Why Did Christopher Columbus Wrong

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

One of the major European countries that came in contact with the natives in the 16th century was Spain. When they first arrived in the caribbean, they had 3 goals in mind God, Gold, and Glory. They want to enrich themselves in the raw natural resources that was abundant in North america, but there was only on issue, the natives that have lived here for centuries. The Spanish treated the natives almost

Columbus even traded slaves even though he did not originally intend too, these are imperialistic

As soon as Columbus met the native people of the Bahama Islands, he placed possessional value on them instead of valuing them as humans. He wrote, “They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” Zinn page 1. The indigenous people showered these strangers with gifts, and what did they gain by doing so? They gained nothing and ended up losing their land, freedom and will to go on. The natives of the places Columbus claimed for Spain were subjected to inhumane conditions. Their living conditions were horrid, with the constant torment by the Spaniards. Las Casas’ accounts are horrifying and reveal the truth. Mentioned in his accounts is how the Spaniards treated them and valued them, “thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.” This is just cruel and immoral. Also mentioned in Las Casas’ accounts is the working conditions. The men were nearly worked to death in the mines, with the futile task of unearthing what little gold there was. While the women were tasked with the laborious job of working the land. They were overworked, and as a result could not properly tend to the care of their children.

Between the years of 1535 and 1547, some sixty-six Spanish ships were captured by French corsairs (Lane 19). Shortly after in the 1550’s, the Spanish came to regret their passive defense strategy when French corsairs made their most punishing raids ever on the Spanish West Indies. They descended on colonies like Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba, and caused heavy destruction that they never really recovered from. Finally in the early 1560’s, Spain was forced to react with expensive long-term defenses. Since the Spanish waited so long to do so they not only lost wealth because of what was captured, but now they also had to spend money to protect what was left.

Spanish Colonization- Beginning with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 Spanish Colonization continued for centuries. The Spanish Empire eventually would include half of South America, most of Central America, and a lot of North America. The Spanish used the Encomienda System to control and use Native Americans. Spaniards received grants of Native Americans from the Spanish government who they could take tribute from in the form of goods or labor as long as they tried to convert the Native Americans to Catholicism. This system worked out horribly for the Native Americans with many treated harshly and forced to do hard physical labor. The Natives were not willing slaves though and rebelled numerous times which contributed to African slave labor replacing the Encomienda System. The Spanish intermarried with the Native Americans leading

The approaches Britain and Spain had towards colonization were reflected in their treatment of Native Americans. Ultimately, both countries were primarily interested in the expansion of their empires, the enrichment of their economies and their own political power, and their treatment of the natives is indicative of these aims. As Spain’s only purpose for colonization was to conquer land for their empire, the

When Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean, Native Americans were scared, but still friendly toward him. So he took advantage of this people being nice to him, to force them to convert in his religion and also take them as slaves. Columbus also saw that this people had no weapons, they have no way to defend themselves. So as you can see it was very easy for Columbus to take them over and treat them badly because they had no protection. That is a good example to show how cruel Columbus could act toward this people that could not fight back.

The people on the island had no clue what a sword was so they would cut themselves when they would touch the blade. Christopher Columbus thought it was going to be easy if needed to fight with them. They had no way of protecting themselves. He and his men ended up killing these poor people little by little. Even when they tried to help them out by directing them to find gold or help them when they got hurt. On his trip when he arrived in Hispaniola the Taino people living on the island welcomed and were gentle with him and his men. When Columbus left the island he left forty of his men and those men raped and fought the Tainos after they helped them out.2 On his second trip Columbus set up a permanent colony and again his men raped, stole gold ornaments and food that provoked war with the Tainos. The Spanish killed tens of thousands out of population and the ones who did survive the Spanish ended up chopping off their hands if they did not provide their allotment.3 At the end the Spanish wiped out the islands either by killing the people or they left to surrounding countries.

When Philip II began his rule, Charles V had left his son with a colossal debt of roughly 36 million ducats. Philip II was then forced to take out loans, however with no way to pay these loans back, Spain’s economic troubles continued. However, in hopes of reinvigorating the Spanish economy, Spain began to take in loads of silver and gold from the New World, this was known as the Spanish Revolution. Despite this being beneficial to Spain, the majority of western Europe suffered from this due to the inflation that went along with it. As a result, the value of their rivals’, the Ottomans’, silver coin became unstable, adding to their conflicts.

Spanish powers dominated and influence much of the “known world” during the 16th Century. Spanish leader King Phillip II had reasons to eliminate their arch-rival England. His reasons were to convert the Protestants in England to the Church of Rome and to eliminate one of the major sea-fearing rivals for economic wealth.

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

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

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,

treated like slaves. The Spanish did not see them as equals and took away their human rights.