I once got into an internet argument (“Once?” you say, with doubt in your heart) about Christopher Columbus. I said he was a garbage human, and someone I didn’t know told me I was wrong. So I did as any scientific-minded person would do and brought receipts. Here they are, in case you need to get into an internet argument about Christopher Columbus.
Christopher Columbus, 1500 (Zinn, Howard (2003). A People’s History of the United States.)
A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from 9 to 10 are now in demand.
Murphy, Patrick J.; Coye, Ray W. (2013). Mutiny and Its Bounty: Leadership Lessons from the Age of Discovery.
At about 2:00 in the morning of 12 October (21 October, Gregorian Calendar New Style), a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermeo), spotted land, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the discovery and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard. Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.
Christopher Columbus, 1492 (Columbus & Toscanelli. 2010.)
These people are very simple in war-like matters … I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased.
Loewen, James W. (1995). Lies My Teacher Told Me.
Columbus kidnapped about 10 to 25 natives and took them back with him (only seven or eight of the natives arrived in Spain alive).
Christopher Columbus, 1498 (Stone, Edward T. (1975). Columbus and Genocide.)
From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold …
Giles Tremlett (7 August 2006). Lost document reveals Columbus as tyrant of the Caribbean.
Bobadilla reported to Spain that Columbus regularly used torture and mutilation to govern Hispaniola.
Giles Tremlett (7 August 2006). Lost document reveals Columbus as tyrant of the Caribbean.
According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report stated that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomeo on “defending the family” when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth.
Columbus Controversy. A&E Television Networks.
The document also describes how Columbus put down native unrest and revolt; he first ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion.
Yeager, Timothy J. (1995). “Encomienda or Slavery? The Spanish Crown’s Choice of Labor Organization in Sixteenth-Century Spanish America”.
The natives of the island were systematically subjugated via the encomienda system implemented by Columbus.
Lyle N. McAlister (1984). Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492–1700.
Adapted to the New World from Spain, it resembled the feudal system in Medieval Europe, as it was based on a lord offering “protection” to a class of people who owed labor.
Olson, Julius E. and Edward G. Bourne (editors). “The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985–1503”, in The Voyages of the Northmen; The Voyages of Columbus and of John Cabot.
In addition, Spanish colonists under his rule began to buy and sell natives as slaves, including children.
Dyson, John (1991). Columbus: For Gold, God and Glory.
When natives on Hispaniola began fighting back against their oppressors in 1495, Columbus’s men captured 1,500 Arawak men, women, and children in a single raid. The strongest were transported to Spain to be sold as slaves.
Zinn, Howard (2003). A People’s History of the United States.
40 percent of the 500 shipped died en route.
Loewen, James W. (1995). Lies My Teacher Told Me.
Historian James W. Loewen asserts that “Columbus not only sent the first slaves across the Atlantic, he probably sent more slaves—about five thousand—than any other individual.”
Koning, Hans (1976). Columbus.
According to Spanish colonist and Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas’s contemporary A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, when slaves held in captivity began to die at high rates, Columbus ordered all natives over the age of thirteen to pay a hawk’s bell full of gold powder every three months. Natives who brought this amount to the Spanish were given a copper token to hang around their necks. The Spanish cut off the hands of those without tokens, and left them to bleed to death.
Dyson, John (1991). Columbus: For Gold, God and Glory.
Thousands of natives committed suicide by poison to escape their persecution.
Zinn, Howard (2003). A People’s History of the United States.
The Arawaks attempted to fight back against Columbus’s men but lacked their armor, guns, swords, and horses. When taken prisoner, they were hanged or burned to death. Desperation led to mass suicides and infanticide among the natives. In just two years under Columbus’s governorship, over 125,000 of the 250,000–300,000 natives in Haiti were dead.
Hickel, Jason (2018). The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.
Many died from lethal forced labor in the mines, in which a third of workers died every six months.
Hickel, Jason (2018). The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.
Within three decades, the surviving Arawak population numbered only in the hundreds.
Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange
Disease, warfare and harsh enslavement contributed to the depopulation.
Dyson, John (1991). Columbus: For Gold, God and Glory.
Virtually every member of the gentle race … had been wiped out.
Columbus doesn’t doesn’t deserve recognition, he deserves to have everyone who learns his name be absolutely disgusted by his actions. And this is why we should stop celebrating this piece of human detritus and instead celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day.