Historical Context In the Writings of Diaz, Locke, Marx, Engels, and Jules Verne

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by his secretary Gomara (who had not even been to America), Diaz wrote The True History of the Conquest of New Spain when he was an old man of almost eighty. Although lacking a sophisticated literary style, the work is recognized as an important eyewitness account of the Spanish conquests in the Americas, and the subjugation of the native people by the Spanish colonists.
While reading The Conquest one has to remember the historical context in which the book has been written. It is clear that despite giving a detailed and apparently faithful account of "what he saw" Diaz does not doubt the "right" of the ownership of the Spanish explorers to possess the lands of the "New World" in the name of Christianity and the Spanish monarchs. At that time Europeans simply assumed that if representatives of Christian nations discovered previously unknown lands and peoples, they had the right and the "responsibility" to take charge of them. Hence, while the Spanish conquerors decimated and ...

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the political direction taken by politics in England thereafter. Locke wrote his Second Treatise of Civil Government in 1690 in which he has elaborated his political theory of civil government as a rational and voluntary creation of the people wishing to leave a chaotic state of nature. In this, Locke echoes the view of Thomas Hobbes. Locke, however, took a more optimistic view of human nature and unlike Hobbes considered people 'inherently good.' In the Second Treatise Locke advocated the right of the people to change governments that do not respect individual's rights. He believed fervently that sovereignty lies with the people and not with the monarch or the state. His ...

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