CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.”
― Herodotus

Cristobal Colon did not discover the Americas.  The America’s discovered him, an Italian by birth who set sail for riches of the Indies in an expedition funded by New Spain. Though he landed far off course the aftermath of his actions began a catastrophic domino effect on all the original inhabitants of the “New World”.  

Columbus’s sole purpose was fame and fortune and these very motives fueled the cruelty of his actions.  With over 2 months at sea and a crew coming close to mutiny the island of Haiti/Santo Domingo was finally spotted on October 12, 1492.  At dawn Columbus arrives in an armed ship carrying the banner of Spain to claim this land for Catholic Europe.  He was warmly welcomed by the Taino and Carib peoples. See entries of Thursday, 11 October and Saturday, 13 October.  http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.asp  

However their hospitality was quickly betrayed.  Christopher Columbus was driven in his quest for gold.  He desperately needed the gold to pay back his royal overlords and European investors.  He didn’t care how he came about it.  The indigenous peoples freely gave the ornaments of gold they wore around their necks but where perplexed when he continued to demand more. 

1492: All the inhabitants could be taken away or held as slaves, for with 50 men we could overpower them all and make them do whatever we wished. - Christopher Columbus

The generosity and hospitality of the host people was betrayed by calculating cruelty. They were unexpectedly enslaved and forced to mine for gold!  The unspeakable anguish; pain and suffering our ancestors had to endure can never be imagined!  Columbus ordered a gold quota for every male and if they failed, he ordered his soldiers to cut off one of their hands.  Humiliated in their own homes, captives in their own land, their wives raped, the children sold into slavery describes the beginning of a never ending unethical unbalanced relationship. If the captives escaped and fled into the forests and mountains to hide from their brutal captors, the Spaniards used their hunting dogs to track them down.  The soldiers purposely and routinely feed their hunting dogs the flesh of their victims to get them accustomed to the taste of humans. Unbelievable but true!

The cause by which the Christians have been driven to kill and destroy so many—such an infinite number of souls—has been simply to get the Indians' gold. - Bartolomé de Las Casas.

Yet make no mistake the people of the Americas did not passively stand by idle. “Indigenous communities have actively resisted colonial efforts. On Columbus’s return voyage to Spain to both report his findings and gather men and materials needed for colonization efforts, he had left about 35 men who were subsequently wiped out by Taino warriors. Resistance to colonization had begun.”

http://lastrealindians.com/why-im-thankful-for-500-years-of-indigenous-resistance-why-you-should-be-to-by-matt-remle/

The arrival of Christopher Columbus unfortunately opened the door for more conquistadors.  Today would be very different if Europeans had only come for peaceful and mutual trade.  With the arrival of more adventure seeking fortune finding hidalgos (Spanish gentlemen) the search for more gold intensified.  In order to fulfill their appetite for prosperity the Spanish established the Encomienda system  http://www.pbs.org/kcet/when-worlds-collide/resources/glossary.html#DEF  by which they gave legal sanctity to enslave the indigenous peoples.  Furthermore, the isolated first peoples had no immunity for the diseases the European conquistador brought with them.  At every first contact the spread of diseases, including smallpox, measles, mumps, whooping cough, influenza, chicken pox and typhus, decimated the inhabitants of the New World.

In Book Two of his History of the Indies, Bartolome Las Casas, a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar first urged King Ferdinand of Spain to abolish the Encomienda system by replacing Indians with African slaves, thinking they were stronger and would survive, but later relented when he saw the effects on the Africans.  Las Casas, a former slave owner of indigenous peoples himself became deeply frustrated by the barbaric treatment of the native and fought tirelessly to get King Charles V in 1542 and 1543 to establish “New Laws” to provide better treatment for the people of the New World

Las Casas would come to regret his role in encouraging the slave trade. Although he rejected the idea that slavery itself was a crime or sin, he did begin to see African slavery as a source of evil. Unfortunately, las Casas's apology was not published for more than 300 years.

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=52

"I soon repented and judged myself guilty of ignorance. I came to realize that black slavery was as unjust as Indian slavery... and I was not sure that my ignorance and good faith would secure me in the eyes of God.” (History of the Indies Vol II, p. 257) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas

Summary Timeline of New Spain’s Justification of Conquering the New World

http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/justification/newspain/time

In my previous post I briefly disclosed the viable presence of Africans living in Europe as free citizens and as slaves.  I also included a brief timeline that established the beginning of the Europeans Slave trade. 

“The Portuguese are acknowledged by historians to have inaugurated the trans-Atlantic slave tradeIn 1441 two Portuguese explorers, Nino Tristao and Antonio Goncalves, sailed to what is today Mauritania in West Africa, kidnapped twelve natives, and returned home to present them as gifts to Prince Henry the Navigator, By 1460, seven hundred to eight hundred African slaves were being taken annually into Portugal, for use mainly as domestic servants. Between 1460 and 1500 the removal of Africans increased as the Portuguese and Spanish established forts and trading stations along the West African coastline. By 1500 about fifty thousand slaves had been taken out of Africa, most brought into Europe, where they were used mainly as domestic servants and artisans and in farming. The remainder were used in the Azores, Madeira, Canary, and Cape Verde islands on sugar plantations in a system that served as a model for the cultivation of commercial crops later in the Americas”. http://slic.njstatelib.org/new_jersey_information/digital_collections/unit_2_africa_europe_and_the_rise_of_afro_america_1441_1

In 1501 the first African slaves arrived unwillingly in the New World to replace the indigenous First Peoples who had been weakened by disease, forced labor, brutality and murder.

Arrival of Free Africans

With the advent of the Atlantic Slave Trade combined with the history of the Moorish occupation of Iberia, as well as the 1492 expulsion of Muslims and Jews from the peninsula there is a high probability that some of the first navigators to the New World had Jewish, Muslim and African ancestry. 

One such person in question is Pedro Alfonso Nino.

“A navigator and explorer of African ancestry, Pedro Alonso Nino traveled with Christopher Columbus’ first expedition to the New World in 1492. He was also known as “El Negro” (The Black). Pedro Nino was the pilot of Columbus’ ship the “Santa Maria.” In 1493, he also accompanied Columbus on the explorer’s second voyage which discovered Trinidad and the mouth of the Orinoco River in South America, piloting one of the 17 ships in the fleet. This voyage also brought the first Africans, who were actually free men, to Hispaniola.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Alonso_Ni%C3%B1o

However, Professor Schomburg of Puerto Rican and German descent Afro Latin and Afro American historian disagrees.  In the book; Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, Black Bibliophile & Collector; A Biography by Elinor Des Verney Sinnette states that “he was a severe critic of what he called our false history and he consistently denounced those who employed artifice and fabrication to exaggerate accomplishments of the race.”   In a letter Schomburg wrote he states that in my investigation of the matter does not show nor disclose this individual to have any Negro blood in his veins.  Schomburg believed the individual in question was Pedro Alfonso y Nigno but that through a printing error that “Nigno” became “Nigro” a spelling that appeared in several books about Columbus’ early voyages.  When the accounts were translated into the German language, Schomburg said that Nigro became Schwartz, meaning black.  Page 79

http://books.google.com/books?id=3gdEW-hU2lQC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=Schomburg+on+Pedro+Alonso+Ni%C3%B1o&source=bl&ots=zMifjCBqI6&sig=rDNQeixfWSaiTjHhYkUviGeospo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Dki6UtCxAYntoASjsIDYDQ&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Schomburg%20on%20Pedro%20Alonso%20Ni%C3%B1o&f=false

Whether it be fact or fiction, myth or reality the truth remains.  Many people of African descent came to the Americas as slave, servant and freeman and left their indelible mark on the pages of history and in the bloodline of their descendants.  We only have to take the time to look.

Columbus later years

On Columbus' first Voyage he found very little gold. He was not any more successful on the next voyage he made in 1493, with much greater investments from the monarchs, a much larger fleet and 1.500 settlers. He took with him artisans of all kinds, laborers and peasants to work the land as well as many soldiers and three priests. After establishing seven settlements, each with a fort and several gallows, across the island of Hispaniola (Haiti) he ruled that every ''Indian'' over the age of 14 had to supply a certain amount of gold every three months. Those who did not would be punished by having their hands cut off and being left to bleed to death. But the natives could not give him this gold because no one had discovered more than small amounts of gold on the Island. As well as gold, Columbus tried to get wealth from slavery. In February 1595 he rounded up 1.600 Tainos - the people he had described as ''gentle'', ''peaceful'' and helpful two and a half years before. He sent 550 of them in chains on a ship to Seville with the intent to sell them as slaves. Two hundred died on the journey across the Atlantic. He followed this by setting up an encomienda system. This meant that colonists could make natives work on their estates as slaves.

Columbus brought the first European diseases to the New World. With no natural immunity and Columbus' barbaric methods many Host People died.. But the barbarity in itself did not give Columbus, the settlers and their royal sponsors the wealth they wanted. The first colonies had lots of problems. The gentlemen settlers found life much harder than they thought it would be. So many Indians died, that the settlers didn't have any natives to work on their lands. The settlers from the lower class got tired of working on the lands of the wealthy settlers. While Columbus was governor there were lots of other rebellions and he responded to these with the same barbarity as he showed to the natives.

These factors all led to his imprisonment. The monarchs heard stories of disorder in the colonies and sent Bobadilla to investigate. Bobadilla used the power given to him by the royals to impose himself as governor after he was horrified to find seven Spanish men hanging from the gallows in the town square of Santo Domingo. So at the end of his third voyage Columbus was sent back to Spain as a prisoner in chains. He was released after only six weeks, but his fourth voyage was a miserable failure. The crown banned him from the settling in Hispaniola and he ended up shipwrecked, before returning to Spain disillusioned and virtually forgotten.  http://theageofdiscovery.wikispaces.com/Columbus%27+Last+Years

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