De Las Casas, Bartolome. “Columbus’s Journal”. (1542): Print.
- This is a primary source written by young priest who accompanied Columbus on his conquest of Cuba. These are his recorded opinions of Columbus’s actions in Cuba.
- This priest experienced the events that transpired on Columbus’s conquest of Cuba first hand. According to him, atrocities were committed by Columbus against the native people. He describes the Spaniards acting as “wild beasts” who had been starved for days. They terrorized, murdered, afflicted and destroyed the native people to the point of extinction. De Las Casas describes the spaniards committing their offenses all the while using ” the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons.”
- De Las Casas also addresses how intensely Christianity was pushed. He explains the irony of how the so-called Christians spread their religion through threats and violence. One native leader was even forced to watch his wife be raped by a Spanish Christian officer for not converting.
- Con
Jones, Mary E. Christopher Columbus and His Legacy: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1992. Print.
- Articles present opposing viewpoints on such Columbus-related issues as the motives of the conquistadors, treatment of the Indians, and twentieth-century views of Columbus.
- Includes multiple sources. Each article alternates view points.
- Pro/Con.
Clarke, John H. Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism. Buffalo, N.Y: Eworld Inc, 2011. Print.
- This piece relates Columbus’s actions in the new world to the slave and capitalist culture that is later created. Columbus is responsible for Europe’s later obsession with colonization. European countries follow in the footsteps of Columbus when colonizing other countries as they often enslaved the native people and also enforced their country’s religious, social, and political customs upon them.
- This source also explicitly blames Columbus for the African slave trade into the new world and outlines how slave trade was born and evolved.
- Con.