The REAL Columbus

When Columbus arrived, there were between 70 and 100 million people living in the Americas, more than the population of Europe, which had only 60 or 65 million inhabitants. A century later, the settlers and explorers had catastrophically reduced the population of the Americas to a mere 12 to 15 million and by the end of the seventeenth century to eleven to thirteen million. This descending curve began to move upward in the eighteenth century, when the white populations began increasing. [i]

When the native Arawaks saw the three strange ships, they initially “fled to the hills.” However, within a short time, curiosity overruled wisdom and they left the safety of the forests. [ii] Columbus, in his journal, wrote about the characteristics of the natives in Cuba, “Naked innocence and quick response to the influences of kindness rather than acts of force... Their hair, thick as a horse’s mane, falls in long locks upon their shoulders. They are shapely of body and handsome of face. So ignorant of arms are they that they grasp swords by the blade! They are very gentle, without knowing what evil is, without killing, without stealing.” [iii]

Columbus wrote to his Spanish sponsors, Ferdinand and Isabella, wherein he boasted that he could supply them with “slaves, as many of these idolatrous Indians as your highnesses can command to be shipped, along with as much gold as you need. Gold is most excellent. Gold is treasure and he who possesses it does all he wishes to do in this world.” [iv] In 1494, Michele de Cuneo wrote about his trip with Columbus into the interior of Haiti. “After we had rested for several days in our settlement, it seemed to the Lord Admiral that it was time to put into execution his desire to search for gold, which was the main reason he had started on so great a voyage full of so many dangers.” [v]

In his letter to Santángel, on February 15, 1493, Columbus wrote, “Hispaniola is a marvel. Its hills and mountains, fine plains and open country, are rich and fertile for planting and for pasturage, and for building towns and villages. The seaports there are incredibly fine, as also the magnificent rivers, most of which bear gold. The trees, fruits and grasses differ widely from those in Juana. There are many spices and vast mines of gold and other metals in this island. They have no iron, nor steel, nor weapons, nor are they fit for them, because although they are well-made men of commanding stature, they appear extraordinarily timid.” [vi]

The European conquerors combined victory with proselytizing their version of Christianity, under the jurisdiction of the Doctrine of Discovery. After encountering inhabitants on “their” new land acquisition, the Spaniards read what they referred to as requerimiento (the requirement). In Spanish, a language foreign to the natives, an official would read, “I implore you to recognize the Church as a lady and in the name of the Pope take the King as lord of this land and obey his mandates. If you do not do it, I tell you that with the help of God I will enter powerfully against you all. I will make war everywhere and every way that I can. I will subject you to the yoke and obedience to the Church and to his majesty. I will take your women and children and make them slaves. . . . The deaths and injuries that you will receive from here on will be your own fault and not that of his majesty nor of the gentlemen that accompany me.” Of course, the natives did not understand and therefore could not possibly comply by converting to a religion unfamiliar to their experience. However, having satisfied their obligation of giving the Indians an opportunity to become Christian, the Spaniards were then at liberty to exploit the naïve natives and seize their resources. [vii]

Columbus’ headquarters were on the large island he called Española, currently the two countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He initiated slavery in conjunction with a systematic extermination policy against the indigenous Taino-Arawak population whose numbers were reduced, in four short years, from about 8,000,000 to about 3,000,000 by 1496. Taino is an Arawak word meaning peace. In 1498, Columbus, after an expedition with five ships, brought back 600 Indian slaves to Spain. [viii] By 1500, when Columbus left the area, there were only 100,000 surviving natives. The Spaniards who remained as overlords retained his brutal policies. [ix]

The Spanish colonists, under Columbus, engaged in vicious physical genocide. The Spaniards cut off hands, gouged out eyes, and ripped unborn babies from their mother’s wombs. [x] The Spaniards also engaged in the mass roasting of the Taino-Arawaks by hanging a dozen of them in a row over a blazing fire or in burning them individually at the stake. The “colonists” also participated in live burials. They brutally, apparently without conscience, hacked children into pieces to feed to their dogs, to the horror and incalculable anguish of their parents. These brutes wagered on who could slice a man’s abdomen open or cut off a head with one sword slash. They also dashed out infant’s brains by swinging the baby by its legs against the rocks or they would run these children through with a sword. They staged group kills where 100 or more soldiers slashed the unarmed Taino-Arawaks – men, women and children. The Spaniards methodically exterminated the terrified Taino-Arawaks to instill in them “a proper attitude of respect” toward their “superiors.” [xi] The “colonists” worked other natives to death in the local gold mines, the mines that the invaders had summarily seized from the indigenous population. After the colonists had slaughtered most of the native populace, they resorted to kidnapping and transporting Africans to work in the mines and plantations. 

The Spaniards systematically exterminated whole villages, people they viewed as subhuman animals, without a soul. They viewed it as a holy obligation to enslave and destroy them wherever they existed. Genocide apparently functioned as an early eugenics program based on survival, not of the fittest, but the morally unfit that just happened to possess superior weapons. Mass genocide is Columbus’ horrific legacy in Española, an example perpetuated by the conquistadors when they later invaded Mexico, Peru and La Florida. [xii] Establishment historians, the mythmakers of the earthly nineteenth century, have whitewashed, concealed and otherwise concocted a foundation of deceptions regarding this monstrous, genocidal villain, only one of two individuals with his own holiday. [xiii] In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared Columbus Day a federal holiday. Writers characterize his brutal military invasion of a populated island as a discovery (for Spain), which implies that the land was uninhabited, commentary on how the elites view “insignificant” natives. Elite imperialists habitually use this tactic to justify their seizures of resource-rich lands.  

By 1514, the indigenous population totaled only 22,000 natives. By 1542, according to some records, only 200 natives survived. However, the Taino-Arawaks did not become extinct, as some have reported because many Taino-Arawaks had relocated to Cuba and managed to survive. When Columbus arrived, the whole Caribbean Basin Indian population numbered about 15,000,000. [xiv] The extermination of the Taino-Arawak population is certainly not an isolated incident

but rather a precedent. The elite established a pattern of genocide against several indigenous populations in numerous countries throughout the world.