Bartolome De Las Casas Vs Columbus

Christopher Columbus was manipulative. My final piece of evidence, from Document 2 says that "They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... They would make fine servants... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." This shows the mindset of a conniving man because he exploited the Native Americans in order to get what he wanted which was gold. This was a selfish reason that resulted in the pain of so many Native

Columbus never even walked on what we now call the United States of America. Where ever he did land, he was motivated only by his own greed. Columbus came for the gold, spices, and slaves. In his diary, he mentioned gold 75 times just in the first two weeks, alone (Katz 13). Indians who weren’t able to find gold, were punished by having their hands cut off. Most slaves died en route to Spain. Many Indian females were taken as sex slaves, some as young as nine and ten years old. Columbus forced cooperation from the Indians by disfiguring them and using them as examples. Even worse, he used hunting dogs to tear the Indians apart. Many natives committed suicide, and murdered their own children to save them from such a horrible life. Those who survived the voyage were worked to death. Still, another huge portion of these Indians died from disease brought over by Columbus and his

Columbus has always been portrayed as an enlightened, peaceful explorer who “discovered” a new world, and became friends with the native people. Howard Zinn’s view on Columbus’s encounter with the natives is an entirely different perspective. Zinn describes Columbus as a man who is willing to torture and kill others to be able to accomplish what he wants; in this case he wanted to obtain gold and other resources to take back with him to Spain.

Furthermore, Columbus began enslaving the natives for more reasons than free labor. He needed something profitable to show the King and Queen of Spain, and Columbus decided that Europe could use slaves too. Columbus was planning a return trip home to Spain. His idea was to bring some Arawaks with him and show them to the King and Queen of Spain. Queen Isabella would see how valuable a slave market could be, and she would give Columbus more money and the title that he was promised. Ever since day one, Columbus made his thoughts and intentions extremely well-known through the bindings of his journal. In one excerpt from his journal, Columbus wrote, “They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want” (Columbus qtd. in Zinn 1). Christopher Columbus did not think about how his actions would impact others. Columbus thought about what would turn a profit for himself. Columbus packed up and left for his voyage back to Spain with Arawak peoples on board his ships. Unfortunately, many Arawaks did not make it to Spain because they died on the voyage. Still desperate for

Christopher Columbus and Bartolome de la Casas are similar in most ways but have a major difference. They were both explorers of the New World and came to convert the natives into Catholics. The two explorers worked on the Spanish’s behalf. Columbus wrote accounts of the New World in his journal. La Casas wrote the Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies. Both gave accounts of the native people they saw. Columbus’s journal entries aim to give a positive light on the Spanish and their relationship with the natives. La Casas’s Brief Account does the opposite. While this is true, both explores worked faithfully in favor of the Catholic Church, but they each held different beliefs on the treatment of natives as slaves.

In 1492, Italian cartographer and explorer, Christopher Columbus, set off on a mission from Spain in order to find a quicker, alternative route to Asia. With him, Columbus brought eighty-seven men and three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María, to sail across the large and vast Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately for Columbus, a new route to Asia was never discovered by Spain that year because he had arrived in the Caribbean, which was found in North America. Thinking that he had just entered the Indies, he started to call the people of this land, “Indians”. These Indians were actually Native Americans who had lived on these lands for thousands of years prior. Immediately, letters from Columbus to the King and Queen of Spain were sent by boat back to Europe and soon Columbus was seen as the man who helped create a bridge of prosperous trading and riches between Europe and “Asia”.1 While this discovery proved that Columbus was a hero-like figure to Spain, it’s what he did within the new land that actually makes him one of the biggest villains to ever set foot on Earth. But what classifies this explorer as a villain? Columbus captured thousands of natives, many of which were sent back to Spain to live and work as slaves. Along with that, Columbus also forced the Christian religion onto them, spread diseases that killed thousands of lives, and used violence as a means of persuasion and control.2 Corrupted by his pursuit of riches,

Christopher Columbus abused and slaughtered the Natives and their very own children. In the Article, Smithsonianmag, it states,”Or, as Mr. Bergreen puts it in describing the aftermath of an Indian slaughter of Columbus' men at La Navidad on what is now the island of Haiti: "A leader who valued gold above the security of his men could be counted on to aspire to great accomplishments at great cost." It states that Columbus slaughtered Indian men and forced his own men to kill them. He will do anything for gold. As far as killing innocent people. In the same article it also states,”Forced hard labor,The amputation of limbs if slaves were not producing ‘enough’,Labelled as hostile savages if not in complete compliance with their oppressors,Buried alive or burnt alive if you were resistant to the conquerors demands,were resistant to the conquerors demands,Offering cash rewards for

The natives that Christopher Columbus had come against were not in opposition of him but wanted to be able to hear him out and see what he could offer them. From his first voyage, Columbus had sent Indians back to Spain with him as a trophy to flaunt to the King and Queen of Spain for the recognition he should receive up on his return from the New World. In the Letter from Christopher Columbus (1493) he gives a description of how he gains their trust, “they are timid and full of fear… As soon as they see that they are safe, and have laid aside all fear, they are very simple and honest, and exceedingly liberal with all they have, none of them refusing anything he may possess when he is asked for it,” (Page 300). Columbus and his men were never

In the “New World” Native Americans lived contently following their daily routines and cultures. They had lived and learned to appreciate the Earth and the aspects of nature that it has to offer. Back in Europe, Columbus wanted to find a shorter voyage to India, but instead he landed in the West Indies and committed inhumane atrocities. Columbus

To begin with, Christopher Columbus should be vilified for converting Native Americans to slaves. In the diary of Columbus, Columbus wrote about his intentions to turn Native Americans into “good and intelligent servants”. Columbus turned his intentions into a reality when he brought Native Americans to Europe as servants. As well as bringing slaves back to Spain, Columbus was an active involver in the slave trafficking network between America and Europe, thus becoming the “first slave trader in the Americas”. Slavery, the cruel practice that blighted the Americas for centuries, was heavily used by Columbus. By founding the American slave industry and kidnapping several slaves back home with him, Columbus showed that he did not value the Native Americans, as he treated them as objects rather than humans. If

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed west and found himself on the shores of a new world. His mission was to secure new land for Spain. Other European countries heard of his findings, they too crossed the ocean in hopes of securing new opportunities in this newly discovered land such as fur trading and gold mining. Little did they know that a community of indigenous people had already settled in this land thousands of years before. The Europeans decided to negotiate with the natives in order to set up their own communities in the land but the Native Americans held beliefs about society and religion that were far different from their European peers. Europeans thought the Indians to be “Noble Savages, gentle and friendly, but uncivilized, brutal, and barbaric” (citation). They could not see past their own

On August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his crew piled onto three ships: the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria on a trip funded by Ferdinand and Isabella in hopes to spread Catholicism and to find new trades routes (Histroy.com Staff 5). Even though his voyage did kickoff a whole series of risky and dangerous explorations to the Americas, the consequences of these trips were detrimental to both Columbus and the people who inhabited these lands. The destruction of the territory and the diseases that were brought over, foreign to the natives, resulted in the demise of the Native American population over time while the Europeans turned a blind eye. These actions turned Christopher Columbus from a honorable, daring explorer to the catalyst to a mass genocide of innocent, unsuspecting native peoples.

1. Why do we divide the history of the Americas into eras either before or after Columbus?

For more than 300 years, since the days of Christopher Columbus and the Spanish Government, an attempt of genocide of the Native American Indian has existed. From mass brutal murders and destruction by Spanish and American armies, to self-annihilation through suicide, homicide, and alcohol induced deaths brought about because of failed internal colonialism and white racial framing. Early Explores used Indigenous inhabitants upon first arriving to the America’s to survive the New World and once they adapted, internal colonialism began with attempts to convert the Indians to Christianity, repressing their values and way of life, forcing them into slavery, and nearly exterminating an entire culture from existence.

Dr. Zinn references numerous accounts of innocent bloodshed, cruelty and the enslavement of Indians by Columbus and his soldiers from De Las Casa’s books prior to Columbus’ return to Spain. Dr. Zinn records the following statements from De Las Casa book in which he says; "Endless testimonies ... prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives. But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then.... The admiral, it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians...." To please