Spaniards along the lines of, "Lend me a quarter of a Villaine (an Indian) to give my Dogs some meat, until I kill one next." War dogs had long been used as messengers, sentinels, trackers, and combatants. The earliest recorded use of war dogs in battle was ca. 600 BCE, when king Alyattes of Lydia (the father of Croesus) used them against the Cimmerians. Not long afterwards, Magnesian horsemen were each accompanied by a war dog and a spear-bearing attendant in their war against the Ephesians: the dogs were released first to break the enemy ranks, followed by an assault of spears and a cavalry charge. In 120 BCE king Bituito of the Arvernii in southern France defeated a small force of Romans under consul Quintus Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, using using just the dogs he had. The Romans themselves trained Molossus dogs (the strongest ones they knew, from the Molossia region of Epirus) for battle; strapped with armor or spiked collars, they were used to attack the enemy; and Attila also used them in his campaigns in the 5th century. In the 15th century emperor Lê Lợi (Lê Thái Tổ) of Vietnam raised a pack of 100 combat dogs and promoted therir trainer Nguyễn Xí to command a regiment of shock troops.
ReplyDelete