Culture is the expression of a people's creativity - everything they make which is distinctively theirs: language, music, art, religion, healing, agriculture, cooking style, and the institutions governing social life. To suppress culture is to shoot somebody in the heart. Such a conquest is more accomplished than a massacre. "We have seen the colonization materially kills the colonized. It must be added that it kills them spiritually. Colonization distorts relationships, destroys and petrifies institutions, and corrupts... both colonizers and the colonized."With that in mind the question at hand is whether the Jesuits were guilty of cultural genocide in their interactions with the Native Americans. I believe that according to the definition of cultural genocide the Jesuits were guilty but they also had a positive impact on the Native Americans. They gave the Guannini a home and sheltered them from being enslaved. The community that was portrayed in The Mission was one of a communal benefit. The Guannini were able to feed and support themselves so that they were able to live a somewhat happy and prosperous life. I believe that in the movie is said that the San Carlos mission profited nearly 14,xxx quid from exporting some of their goods.The Jesuits were guilty because they took their beliefs (which were paganistic) and replaced them with that of the Bible. When the Cardinal makes his decision to make it so that the Guannini must leave the mission (the Spanish and Portugese go what they wanted) the Guannini can't understand why God wanted them to leave and felt betrayed. They think that it isn't fair that God can just leave them and that they never should have trusted the Jesuits.The Guannini were not forced however to make the decision to convert. From what we were shown in the movie their decision to convert was not brought down on them by social forces or by implicit threats from more powerful entities. They could hav...
