Relativism dragged into America

In the Conquest of America, if we look at the details of what happened in the history of Spanish conquests there, there is a total lack of relativism. Since we are comparing the two books, this weeks and The Sparrow, I think it is interesting how ideas about allowing others religious and social freedoms have changed. When the Spanish were exploring / plundering the Americas, they could bearly even concieve of the local populance having a different social structure or language base. Columbus and the subsiquent leaders depicted in the book think it is their right and duty to give these people "culture". However, in The Sparrow the Jesuit mission was very careful not to try and impose anything on the societies they met and have as little impact on their way of life as possible. They didnt want to kill or take anything from them. Perhaps then we should look at the difference in the nature of the missions between the Jesuits and the Spanish.

The Jesuits went to a new planet knowing that there would be differences, perhaps ones that would be fatal to themselves or perhaps the locals. On the other hand the Spanish went to American is search of wealth and an area to populate and use for its on social and economic goals. In light of the face that these two cases were very different in their inherant nature and purpose, does it show anything consistant within the practices of caring for cultural relativism or does it instead show that cultural relativism did not always exist? When the Spanish went to the Americas they did not have any regard for the practices of the people. They took advantage of them and used them till many of them died or became disfunctional. They attempted to convert many of the cultures to Catholicism and did not believe any of the local practices could be justifid simply because they were different from what the Spanish had known. Personally, I dont think cultural relativism came into play in the international community in dealing with forein nations until colonization and the movement for independant nation states was completed after WWI. After that time, we started attempting to explain the practices of other people, not attempting to change them, because they were inherantly different and therefore had to be judged under their own moral codes. But now, looking toward the future, who are we going to allow to be the judge for alien species? How can we say what is a greater good for a group on another planet when we cannot even decide this as a unified who on our own home planet? It seems to me that cultural relativism might have saved the indigenous peoples of America from the Spanish torment, but that was during a time when people were greedy for resources and could justify eliminating another race. Now that the international community poo poos genocide, does that mean that relativism has only come onto the scene recently? If one were to say that we all belong under the same moral jurisdiction, then it would be easy enough for a race to claim supriority over another. Just some musings... what do yall think?