Spain-ácoma and Israel-Hamas

The following is an excerpt from the second chapter of my dissertation.

??????????? After peacefully settling themselves in the land (or “pacifying the natives” in imperial jargon), the Spanish led by O?ate began conversion efforts on September 8, 1598. The governor had the leaders of the Tiwas, Puaray, Keres, Zias, Tewas, Pecos, Picuris, and Taos kneel to Friar Martínez and kiss his hand. On September 18, the company left to venture further. Friar Francisco de San Miguel and his native convert assistant Juan de Dios remained with the Pecos. Their ministry lasted three months.76

??????????? Why did Friar San Miguel fail in his mission? There was a language barrier. Other Spaniards undermined his efforts by providing poor exemplars of Christian behavior to the natives. He was quite elderly. All of these were factors. But above all, there was a conflict at the pueblo of ácoma. O?ate’s nephew, Juan de Zaldívar, was murdered by the ácoma on his way back from an expedition. Days later, word had spread to the governor and the head friar. The latter ordered his men to abandon their ministries. The next missionary that would settle in Pecos was about two decades later.77

??????????? The details of what today would be called a massacre hearken to the events of late 2023. In Kessell’s words,

At San Juan, the hastily assembled colony prepared to meet the crisis. O?ate listened to survivors recount the tragedy. He established for the record two important facts: that the attack on Zaldívar’s force had been deliberate, premeditated, and treacherous; and, that until the Spaniards laid waste the defiant fortress-pueblo of ácoma, there could be no peace in the land. The governor next called upon Father Commissary Alonso Martínez for a definition of just war.78

Only after Mass on January 10, 1599, did the company finally resolve to punish the ácoma. Either the Spanish’s military acumen proved superior to the natives’ or G-d was on the side of the 70 Spaniards led by Zaldívar’s younger brother Vicente. After two days, the Spanish prevailed and recounted that the ácoma began killing their comrades rather than surrender. The captives, 500 men, women, and children faced Spanish trial. O?ate ruled as follows:

ácoma males, twenty-five and older, the governor sentenced to have one foot hacked off. Like the young men and the women, these defeated and mutilated warriors must in addition serve twenty years as slaves of the invaders. Two Hopis caught at ácoma were to lose their right hands and ‘be set free in order that they may convey to their land the news of this punishment.’79

??????????? It is not the place of historians to evaluate what O?ate should have done per the Bible. Rather, it is that of religious authorities. However, what can be repeated is there is no penalty for the court to chop off a person’s foot. The chopping off of the hand hearkens to the penalty for the Perizzi king, Adoni-bezek:

??????? ??????? ????? ???????????? ???????? ??????????? ????? ???????????? ???-????????? ?????? ??????????: ????????? ???????-????? ????????? ???????? ????????? ???????? ???????????? ??????????? ????? ??????????? ?????? ?????????? ????????? ????????? ???? ???????-??? ????[??]?? ???????????? ???????????? ???????? ????:

And he fled, Adoni-bezek, and they pursued after him and they seized him and they chopped the thumbs of his hands and his feet. And he said, Adoni-Bezek, “70 kings’ thumbs of their hands and their feet were chopped. They were gathered under my table. As which I did so is G-d’s punishment to me.” And they brought him [to] Jerusalem and he died there.80

The nation of Israel allowed Adoni-bezek to die a natural death because he sincerely repented his deeds. Also, for the record, “The history of the Jews proves that they did not take this as a precedent, for they did not treat any other captives this way.”81 Even so, O?ate did not punish the Hopi king; he punished two stray Hopis. Nor is it likely that Spanish records noted that chopping off enemies’ hands was a Hopi practice. Scalping is the famous practice of the natives (acquired from the Europeans), not chopping off hands. Eventually, word of O?ate’s unbiblical judgment reached higher Spanish authorities and he was dismissed from his investment, effectively losing everything (akin to the consequences for Judge Aaron Persky in modern times after ruling a six-month jail sentence in the 2016 Brock Turner would-be rape case).82

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76 “Chapter III: O?ate’s Disenchantment: 1595–1617,” National Park Service, accessed October 23, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/kcc/chap3a.htm.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 Judges 1:6–7.

81 ArtScroll (Mesorah Publications) Judges 1:4–7.

82 Sarah Moon and Amanda Watts, “The Judge who Was Recalled after the Brock Turner Case Is Fired from his New Job as a High School Tennis Coach,” CNN, September 12, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/12/us/brock-turner-case-judge-fired-coaching-job/index.html.

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