Did Noah curse the Indians and blacks throughout Canaan?
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According to the Bible, all the human race comes from Noah (Gn 9:18-19). Gn 10 offers a table of nations following the offspring of the three sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth. A crucial debate was to explain from what son of Noah were coming the Indians of the New World. The question was not trivial, given that Canaan, the son of Ham, was cursed by Noah and condemned to be a servant of the servants of his brothers because of the unseemly behavior of his father (Gen 9:20-29). This story was used from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to justify the trade of black slaves, especially in the Anglo-Saxon sphere. This article analyzes how some of the most relevant interpretations of Gen 9:20-27 made by the Spanish writers of the Indies during the 16th and 17th centuries could have affected the consideration of the Indians and blacks.
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