Compare And Contrast Columbus And De Las Casas

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

de la Casas describes the second voyage that he embarked upon with Columbus. He described how each island was depopulated and destroyed. His observations of the land were no so descriptive of the native people and the land, but of the gruesome images the Spanish painted upon the Indies. de la Casas says, “…the Indians realize that these men had not come from Heaven (9).” He goes into detail about how the Christians would take over villages and had no mercy describing one particularly crude act to show how ruthless the Spanish were. He says, “Then they behaved with such temerity and shamelessness that the most powerful ruler of the islands had to see his own wife raped by a Christian officer (9).” The Spanish were so coward and angry anytime an Indian was actually capable of slaying a Spanish man that a rule was made; for every Christian slain, a hundred Indians would die. Natives were captured and forced to work jobs like pearl diving where they would very rarely survive due to man eating sharks or just from drowning and holding their breaths

While trying to adapt Native Americans to European customs, Columbus and his followers took advantage of the Indians. The Spanish burned the Natives sacred objects and would not allow them to practice their own religions. They also abused the Natives, enslaving them, taking land from them, and raping their women. Because of the conquistadors quest for gold and other riches,

Koing states, “I am not going to assert that this was all Columbus’ fault. Although there was no systematic slavery within Europe at that time, enslavement of darker races had been considered a matter of course from the first contact with them… Spaniards from that time on become more cruel than any of the

Also Columbus took this poor people as slaves. He made them adore his God. Also made them worked for him without any payment, maybe just for some food. He took some of them with him to Spain to show the kings what he had done, while the others were digging gold, making money for Columbus, his people and his country. And what did they get out of that hard work? Nothing! They didn’t got anything out of the good

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.

Christopher Columbus and Cabeza de Vaca were both well experienced explorers of the New World. They both traveled to the New World to find out what was out there and if what they would find, could help them and their country. In the narratives, “Letter of Discovery” by Christopher Columbus and Castaways by Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, they exemplified the overall environment of the New World. Each explorer had quite the experience within the New World and interactions with the natives but they were not quite the same. Columbus’ journey consisted of learning about the new land and obtain resources to bring back to his country. Cabeza de Vaca also wanted to find resources and goods but mainly wanted to explore the land and try to understand if it was possible to create a society alongside the natives. As they went into the New World, they had found new discoveries but their purpose of the journey lead them down paths that would give off two different perspectives.

Columbus's arrogance and exploitation regarding slavery began on his second voyage. Ferdinand and Isabella had ordered that the natives be treated kindly. In opposition to this order, Columbus began exporting slaves in great numbers in 1494. It was because he was not making any real profit elsewhere on the island that he decided to exploit the one source of income--people--he had in abundance (Fernandez-Armesto 107). When word reached him that the crown did not want him sending more slaves, Columbus ignored it. He was desperate to make his expeditions profitable enough for Ferdinand and Isabella's continued support. Evidently he was not reprimanded because thousands of Indians were exported. By the time they reached Spain, usually a third of them were dead. Bartolome de las Casas wrote that one Spaniard had told him they did not need a compass to find their way back to Spain; they could simply follow the bodies of floating Indians who had been tossed overboard when they died (17). It is horrible to consider that the exportation of these natives resulted

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

In the 16th century Spaniards Herman Cortes and Christopher Columbus set out on endeavoring journeys in search of new worlds. Christopher Columbus encountered, in the Caribbean islands, a group of extremely simplistic Native Americans. Herman Cortes however encountered a much more advanced Native American group in Meso America; we formally know this area to be Mexico. In my essay I will be comparing and contrasting several aspects between both of these Native American Civilizations including sophistication, technology, housing, weapons, religion and their reaction to the Spaniards. Letters written by Columbus and Cortes will be used to make these comparisons.

Though the main problem was the King and Queen of Spain, we cannot blame them entirely as well. In this case, it may not have been a human that caused the crime. It is true that Columbus’s men did the killing, and the King and Queen of Spain did give out the orders that forced Columbus to get more gold, but what caused them to think like this, what caused them to go on a plunder for gold and not worry about being the Tainos. The system of empire is to blame for all this. The European society of that time told them that mankind had to have property in order to feel secure and dominant. The more property someone owned, the more powerful the person. In order to get more wealth, Columbus’s men forced the Tainos into slavery, and justifying themselves

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

Cortez was born on 1485, Medellin in western Spain. He originally studied in law, but decided to find fame and wealth in exploring. He travelled to Cuba, and then became the leader of an expedition to explore Mexico. He was to convert the natives of Mexico to God, he was also to bring back gold to Europe from Mexico. Cortez and Columbus were very much alike; they both wanted fame and wealth and looked for it in exploration.

It is astounding that Spanish colonialist had the Valladolid debate at this point in their colonization. One of the main reasons it is so shocking that this debate even happened was because of how profitable the forced enslavement of Native Americans was to the Spanish government. One of the first things the Spanish did when they landed the New World was enslave the indigenous people to work in precious metal mines. These mines brought unimaginable riches to Spain and the Catholic Church. These riches had proven to the Spanish crown that they had made the correct decision in funding Columbus, as it was going to make the unbelievably rich. The Spanish monarchy only cared about the riches from the America, not about how it was obtained.

The Spanish Cortes was different from the English Parliament in that it was a representative assembly summoned to the king’s court and the first of its kind that included townsmen. The townsmen would join aristocrats and bishops in counseling the king and providing their approval on royal resolutions. Monarchs would call upon the Spanish cortes to contribute their feedbacks in foremost governmental and military solutions, as well as approve new taxes to finance them.