“The
Admiral and the Chief,” by Samuel M. Wilson, Natural History, pp. 14-19,
3/91: Excerpt, on the relationship between Guacanagari and Columbus—“
At first, the chief and his people participated in the subjugation of the
island, accompanying the Spaniards as interpreters and allies. But
as Ta!no society crumbled under the impact of Old World diseases and the
demands of the Spaniards, and as Columbus was increasingly entangled in
factional disputes among the conquerors.”
“Beachhead
in the Bahamas: Columbus Encounters a New World,” by William F. Keegan
in Archaeology (January/February 1992, pp. 44-50): Excerpt—“In the
early morning of October 12, 1492, Columbus stepped ashore in the New World.
His landfall was an island known to its inhabitants as Guanahani.
As a sign of thanksgiving, Columbus renamed the island San Salvador, ‘Holy
Savior.’ For more than a century scholars and amateur historians
have debated which island should claim these names. To date, ten
of the 25 islands in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos have been identified
as the first landfall. Only three of these have been subjected to
close scientific scrutiny, and only two have won many supporters. Watling
Island (present-day San Salvador) and Samana Cay are the leading candidates,
with Grand Turk a distant third…”
“Christopher
Columbus: A Bibliographic Voyage,” by Jack Shreve in "Choice" (January
1991, Vol. 29, pp. 703-711): Excerpt—“ For those with a passion for
rating the relative greatness of historical figures, the question of where
to place Christopher Columbus is not easy. Whether seen as arch-villain
of the modern era for bringing genocide and pollution to an unsullied earthly
paradise or as someone worthy of sainthood, Columbus is indisputably a
presence in history. …”
Columbus’ Landfall: The
Historical Record—This page, by Keith Pickering, features maps and
journal entries from Columbus chosen with concern for debates and questions
as to his first point of landfall in 1492.
Columbus Links: a
directory page opening on to a wealth of resources on Christopher Columbus.
Christopher
Columbus: includes links for Timeline, Biography, Columbus’s Ships,
Columbus the Navigator, Where did he first land?, A Letter from Columbus,
An Excerpt from his journal, A Letter to the King and Queen, Myths and
other interesting facts, Other links, QuickTime Movie showing his voyage
route
Columbus'
letter to the King and Queen of Spain, 1494, regarding Hispaniola:
Excerpt—“In obedience to your Highnesses' commands, and with submission
to superior judgment, I will say whatever occurs to me in reference to
the colonization and commerce of the Island of Espanola, and of the other
islands, both those already discovered and those that may be discovered
hereafter. In the first place, as regards the Island of Espanola: Inasmuch
as the number of colonists who desire to go thither amounts to two thousand,
owing to the land being safer and better for farming and trading, and because
it will serve as a place to which they can return and from which they can
carry on trade with the neighboring islands….”
The Eureka Project, Search for
Columbus MainPage An excellent introductory website for use by school
teachers and their pupils: includes streaming videos by the project director,
information on the archaeological re-discovery of Columbus, Taïnos
in the Dominican Republic, and much more.
The
European Voyages of Exploration—The Caribbean: First Contact, University
of Calgary, Applied History Research Group, from the Internet Archive:
Excerpt—“ This Spanish pattern of conquest and settlement became the standard
for Spanish exploration in the New World. Upon discovering a new territory,
the Spanish expeditions were usually, but not always, greeted by friendly
inhabitants. During this initial stage the Europeans would survey the area
and the people to determine their potential for exploitation. Within a
short period of time the inhabitants would grow to resent the Spanish who
helped themselves to 'the natives' food, women and gold.' Such abuses were
common in Spanish cross-cultural contact and provoked violent reactions
by various indigenous populations. On the island of Hispaniola a group
of tribal leaders, joined forces to expel the Spaniards from the island.
The Spaniards, who had the benefit of muskets, arquebuses, armor, and savage
dogs ruthlessly put these uprisings down and took captive the tribal leaders
to ensure native cooperation. Once native resistance was crushed the Spanish
forced the villages to grow cash crops, pay tribute, and mine for their
precious gold. The Spanish regime was brutal and violent. Rapes and massacres
were casual and frequent in occurrence, rationalized by a racist world
view that justified the exploitation of non-Christians or non-whites….”
“Examining
the reputation of Christopher Columbus,” by Jack Weatherford, from the
Internet Archive: excerpt—“Because Columbus captured more Indian slaves
than he could transport to Spain in his small ships, he put them to work
in mines and plantations which he, his family and followers created throughout
the Caribbean. His marauding band hunted Indians for sport and profit -
beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies as
food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of Columbus' arrival on
Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one-third of the original Indian
population of 300,000. Within another 50 years, the Taino people had been
made extinct [editor's note: the old assumption that the Taino became extinct
is now open to serious question] - the first casualties of the holocaust
of American Indians. The plantation owners then turned to the American
mainland and to Africa for new slaves to follow the tragic path of the
Taino.”
The Columbus Letter of 1494:
the
Jay Kislak Foundation presents this letter by Columbus describing his 1492
discoveries of places and people, as his ship approached Spain on his return
voyage in early 1493. This famous letter was quickly published and printed
in Spanish at Barcelona (of which only one copy survives).
Christopher Columbus:
"Christopher
Columbus is a symbol, not of a man, but of imperialism. ... Imperialism
and colonialism are not something that happened decades ago or generations
ago, but they are still happening now with the exploitation of people.
... The kind of thing that took place long ago in which people were dispossessed
from their land and forced out of subsistence economies and into market
economies -- those processes are still happening today." John Mohawk, Seneca,
1992
El
Dorado: multiple pages of information on El Dorado Myth, Christopher
Columbus, along with full texts of Columbus’s documents
"The
Lucayans: The People Whom Columbus Discovered in the Bahamas" by
George A. Aarons, in "Five Hundred" Magazine (April 1990, Vol. 2,
No. 1, pp. 6-7)—Extract: “When Columbus, the great admiral and navigator,
arrived at San Salvador in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, he found there
a group of people known to us as the Lucayans. It was at this juncture
that the 15th century inhabitants of the Bahamas entered written history.
But their history, as can today be pieced together through archaeological,
anthropological, ethnographical and historical research, actually predates
this momentous event by many centuries….”
"Hello
Columbus", by Matt Crenson, AP Science Editor: [the article itself
is located half way down the page] "…A professor of underwater science
at Indiana University, Beeker first saw the well at La Aleta last year,
while searching for shipwrecks from Columbus' second voyage to the New
World. Now, in the dense tropical forests of the easternmost Dominican
Republic, he and his colleagues are uncovering lost remnants of the first
contact between the Old World and the New. 'There's no doubt that this
is a very special place for archaeologists in terms of what we stand to
learn,' says Geoff Conrad, director of Indiana University's Mathers Museum.…The
Indian side of the story has been lost to history. But archaeologists have
found cave paintings near La Aleta that may give a partial account from
the Indian point of view. The walls of Jose Maria Cave, a few miles from
the well, depict Indians growing, harvesting and making bread from a local
plant known as guayiga. The paintings also show the Indians offering the
bread to the Spanish as a tribute. Because the conquistadors were more
interested in gold than farming, they needed the bread to feed the inhabitants
of Santo Domingo and other nearby colonies…"
Medieval
Sourcebook: Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal— “This document
is the from the journal of Columbus in his voyage of 1492. The meaning
of this voyage is highly contested. On the one hand, it is witness to the
tremendous vitality and verve of late medieval and early modern Europe
- which was on the verge of acquiring a world hegemony. On the other hand,
the direct result of this and later voyages was the virtual extermination,
by ill-treatment and disease, of the vast majority of the Native inhabitants,
and the enormous growth of the transatlantic slave trade. It might not
be fair to lay the blame at Columbus' feet, but since all sides treat him
as a symbol, such questions cannot be avoided….” Full text free to download.
The Population of Guanahani,
on the Columbus Landfall Page: Excerpt—“James E. Kelley, Jr. (1992)
has made a convincing and still unrefuted argument about the population
of San Salvador: working from Columbus's own report of the number and sizes
of native canoes that visited his fleet on October 13, 1492, Kelley determined
that the minimum population of San Salvador must lie between 634 and 1115.
More recently, Alejandro Perez (1995) has made another convincing argument
about the population of San Salvador: working from Columbus's report (unnoticed
by many) that the entire population could be subjugated by 50 men, Perez
argues that this description suggests a population for San Salvador in
the hundreds, but not in the thousands. Perez reasonably suggests a maximum
population range of 500 to 1000 on that basis….”
“1492
and Multiculturalism,” by Robert Royal in "The Intercollegiate Review"
(Spring 1992, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 3-10): Excerpt—“One hundred years
ago, in 1892, Columbus was celebrated as a modern man liberating himself
from the theological inhibitions of Catholicism and the feudal restraints
of Spain to help create Protestant and democratic America. This interpretation
had gained prominence earlier in the century primarily through Washington
Irving's popular but skewed biography, which aimed at making Columbus into
the embodiment of nineteenth-century American optimism and progress.
This year, however, Columbus is being revised by many writers whose vested
interest lies far from seeing him as a white progressive—that issue is
long dead. Now he is the prototype of early white European capitalist
oppression whose victims--blacks, Native Americans, women (communitarians
and environmentalists all, of course)--are a veritable multicultural litany…”
“1492:
A 'New World' View,” by Sylvia Wynter, in The New World (Spring/Summer
1991, No. 2, pp. 4-5): Excerpt—“ Spain, and Europe in general, are
preparing to celebrate this event and have chosen to call it ‘The First
Encounters.’ But the view from the Americas and the Caribbean, unlike that
of Europe, must confront the fact that a non-European and indigenous collective
historical memory also exists. This memory, in marked contrast to
the triumphalist schoolbook stereotype that ‘in 1492, Columbus sailed the
ocean blue’ and ‘discovered America,’ is scarred. As Wendy Rose (1990)
reminds us, for some people this epochal event is a ‘time of mourning’…”
This page last updated: Tuesday, 30 December, 2003.