Motivation behind conquest

  • Christopher Columbus: Hero or Murderer? By: Whitney Dewitt http://campuspages.cvcc.vccs.edu/polis/2003/nonfiction/whitney%20dewitt.amlit.htm
    • “yet in this discovery, he erased the natives inhibiting the land.”
      • Saw nakedness as lack of culture, customs, and religion
        • Opportunity to spread word of God
        • Appeared defenseless, lacked experience, easy profit because they could be enslaved
      • Kidnapped Indians to bring back to Spain (to create fame for himself)
      • To make exploration profitable for Ferdinand and Isabella – used one source of income, the people whom he had an abundance of
        • Would export them out, 1/3 dead by the time they reached Spain
          • “did not need a compass back to Spain; they could simply follow the bodies of floating Indians who had been tossed overboard when they died” – Bartolome de las Casas
  • Christopher Columbus: The Untold Story http://www.understandingprejudice.org/nativeiq/columbus.htm
    • In contract with Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, said Columbus received 10% of all profits from excursion
      • Columbus to king and queen, “Gold is most excellent; gold is treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world”
    • Sought to convert ppl to Catholicism
  • Main goal was wealth and power from voyage, far from selfless
  • Although started exchange of plants, animals, cultures, ideas, also trade of diseases
  • The Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492) http://www.historyguide.org/earlymod/columbus.html
    • “to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith”
      • Motivation said to be for faith reasons, not entirely true
    • “they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk’s bells”
    • “they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people”
    • “They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl”
    • “Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance”
    • “It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion.”
    • “I was very attentive to them, and strove to learn if they had any gold. Seeing some of them with little bits of this metal hanging at their noses, I gathered from them by signs that by going southward or steering round the island in that direction, there would be found a king who possessed large vessels of gold, and in great quantities.”
      • So focused on leaving the next morning to travel further and find the gold and precious metals he was seeking
      • No actual concern for the people of the island
    • “Come and see the men who have come from heavens. Bring them victuals and drink.”
      • People worshiped him when he first arrived
    • “told me that the people here wore golden bracelets upon their arms and legs’
      • Once again repeating about the need for gold
      • “for as I understand, in, or near the island, there is a mine of gold” – more gold
      • “search till we can find Samoet, which is the island or city where the gold is”
      • “one of the men had hanging at his nose a piece of gold half as big as a castellailo, with letters upon it. I endeavored to purchase it of them in order to ascertain what sort of money it was but they refused to part with it”
    • Always seemed to be judging the other people of the island, talking about their appearances and such