Song: “Christians Murdered Indians” by Corporate Avenger
In honor of Indigenous People’s Day, I’ve decided to write about one of the most powerful songs I know: “Christians Murdered Indians,” a stunning rap-rock gem from California’s woefully underrated Corporate Avenger, which addresses the savage brutality unleashed by Spanish conquistadors on Native Americans in the 1500s. (TW: torture, genocide, enslavement, colonization.) On a musical intensity scale of 1 (Colbie Caillat putting on her yoga pants) and 10 (Metallica blasting up England’s Wembley Stadium), these guys are at a 50. This song is five minutes and 17 seconds of pure, justified sorrow and fury- made especially powerful by quoting someone who was actually there.
That “someone” was Spanish Dominican friar Bartolome de las Casas (1484–1566), a historian and activist who penned a damning report just before his death called A Short History of the Destruction of the Indies. He’s a bit of a complicated figure and not a wholly innocent one. De las Casas began his time in the New World as a slaveowner himself, but had a change of heart in 1515 after accompanying a military campaign in Cuba as the unit’s chaplain: “I saw here cruelty on a scale no living being has ever seen or expects to see.” The reasons for his 180-degree attitude adjustment might not have been exactly altruistic- he primarily feared “divine punishment” wreaked on his countrymen- but he did become an influential figure in the Spanish court and was appointed the first “Protector of the Indians.” Most significantly, his six decades in Central America made him a star witness to the horrors of the colonial regime.
De las Casas’ testimony is woven throughout this sobering and mighty song, interspersed between bars that blaze with rage and grief:
“Columbus murdered children and now we have a holiday.
Still you want to deny all your history?
Look to the sky for your god to justify
As you commit cultural genocide.
Christians came and the natives they did hang
13 at a time for Jesus and his gang
We are the ones you had to dehumanize
So your murder and greed could be justified. . .”
I don’t really know much about this group, other than they were active around the turn of the millennium and their ever-revolving lineup included members of Kottonmouth Kings and No Doubt. They seem to have had only one album with any modicum of commercial success, 2001’s Freedom is a State of Mind, which my broke teenage ass blessedly happened to stumble upon for $3.99 in the clearance rack of the CD Cellar. It was packaged in a cardboard sleeve and the cover art looked like they’d made it themselves; as I slipped the disc into my boom box, I wasn’t really expecting much. And then “Christians Murdered Indians” came on and completely blew me out of the water. I’m not sure where these guys are today, but I’d love to see them get back in the studio- we need their voices more than ever.
