Skip to main content

But Rather to Hell

Image
Written by Published on

 Recently, I was reminded of the story of Hatuey, a chief of the indigenous Taíno people in the 1500s. Struck by its power, I wanted to share his story with you. I will offer no commentary or evaluation, but rather, I will allow you to reflect upon this story yourself. I hope it impacts you as profoundly as it’s beginning to with me.

--
"Taíno chief Hatuey... was from the island that later became Hispaniola. After actively opposing the Spanish colonizer’s cruelty against the Indigenous inhabitants, Hatuey organized 400 men who traveled by canoe to Cuba[. They aimed] to warn the inhabitants there and urge their resistance to the Spaniard colonizers’ genocidal cruelty. After fighting guerrilla-style against the Spaniards, Hatuey was captured on February 2, 1512 and burned at the stake." [1]


The historian Bartolomé de las Casas wrote this account of Chief Hatuey's execution:

"[A] Franciscan monk, a holy man, who was there, spoke as much as he could to [Chief Hatuey], in the little time that the executioner granted them, about God and some of the teachings of our faith, of which he had never before heard; he told him that if he would believe what was told him, he would go to heaven where there was glory and eternal rest; and if not, that he would go to hell, to suffer perpetual torments and punishment.

After thinking a little, Hatuey asked the monk whether the Christians went to heaven; the monk answered that those who were good went there. [Chief Hatuey] at once said, without any more thought, that he did not wish to go there, but rather to hell so as not to be where Spaniards were, nor to see such cruel people."[2]
--

-----
Notes
-----


[1] “Who Is Hatuey?” The Hatuey Project, n.d. https://www.hatueyproject.org/who-is-hatuey/.

[2] Francis Augustus Macnutt. Bartholomew de Las Casas : His Life, Apostolate, and Writings. Cleveland, OH: General Books, 2007. Emphasis added by me.

Labels:
Published in Fort Worth, TX, USA

Popular posts from this blog

To My Fellow Young Ministers,

Written by Published on
To my fellow young ministers, In leading the German people towards a perpetration of genocide, Adolf Hitler execrably stated that "the personification of the Devil, as the symbol of all evil, assumes the living appearance of the Jew." Written a decade-and-a-half before the Shoah, these words (and many like them) sparked an ideological mobilization among the German people that led to the systematic murder of over six million Jewish people. This was the birth of a genocide - not the killing of the first beloved child, but the authoring of these hateful words by an ideological leader. Today, more than ever since, words like these are promulgated by such leaders. In our context, these words are spewed by a despot not unlike the leader of the Third Reich, whose words of hate have reached all parts of the popular American consciousness. Just as the speeches of Adolf Hitler rang across the German nation, so too have his speeches of hate slashed at the consciouses of all Americans. B...
Continue reading »

You Can't Recreate a Moment

Written by Published on
I told her that "you can't recreate a moment."  This phrase had been on my mind for a while - the idea that specific moments in time cannot be recreated, that such snapshots of one's life cannot be relived. When I said this to her, I acknowledged that life's moments are unique and that people are always growing and changing. We were discussing the preceding weeks that we spent growing in friendship, and though these moments were fun, simple, and seemingly right, the moments we experienced were unique to the time they happened. So, when I told her that "you can't recreate a moment," I knew the moments of the last few weeks to now be past. -- I remember driving back from swimming at the river, the doors off of the jeep and the wind blowing all around. I was alone, but fulfilled, having just finished swimming with my buddies for hours on end. The speedometer may have been broken, but it didn't matter how fast I was going. I was exactly where I wante...
Continue reading »

Welcome to My Journal

Written by Published on
Like Augustus McCrae, I'm partial to the evenings. I love to sit, relax, and watch as the sun trails its way to the horizon. Sometimes, I imagine my dad and grandpa in the chairs around me, talking about the weather as we wait for the beer-can chicken to finally be done. To these evenings, I am quite partial. These evenings are my safe space, my refuge from the world around me – the world around us. Yet, as I sit in the escape of these simple evenings, I know that I must soon return to the world, like my father and his father before him. I've come to realize these evenings don't last forever. The sun sets every night. Reflecting on these evenings, I have realized what an escape they truly are. Though they let me escape the rat race and exist without consequence, they are only a temporary release from the chaotic reality of the world. My evenings are only a speck of peace in the universe's conflict. My escape seems to be nothing more than a willful ignorance of the world...
Continue reading »