–“The days grew into months, the months to years, and still the war against the Moors kept on; and still Columbus waited for the chance that did not come. People grew to know him as “the crazy explorer” as they met him in the streets or on the church steps of Seville or Cordova, and even ragged little boys of the town, sharp-eyed and shrill voiced as all such ragged little urchins are, would run after this big man with the streaming white hair and the tattered cloak, calling him names or tapping their brown little foreheads with their dirty fingers to show that even they knew that he was “as crazy as a loon.”
–“For nearly five months, Columbus explored the Caribbean, particularly the islands of Juana (Cuba) and Hispaniola (Santo Domingo), before returning to Spain. He left thirty-nine men to build a settlement called La Navidad in present-day Haiti. He also kidnapped several Native Americans (between ten and twenty-five) to take back to Spain—only eight survived. Columbus brought back small amounts of gold as well as native birds and plants to show the richness of the continent he believed to be Asia.”
– “In an era in which the international slave trade was starting to grow, Columbus and his men enslaved many native inhabitants of the West Indies and subjected them to extreme violence and brutality. On his famous first voyage in 1492, Columbus landed on an unknown Caribbean island after an arduous three-month journey. On his first day in the New World, he ordered six of the natives to be seized, writing in his journal that he believed they would be good servants. Throughout his years in the New World, Columbus enacted policies of forced labor in which natives were put to work for the sake of profits. Later, Columbus sent thousands of peaceful Taino “Indians” from the island of Hispaniola to Spain to be sold. Many died en route. Those left behind were forced to search for gold in mines and on plantations. Within 60 years after Columbus landed, only a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island.”
–“The 1496 census counted 1.13 million people inhabiting that half of the island controlled by Colon and his Spanish army with their horses and vicious attack dogs. By 1500 a Spanish bishop, named Fonseca, estimated that some 500,000 native people were surviving on the island. (26) And as we have already noted, a Spanish census in 1514 reported only 22,000 surviving Indians. The estimates for the earlier period are considerably higher, indicating a significant killing of native peoples at a dramatic and precipitous rate. The Dominicans, who arrived in 1510, estimated the original population to have been around two million, but their estimate seems to have been predicated explicitly on the 1496 census, having presumed it to be the aboriginal number. Thus, we need to turn to that figure.” Shows a shocking decrease of indigenous people that most of whom were killed by Columbus’ men.
–“The traditional “discovery” myth is the one with which we are most familiar: Christopher Columbus–handsome, determined, resourceful, brave, skillful, and reverent–leads a mission of discovery to the uncharted West. While en route to the Indies, he makes a much more important find: America. He claims the land for Spain and Christianity, renames it, brings back a few natives to show off, and plans future trips to the “New World.” An explicit tribute to imperialism, the discovery myth prepares children to accept a world of vast inequities of power and wealth, indeed the myth urges them to root for the beneficiaries of those inequities.” This article sheds some harsh truths on why Columbus should be seen as a villain not a hero historically.
–“in order to exploit most fully the land and its populace, and to satisfy the increasingly dangerous and rebellion organizing ambitions of his well armed Spanish troops, Columbus instituted a program called the repartimiento or “Indian grants”, later referred to, And a revised version, as the system of encomiendas. This was a dividing up, not of the land, but of the entire peoples and communities in the bestowal of them upon a would be Spanish master the master was free to do what he wished with “his people”- have them plant, have them work in the mines, Have them do anything, as Carl Sauer puts it “ without limit or benefit of tenure” Shows what Columbus was willing to do to stay in power and fulfill his need for power over his army and the native people.
–Genocide of the people of Hispanola
-Was going to make slaves out of the natives
-“All though they die now, they will not always die. The negroes and Canary Islanders died at first”
–Better understand Columbus if we understand his prophetic and apocalyptic traditions
–Ideology of reconquest of Jerusalem
-1st voyage was not of religious purpose