Cruelty
“had their hands cut off and bled to death”
Many accounts of violence and cruelty were prominent under Columbus’s rule with the indigenous people. Columbus left Spain and promised ships full of gold to pay pack dividends to those that invested. When Columbus was on the island, which is now known as Haiti, he ordered that any ingenious person fourteen years or older had to have a certain amount of gold every three months. When they brought this gold, the natives were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Any natives found without copper tokens “had their hands cut off and bled to death” according to Howard Zinn’s novel, Columbus and the Indians. Many of these natives found little to no gold and would run away and would be “hunted down with dogs, and were killed”. Other accounts of Columbus’s brutality called for natives being “tied up and burned” and “hung by the necks”. Some reports even have stated that The Spaniards “thought nothing of knifing Indians by the tens and twenties and cutting slices of them off to test the sharpness of their blades”. Columbus enforced this cruelty across many islands to show his dominance and impress king Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain.
Spanish Imperialism
“They do not bear arms… they took it (sword) by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance”
Christopher Columbus started Spanish imperialism and enslavement of natives when he discovered the New World. Columbus landed on an island in the Bahamas when he was encountered by the Arawak people. When Columbus was greeted he wrote that “They brought us parrots and balls of cotton which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features”. Columbus also went on to write that “They do not bear arms… they took it (sword) by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance”. Columbus knew from this point on that the natives could be easily taken advantage of due to their “ignorance” and their “willingness to trade everything they owned”. Later, once Columbus started settling on the islands the natives Spanish Imperialism took over. One of Columbus’s sailors wrote “We went from island to island, taking natives as captives”. This imprisonment started the slave routes from Europe to the Americas which profited Europe, but killed off many of the Arawak people and destroyed their way of life.