March, 2010
Is success simply immoral?
This essay was originally conceived in the nature of a thought experiment, devil's advocacy if you will. In the name of a type of fairplay, I purposefully took up a position that I knew would be incredibly unpopular. So unpopular in fact that the subject is never broached from this angle. I was surprised at how persuasive my arguments were since I had no agenda other than contrariness for its own sake when I began writing it but let it flow out as it came. The result is largely an extemporaneous first draft.
It has been a given in the increasingly politically correct and less pragmatically worldly climate in the West in recent years to cry "foul" when assessing the legacy of Western colonial powers in regard to it's history and conquest of countries today considered as being in the Third World. In this climate it is taken for granted that the West conquered and even enslaved cultures which were themselves wholly innocent in the affairs of that selfsame conquest and slavery. The very success of the West and it's military, economic and technical institutions has laid it open in retrospect to charges of immorality from those cultures it has dominated militarily, ecomically and culturally. Being ironically a victim of it's own success at creating institutions to ameliorate the suffering of the average man based on everything from the Magna Carta to the United States Constitution has even laid the West open to the same charges of immoral conquest and resultant guilt from within it's own culture due to Americans having won their battles and now having the luxury of free and unthreatened time to pillory its own nation; there is nothing like the freedom from invasion, civil wars and being killed by native Americans to free up pen and paper.
There was no time, for example, for moral considerations when several hundred settlers were killed by Dakotas in Minnesota during the Civil War. Even if one agrees that every one of them were not innocent and had no business being there on Dakota land in the first place, that is not the argument - the argument is which side you were on and not which side was right. Only in hindsight can an entire swath of a culture, many decades later, have the luxury to switch sides and attack itself as "imperialists". Retro views of history such as this serve no purpose since the people who now loathe our own history won't be ceding their assets and property to native-Americans anytime soon. It is then merely a rhetorical argument, meant to assuage misplaced white guilt or assert moral superiority in a context that is wholly unreal. In this modern scenario of history, success is not celebrated but moralized and failure patronizingly awarded a moral dimension as a second place prize to people that liberals regard as not fully capable while bewilderingly assessing them as fully equal in a typical example of Leftist 'doublethink' that is divorced from any cogent view of reality. This upside-down view of success is now applied to modern minority groups who are themselves buying into the view that any success wholly measured by Western standards they consider decadent is immoral and their own failures a mark of success; how can it be otherwise since success in these terms is unattainable? Once again, you have people who are considered by the Left as fully functioning human beings nevertheless treated in reality as 2nd class humans by having treasure and Affirmative Action programs thrown their way to help them assert their equality on their own terms, those terms being the de facto assumption that the lack of success be laid at the feet of others and not themselves - again, arguably unattainable. Black Liberation Theologist Jim Cone says, "today whites destroy him (blacks) by crowding him into a ghetto and letting filth and despair put the final touches on death." Unfortunately, equality when it comes to success is reality and not an idea. The mistaken notion that Americans hug to their breast that 'all men are created equal' is actually an idea struggled over in Europe for the length and breadth of the 18th century that was about the God given divine right of kings to rule. It is a perfect example of modern man altering the context of history to suit its own contemporary concerns.
Some few modern Americans now look at our history as if it were an easy and sure 'conquest', a done deal, unable to put themselves in the mind of or mindsets of the people and events of history; gone is the context of an uncertain competition. The Mexican-American War is now looked at from the perspective of a modern successful American military and not the ragtag US army, cut off from its base of supplies, which conquered the capital of Mexico itself in a war that was by no means a sure thing at the time; in hindsight, those who do not like the story of America look at that Mexico of the mid-19th century with a modern view as a group of children unable to compete while nothing could be further from the truth since Mexico had the same weapons technology as did the United States. It was an age of national competitions and native Americans no less a culture than any other, bereft only of technology, which they eagerly used when able, and not bereft of the same intent as other men, being after all, humans. The madness and distortion of modern political correctness has skewed the Western view of the immorality of it's own history of successful competition and now many within the West dislike the the story of that history while at the same time enjoying the legacy of that success; in fact, one could make the argument that it is that very success that enables such a quaint view of history.
Political correctness creates delusion when it comes to looking back at history and the real truth of the story of the success of the West is a story of winning a competition rather than immorally dominating cultures who eschewed ever playing at war and conquest. In history, whenever culture's of any makeup have touched one another the technologically superior culture has conquered the other. This has been the nature of humanity like it or not.
The biggest myth surrounding these considerations today in America is the myth surrounding black slavery during the early centuries of the United States which is portrayed as a white supremicist racist act rather than an example of man's inhumanity to man which is what it was. Slavery has been endemic in the Mediterranean basin for centuries and skin color has had nothing to do with it. That tradition of slavery is also true in Africa not only in it's history but to this very day. No export of slaves from Africa by Europeans would have ever existed without the aid and connivance of other black Africans as well as Arabs. White Europeans did not penetrate into the interior of Africa until the slave trade to the New World had been going on for centuries and buy that time American and British ships cruised the Atlantic Ocean to interdict slave ships who traffic was now illegal. African slaves were captured by other Africans and delivered to the coast and waiting Western ships; it is only on the coasts of Africa that white slavers had any presence. Today, black Americans contend that white Americans advance this view of history with more of a view to assuaging their own guilt than with presenting a fair and impartial view of history.
In this sense, it is the latest countries in history to indulge in slavery that are taking a moral beating rather than all of the countries and for some reason any culture that is not white but which equally participated in the Atlantic slave trade is left out of the equation, especially by black Americans. Apparently being a slave in Africa itself would have been far preferable to being one in America. For the descendants of those Africans who were enslaved in Africa itself there is no finger pointing going on because everyone in Africa is black and so it is taken for granted that it was done from reasons of man's inhumanity to man and not because of any racial dimension and so largely forgotten. Having said that, the slave trade is alive and well to the tune of hundreds of thousands of enslaved people in Africa in the 21st century. In America, the slave masters were white and so it is taken for granted that it was done for reasons of specific racial depravity and notion's of white supremacy. In Africa, the exact same scenario has an entirely different tone to it, devoid of any racial element.
Because of their history in the New World, black Americans tend to have a view that is Afro-Centric, viewing much through a lens of race and so the view of the history of slavery in the New World as one of man's inhumanity to man is not a popular one in the black community or given any kind of real credence. A teacher at Ohio St. named Robert Davis has estimated that 1 to 1.25 million Europeans were carted off and enslaved by North Africans from the 16th to the 19th century. The reason this hasn't received more attention or had a racial component attached is because European history has provided a rather more pragmatic view of the general capacity for man's cruelty regardless of race and they have simply moved on. Also, there has simply been no issue for attention to center around when it comes to European slaves in North Africa such as has been the case with the civil rights history of black Americans. In fact, other than an academic interest, nobody cares.
Although the immorality of conquering or enslaving a fellow human being is self evident what we are talking about is comparative morality and not events in isolation. Ironically, in portraying European colonialism as purely racist, isn't it a more nuanced and subtle form of patronizing racism to portray non-whites as not sharing the same all too human qualities as their conquerers? Look at the simplistic portrayal of the black and white characters in Steven Spielberg's film "Amicord?". The blacks are shown to be spiritual, brave, fiercely proud and pure. Whites on the other hand are largely shown to be cruel, morally confused, guilt ridden, bureaucratic and ignorant. In this case, depriving blacks of negative qualities is simply a reiteration of 19th century stereotypes of blacks but turned on it's head while still subjecting blacks to the rather quaint and peculiar ideas white civilization has of "primitive" cultures. Imputing to blacks their inability to be war-like, scheming or clever at dissembling is just a kinder form of racism. In this scenario, there is no such thing a a "noble" white savage and in fact, whites are simply savages regardless of their airs, technology or clothing.
The success of Europeans and their imperializing and conquering ways versus the East has not always gone in their favor other than recently as witness the repeated failure of the medieval Crusades as well as the first 300 years of European wars against the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans not only had superior military organization and tactics but no internal strife such as distracted the Europeans; ironically it was the European lack of success against the Ottomans and Islam in general that closed the eastern door and that led to the discovery and conquest of the New World by Spain. The fall of Constantinople to the Turks sealed the fate of Tenochtitlan just 67 years later. And now the ethnic Greek city of Constantinople itself is as forever vanished as is Tenochtitlan; skin color and religion should attach no greater or lesser morality one way or the other is this regard and it should be reiterated that both cities before being overwhelmed had engaged in their own empire building as well as slavery.
Can one make an argument that not only were cultures such as the Aztecs, Incans and North American plains Indians wholly conversant with war, conquest and slavery but simpy had done to them what they would have done to Europe had they possessed the ability to do so? Were the cultures conquered and colonialized in Africa and India innocents in a Garden Of Eden, entirely unaware and uncomtaminated by Machiavellian politics and war?
Had the Aztec possessed machine guns and ships and discovered Europe before in turn being discovered would they have attacked and conquered Europe? Were the collective cultures of the New World so devoid of human traits such as greed, jealousy and murder that Europe would have been safe? Does technological innovation and advanced immorality go hand in hand? Is the successful prosecution of war and conquest by one culture against any other culture less immoral if a technological advantage is not an issue? I think the idea that technology or lack of it has a moral dimension is a childish notion and in fact immorality and morality are the constants and not weaponry and not dependent on weaponlogy except insofar as it can extend immorality or protect morality.
To answer such questions depends on your view of humanity in general and it's capacity for violence against fellow humans without regard to it's place on the technological ladder. Is the reason the conquest of the Aztecs by the Conquistadors is today looked at as so immoral because of an unfair technological advantage possessed by the Europeans; I have never seen it depicted as such. Rather, that conquest of Mexico is simply regarded as a type of racist war crime today. Did the Conquistadors have such a dim view of the ethics of their fellow humans that any war of conquest was simply regarded as a type of pre-emptive strike against those who would have done the same to them had they been able to? Was Hernan Cortes the ultimate cynic of human nature or merely the ultimate opportunist or was he in fact a realist swimming in the waters of his 16th century world?
Successive waves of immigration from Spain to the newly conquered Mexico brought with it more elements of Spanish institutions and this included the Catholic church which was largely against the enslavement and sometimes murderous treatment of the native Americans. So, what we have are warring elements within conquering cultures themselves that carry their own view of morality when it comes to conquest yet the more moral elements were never enough to prevent such conquests and always too late in the case of the New World. Nevertheless the question remains: do superior cultural and military organizations possess in themselves morality inferior to cultures less so equpped to fend off conquest based purely on that inability? Is any culture of humans ever truely innocent? Is the idea that one cannot make war on another culture unless that culture is on a level technological playing field and then it is somehow okay or better? War should always be wrong and if not it cannot then be other than always right unless purely in defense. The idea that a purely defensive yet capable army ever existed is not a realistic one in history for the most part; a capable army is almost always used or how could it be capable?
It is important to remember that Cortes would never have been able to conquer the Aztec Empire without the help of thousands of native American auxiliaries as his own force of Spaniards was quite small, numbering in the hundreds. Those Mexican auxiliaries hated and feared the Aztecs; why? Because the Aztecs had conquered and enslaved their neighbors not to mention sacrificed them at particularly gruesome religious rites. Neverthless it is doubtful those Mexican allies would ever have aided Cortes had they realized that the same dismal fate as the Aztecs would soon overtake them and their entire culture disappear from the face of the earth. In the end the Aztec Empire was no match for the quick and aggressive resolve of Cortes and the almost supernatural aspect of Spanish horses and terrible cannon not to mention good Toledo steel in the form of swords and armor. By the time resolve hardened with the Aztecs against the Spanish it was too late and their own legacy of empire building and naked conquest destroyed them as their native American enemies and reluctant allies were instrumental in the downfall of Tenochtitlan.
While Bernal Diaz' "The History Of the Conquest Of Mexico" is generally regarded as one of the greatest stories ever told it is also the sad tale of the disappearance one of the most brilliant civilizations that ever existed in the New World. The Conquistadors were cruel and rapacious in the conquest of Mexico and yet I attach no morality or lack of it to the story; one empire killed and enslaved and were in turn killed and enslaved. A technological advantage was neither here nor there in sizing up the relative morals of the 2 foes and their respective systems or the morality of what happened. Cortes and his ilk as well as his foes were men of their times and possessed a value system almost incomprehensible to those of us in the 21st century.
The cruelty with which the Spanish treated their conquered foes is almost impenetrable to those of us who look back through time but so it was that exact era's penchant of the English to draw and quarter people or the Spanish Inquisition's to use instruments of torture. Roman cruelty during the heyday of their empire 1,500 years earlier is simply unfathomable to ponder today but the Aztecs were no less so.
In it's heyday, Islam during the medieval era conquered culture after culture in the vacuum of power left in the wake of the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the retrenchment of it's Eastern half which, together with the resultant onset of the Dark Ages, resulted in a scenario of almost unimpeded success for Islamic armies in the former spheres of influence of the Roman Empire.
With the end of World War I, centuries of Islamic sway in the middle east gave over to the growing economic, technological power and military organization of Europe and now the shoe was emphatically on the other foot. Does the initial success of Islamic armies and then the consequent Western predominance carry any moral consideration based on the idea of dominance or lack of predominance? The real question seems to be one of intent and the ability to carry out that intent rather than any claims of cultural innocence and yet now that the military option has been taken from middle eastern countries that area of the world has turned increasingly to appealing to the rule of law as represented by the United Nations and international courts and tribunals and one can have no doubt that, were the armies of Islam again in the ascendant that a view of international rule of law would go right out the window.
This is particularly true in regard to the former Palestine. Islam, having failed to militarily oust the Jews from Israel has adopted an ever more moral tone to their criticisms of Israel. There is in fact a connection when it comes to moral perceptions in direct correlation between a culture's success or failure in military adventurism.
Despite their past track record of violent conquest, muslim countries in the middle east in the 21st century frame dialogues involving Western predominance over Islam and that Western history of colonialism and imperialism in the middle east in a moral framework. In this moralizing anti-Western rhetoric emmanating from the Islamic middle east, it's own history of naked aggression and conquest against European countries from Spain to Bulgaria when Islam had the capacity to make real such conquests and domination are simply ignored. Islamic hypocrisy in this regard is so blind to it's own past that they are fond of referring to the West as Crusaders. After having had it's own way for the better part of 13 centuries Islam has at last discovered the "value" in the rule of law. Unfortunately Islam's discovery of moralizing protests and the rule of law has less to do with it's own version of a Magna Carta or Age Of Enlightenment than it does with having a few middle eastern countries military options chopped off at the wrist by Israeli tanks and planes and by the military predominance of the West in general. One thing is certain, the West have been less brutal in its ascendancy than would be the case were the shoe on an Islamic foot. If it wished, the West could easily enslave the entirety of the middle east.
Make no mistake, Islamic hypocrisy in throwing out such words to describe the West as imperialist and colonialist is extreme. Islam was only finally thrown out of the Iberian peninsula once and for all in the same year as Columbus' first voyage, 1492, and that voyage was set in motion by Islamic conquests having shut down trade routes to the East. For hundreds of years before that Spain and Portugal were colonized and "imperialized" by Islamic armies and the indigenous Iberians had no United Nations to complain and moralize to. Instead it took 8 centuries for the Iberians to reconquer their land and expel the last muslim army. This scenario was repeated throughout the middle east, North Africa and even into India and as far as the gates of Vienna but Spain would remain the only Mediterranean nation to ever take itself out from under Islam. Whatever cultures in the Mediterranean Basin have a claim to a type of xenophobia brought about by a history of invading armies it is not an Islamic culture and ironically, the cultures that were conquered by Islam have disappeared and so of course the xenophobia is entirely directed outwards rather than inwards had those lands ever been able to throw off the yolk of Islam. Islamic moralizing about Western "Crusaders" rings entirely hollow. When it comes to a sense of fair play Islamic cultures seem incapable of it, fueled by being in denial about the nature of their own history.
Editorials in the middle east are fond of characterizing America as an Imperialist entity but no American army in history came even close to the extent of empire building as have the armies of Islam; before 9/11 the only American army to come anywhere close to the middle east were American forces in World War II who invaded and subsequently used North Africa to in turn invade Nazi occupied southern Europe. For hundreds of years the entire Mediterranean Basin was conquered and terrorized by Islamic armies. Since the end of Islamic momentum in the Mediterranean Islam itself has only briefly been subjected to what it subjected Europeans and others to for centuries when the voices of moraliy in the West decried such acts, voices entirely non-existant within Islam. Although Islam in North Africa and the middle east did subsequently come under the sway of European countries this was not prosecuted with any kind of emphatic imperial or colonial intensity and so was short lived and unfocused. Africa and India would be a different story in this regard but not the middle east.
It is hard to fathom the level of hypocrisy a culture like contemporary Islam indulges in in pretending to a type of xenophobia brought about by suffering a history of marauding Western armies when in fact the exact opposite is much closer to the truth. Islamic complaints about the depradations of the West lack any sense of proportion or merit and if any culture ever lacked moral high ground when comes to the issue of Imperialism and colonialism in history it is Islam.
The same moralizing comes from cultures from Bolivia to India and from South Africa to Jordan; it seems to be a given among these cultures that they never themselves played at the game of war and conquest and so from a moral point of view are entirely innocent. But what really is the source of this so-called innocence; it is technological inferiority. Are these cultures really so innocent, minding their own business as it were when they were overwhelmed and conquered or are we really talking about the ebb and flow and timing of fortunes when it comes to technological predominance in military affairs? Is it a question of "There but for the grace of God go I?", and so let's hit them before they can hit us? Was it ethics that kept India from trying to conquer Europe or was it in fact the lack of the means and opportunity to do so. If you think this sounds ridiculous armies from just as far away as India pillaged Eastern Europe in the late middle ages.
The attachment of a moral question involving the past conquest of today's Third World countries by the West also seems to grow in direct relation to the cultural and temporal distance involved. In other words, it is apparently less immoral for one native American tribe to subjugate another than to have the same thing done by a European; they are all humans and I see no difference.
What all the moralizing about colonialism and Imperialism seems to really amount to is not so much a question of morality but ability. Native Americans revile Columbus Day but at the time of Columbus weren't those selfsame native Americans busy conquering and enslaving one another? In this sense, aren't any rhetorical moral judgements against Columbus really a judgement against success? One certainly cannot expect native Americans to have anything but bitter feelings against Columbus and the Conquistadors but for historical acamedicians to buy into the arguably non-existant innocence of pre-Columbian civilizations is another thing. This is the pitfall in judging history entirely by current moral standards.
The world of Columbus and Cortes was much more of a kill or be killed world when it came to the way cultures interacted one with the other and the League Of Nations still some 4 centuries in their future. In that past world, war and slavery were endemic and one must be careful what moral attachments one gives to it's actions. Taken in this light, much so called moralizing about colonialism and imperialism comes off rather as the bitter and one might say hypocritical complaints of losers and nothing else as there is little if any moral difference between a conquerer and an erstwhile conquerer.
To portray Europeans as racist simply because of their relatively recent penchant for success historically is a self-defeating act since it portrays non-Europeans as perrenial losers rather than just the latest victims of the ebb and flow of history at which all culures have had their turn in greater or lesser proportion depending on geographical location and the vagaries of fate.
All of history's great empires which once had their place in the sun are now vanquished and to portray the long and ancient history of that story only from the perspective of the struggle between East and West, New World and Old, white people and people of color in the context of a story that occupies only the last few centuries of that long history is childish. It is a patronizing and apologetic form of racism and bigotry in itself in that it assign morals and motivations and a penchant for evil based on success, skin color and culture rather than recognizing that all humans share a capacity for good and evil in equal measure.
In history there have been many great military competitions between cultures that have had nothing to do with the West's own rather provinical and culturally anti-chauvinistic views based on contemporary politically correct views of the history of The East India Company or American civil rights. One needs to look at history with a better and longer eye, based less on race than on human failings or triumphs. Moreover, it is important to look at conquered cultures as cultures who have in their turn conquered when given the opportunity rather than portraying them as innocent victims who never themselves rolled the dice of war and slavery. Reverse racism is racism nonetheless and neither should play a part in assessing history except in obvious cases such as Nazi Germany or the Ku Klux Klan. Notions of racial or culture supremacy are not recent phenomenon or particular to any race but pollute the long history of mankind. To portray this history as otherwise through comtemporary notions of political correctness and misplaced guilt is foolish on the face of it.
Ironically in the West it is the very cultures who are the latest conquerers, those cultures most successful in putting distance between themselves and a dog eat dog past who have provided the scope to uncomtemporaneously rework their own history in terms of it's moral perspective. We in the West viewing ourselves as immoral conquerers do so because we have the luxury to do so and nothing else. There is no question of Hawaii being given back to it's indigenous people nor the Great Plains to the Sioux or Crow and any guilt expressed over this is given lip service and nothing else.
Today in the 21st century the most noteworthy example of this essay's thrust is the contentious plight of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel. Those Palestinian Arabs, all too willing to try the military option to promote their ethnic and cultural agenda and having failed at it, now portray themselves as being unfairly and immorally occupied and oppressed when in fact they tried to oppress the Jews and occupy the entirety that same land, refusing to recognize any right to non-muslims to immigrate in any but small numbers into Mandatory Palestine; one would have to be a fool to believe that the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine would have reacted with such hostility to mass immigration from muslim polities - a right to immigrate should not be based on religion or bigotry. One side is not more moral than the other, one side is simply the loser. In this instance, success itself has attained the dimensions of immorality.
A culture's capacity for success at war or lack thereof in and of itself neither bestows nor takes away morality; this is simply a conceit engendered by the winner's guilty descendants some generations down the line, long after their own culture's conquest and consolidation of that conquest is complete. This idea of projecting morality onto a culture's fortunes is also shared by the losers and their children but for different reasons, sheer bitterness probably the predominant reason. Unless you believe war was unknown among native Americans then in speaking of conquest one is talking about proportion and the capacity for success which does not possess any moral dimension. That moral dimension lies in intent and judging intent across gulfs of time and without context is a chancy thing, fraught with pitfalls.
Assigning morality or ethics to a technologically primitive culture because of some notion that it is "closer to nature", untainted by the stain of civilization as if by conscious choice is foolhardy. Native Americans didn't have automobiles because of some conscious and spiritual rejection of such things but because they couldn't manufacture them. This seems obvious on the face of it yet the West persists in behaving as if primitive societies possess some intrinsic good lost to technological civilizations and this is the font from which the West's naive notions about the morality of the conquest of the New World spring. Lack of technology does not magically grant a morally superior position and war is not something that automatically accompanies a culture's technological rise. Men have been killing each other since they could lift a rock and technology is a better way to kill and not an enabler in and of itself. When Europeans came to the New World they found every culture without exception had weapons designed to kill other men. Living in harmony with nature is one thing and living in harmony with one's fellow man another.
The following is an excerpt from "The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain" by Bernal Diaz del Castillo; Diaz is describing the weaponry of the Aztecs he saw with his own eyes in the Mexican capital of Tenochtitlan: " Montezuma had also two arsenals filled with arms of all kinds, many of which were ornamented with gold and precious stones. The arms comprised shields of different sizes, swords, and a broad-sword wielded with both hands, the edge of flint so extremely sharp that the swords cut much better than our Spanish ones. There were also lances, longer than ours, pointed at the end, a fathom long, set with several sharp flints. The pikes are so very sharp and hard that they will pierce the strongest shield, and cut like a razor ; so that the Mexicans even shave themselves with these flints. There were also excellent bows and arrows, pikes with single and double points, and suitable thongs to project them ; slings, with round stones purposely made for them ; also large shields, so ingeniously made that they could be rolled up when not wanted. These shields are unrolled on the field of battle, and completely cover the whole body from the head to the feet. We also saw a great many kinds of cuirasses made of quilted cotton, which were adorned on the outside with soft feathers of different colors, and looked like uniforms. We also saw morions and helmets constructed of wood and bones, adorned with feathers. There were artificers always at work, who continually augmented this store of arms ; and the arsenals were under the care of certain persons, who also superintended the manufacturing departments."
It seems then that Europeans perceived those peoples of the New World as no different from themselves when it came to the intent to make war but simply less capable technologically to do so. This probably engendered in many from Europe the idea that those in the New World differed from themselves only in their capacity for war and not in moral intent. Did Europeans see what they wanted to see in order for them to carry on appropriating land? Certainly there were those among the Europeans, especially amongst the religious clergy, who felt that the treatment of native Americans in the New World was reprehensible; others amonst the European orders simply wanted to convert peoples they felt were heathens. In reading the letters of Cortes, there is a sense that Cortes himself felt that his position was not entirely secure in terms of the perception among his fellow Europeans back home that what he was doing in Mexico was moral. To a certain extent, Cortes relied on greed, the prospect of financial gain, to ameliorate any injured ethics back in Spain. To others back home and among Europeans in Mexico itself, the Conquistadors usually resorted to glib legalese to shore up their position and deflect criticism or direct action against that position.
The ordering of events in America was quite different from Mexico. In Mexico the Spaniards found a sprawling centralized state and when Cortes cut off it's head he effectively brought to heel a vast area of land in one fell swoop. In North America conquest was much more gradual and piecemeal competing attempts by the French, Spanish and English with different imperatives and without a grand plan but rather a process of gradual expansion rather than formal naked conquest based on the desire to acquire land to farm and homestead and territory in general. In America slaves were imported from Africa and native Americans not used in such a capacity nor did the North American natives immediately die in droves from deseases brought from Europe because their populations were much smaller and decentralized.
In Mexico almost the opposite was the case in that slaves from Africa were not brought to Mexico in nearly the same numbers as America and indigenous Mexicans were used in forced labor because of a larger and more centralized population base than was the case in the present day United States, although a large percentage of native Mexicans died from European desease. The decentralized nature of life in America that spared the natives there although this turned out to be only a brief respite.
Lest one think that morality is not attached to the general tone of wars or to that of one side versus another consider World War II. Compared to World War I the Second World War not only has moral overtones as a whole but there is a much more definite feeling of the moral high ground attached to Germany's opponents in the Second World War as opposed to the First, the Holocaust saw to that. The Holocaust is where the real immorality lies in the case of Nazi Germany; methodically organizing the attempted cold blooded murder of 11 million European Jews took the concept of war to a new level. Yet even besides that, Germany's soldier's in World War II are often portrayed in post-WW II films as brutal for the sheer joy of it. In the case of Nazi Germany's aggressive war against it's neighbors, this had been happening in Europe for centuries, with different cultures and nations occupying a commanding position according to the vagaries of historical events. Aside from the Holocaust, what makes WW I and WW II seem particularly immoral is the superior organization and technologies which led to the deaths of millions more people than in previous centuries though it is fair to say that all war is brutal to those who suffer. Seen from a very long distance, it is war and mankind's penchant for war itself that is immoral and not success at war. All cultures throughout history have been opportunistic in regard to war and there are no innocent nations, only the perception of such; most nations in history did not invade other nations because they could not rather than because they would not.
The suggestion therefore that Europeans 'stole' land from the native-Americans is a fallacy. What really occured in America is that peoples originally from one side of the Eurasian land mass overwhelmed peoples originally from the other side of that land mass. There is no reality in which North America was somehow reserved for the peoples occupying it at the time; this is sheer cultural chauvinism. There can be no claim that it was immoral for anyone to enter North America from Europe as if there was some kind of cut off point in time after native-Americans came over the Bering Straits. Having entered America, the Europeans simply overwhelmed the native-Americans with sheer weight of numbers aside from considerations of technological superiority. The notion that the Europeans 'robbed' America from the Indians is foolishness; the real immorality stems from the way human beings treat one another insofar as the conversion of America from its pre-Columbian population to a European one and not from the notion of intent. Had the pre-Columbian natives had the technological, organizational and numerical wherewithal, they almost certainly would have repelled the Europeans and followed them back to their own lands and subjugated them; would that then have been immoral? Present day native Americans would argue that the takeover of America was a monumental act of immorality and I would argue that the native-Americans would have and did do the same things long before any Europeans touched American shores. The Europeans at that point in history were simply better at it than the native-Americans. Therefore, there should be no question of morals attached to success in this regard but rather to the shared intent of mankind to make war on other men. To argue otherwise is parochialism so vast that it is all but impossible for the West to perceive. Success at war and conquest in and of itself is not immoral because the intent to make war on others is a shared human trait crossing all cultural boundaries; ability is the key word here and not morality.