Blue Hegemony

Blue Hegemony was commissioned by the Montana Committee for the Humanities and The Sovereign Tribal Nations of Montana; featured at "Beyond Columbus: The Re-discovery of the Americas" Conference, April 1991. 

Narrative: Fifty-eight years after Columbus landed in the Caribbean Islands Gines de Sepulveda met Don Fray de Las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa, by royal order of the Spanish Emperor Charles, at Valladolid, Spain in August 1550 to debate the moral dilemma in which the Spanish Empire found itself embroiled. The empire always maintained that the reason for conquering the new world was to convert the barbarians to Christianity; the mission was sanctioned by God. In practice, however tens of thousands of indigenous peoples were being slaughtered, their wealth shipped to Spain and their territory confiscated and occupied by Spaniards. 

    This six-day-long debate over whether Indians had souls or not was conducted in Latin, the official legalize of the empire.

    The multi-media work includes elements of the debate juxtaposed to a contemporary game show -  Tell Me Wha'D'ey Say! "Escape into history on a dream vacation!" (Total length 39:26; game show @ 5:36)