imperial aspirations and the limits of colonial domination · imperial aspirations and the limits...

1

Section I

Imperial Aspirations and the Limits of

Colonial Domination

Transatlantic colonization in the Americasfollowed Iberians’ long history of warfareand trading and territorial claims in Europe

and Africa. Europeans’ efforts to circumventMuslim-dominated routes and establish directaccess to the trading centers of the Indian Oceanworld helped spark and propel early Europeanexpansion and set colonial domination andimperialism in motion.1 From approximately 1400forward in Portugal and 1500 in Spain, Christianmonarchies gained territorial and political controland sought wealth and power overseas.

Before the overseas expansion began, theChristians fought intermittent wars against theMoors from North Africa, who had conqueredvirtually all of Iberia between 711 and 718 and afterhundreds of years had become Europeans,too.ThisReconquest, as it came to be known,began far in thenorth in 718, often as battles among nobles overserfs, and eventually hardened during 750 years ofwarfare into a bitter intolerance by Christians ofother religions. For centuries, Christians, Jews, andMuslims coexisted successfully in many parts of thepeninsula.They lived with certain restrictions andtensions in the same medieval cities and under thesame rulers whether Catholic or Muslim. This“convivencia” eventually eroded slowly into distrust,

�

1For a general history comparing Spanish empire building withthe British in North America, see John H. Elliot, Empires of theAtlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 (NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006).

hatred, and pogroms. As the conflict evolved into aclash between two sides (Christian and Muslim),each side developed strategies and institutions tohelp seize and hold territory and the people livingthere. As religious militancy and zeal increasinglyformed the rationale and motivation for the wars,the advancing Christians became steadily moreintolerant of the other religions on the peninsula,including Judaism. By the 1200s, the Moors wereexpelled from Portugal and confined to the Emirateof Granada in what became Spain under theCatholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel.

The centuries of wars that Christian Iberiansfought to win territory by driving out Muslimrulers gave Spain and Portugal’s overseas expan-sion the character and justification of crusades,wars to spread the faith and defeat nonbelievers.This sense of a Christian mission helped Iberianmonarchs begin to build dynastic states and claimthat their diverse subjects—speaking differenttongues and equally loyal to regional interests—shared a common Christian bond and obligationsto the crusading Crown. In particular, 1492 closedthe last chapter of the medieval ChristianReconquest of Iberia, and 1492 proved a decisiveyear for the religious unification of Spain. Fromthis year forward, all Spanish subjects would beChristians. Isabel and Ferdinand had already established the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 to seekout and punish Jewish converts to Christianity(conversos) who failed to remain true to their newfaith. In 1492 after 10 years of fighting to seize

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM

2 Section I Imperial Aspirations and the Limits of Colonial Domination

control of Granada, the victorious monarchsforced all remaining Jews to convert or face expulsion and permanent exile.2 Despite assurancesto the contrary given in order to obtain the sur-render of Granada, Muslim subjects soon facedthe same forced conversions, becoming moriscos.Many moriscos were expelled to North Africa acentury later in 1609–1613. Militant Christianityand intolerance of difference came to character-ize Iberian unification and subsequent expansioninto the Atlantic and the Americas.

In these efforts to spread the faith and Span-ish and Portuguese power, service to the monar-chy and God could be combined with seekingpersonal fortune and the enrichment of the state.In fact, the Iberian monarchies depended heavilyon the private organization, command, and financing of most of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century expeditions of exploration, trade, andterritorial conquest.The monarchs granted per-mission to specific commanders and financers toseek lands or trade in the Crown’s name in exchange for a portion of the profits (the royal fifth)and allegiance of both the conquerors and thosethey conquered. This partnership between indi-viduals and the state, often with papal sanction inhopes of spreading the faith, helped fuel the Span-ish and Portuguese conquests of the Atlantic Islands3 and the establishment and rapid growthof the Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans.4 It alsodrove colonization of the Americas. ChristopherColumbus came to the Americas four times under such an agreement. He first sought tradeitems and routes to Asia, but later he also laboredto colonize and mine gold. In each case, heworked equally for the greater glory of God,the Spanish monarchs he served, and his familyname and fortune. The accounts by Columbusand the other Spanish conquerors, called con-quistadors, quoted in this section reflect thesegoals and the struggle to balance these motives

with the realities they encountered and the alliances they made in order to succeed.

A strong sense of purpose and justificationmotivated the Spanish and Portuguese, but theyalso relied heavily on the aid and participation ofboth NativeAmerican andAfrican peoples to buildEuropean empires in theAmericas.Columbus, andevery Spaniard and Portuguese who followed him,sought allies and laborers among the NativePeoples.Colonial success depended on the extentthat Native Peoples could be persuaded or forcedto fight against Amerindian rulers, farm the lands,and mine for silver and gold. In the first stage ofSpanish expansion, Columbus depended on thenative population in the Caribbean; without in-digenous laborers the farms and mines could notbe worked, and without an indigenous populationon the land there was nothing with which to re-ward loyal followers. In the subsequent stage ofSpanish expansion onto the mainland, indigenouspeoples played an even larger role. Indigenous al-lies, prisoners, and slaves made possible the stun-ning defeats of the Aztecs by Hernán Cortés(1519–1521) and the Incas by Francisco Pizarro(1531–1534).Once the fighting was over, colonistsand the Crown alike depended on the productiv-ity of indigenous society to build the cities, feed thecolonists, and pay tribute. Native Peoples also sus-tained the missionaries who evangelized them andkept the mines running. In Brazil, the Portuguesefirst depended on the Tupi-Guaraní people totrade dyewood (Brazilwood) and other items, andthey later needed indigenous laborers to startworking the first sugar plantations until enoughcapital could be accumulated to import expensiveenslaved African workers. For the first 200 years,Spanish and Portuguese empires in much of theAmericas depended in one way or another on thenumbers and productivity of Native Peoples.

Africans came to play an equally central role inthe drama of conquest and colonization in theAmericas because they had already been incorpo-rated into the Atlantic system of trade and labor.5

Well before Columbus embarked for theAmericas,2Portugal followed suit with forced conversions and expulsionsof Jews in 1497.3Azores, Madeira, Canaries, Cape Verde, and São Tomé.4Beginning with sales in 1441, the Portuguese pioneered theslave trade.

5For an overview, see Herbert S. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM

Section I Imperial Aspirations and the Limits of Colonial Domination 3

This 1524 book published in Nuremberg contains the Hapsburg monarchy’s coat of arms, a map of the Azteccapital, and the second and third letters sent by the Spanish conquistador Cortés to the Emperor Charles V. Theletters provided Europeans with early accounts of Mexican peoples and culture. The map shows the Gulf Coast of Mexico, and the city plan shows a large and complex city, including a temple precinct and causeways to themainland. What does the map tell viewers about the society Cortés conquered in 1519–1521? This first map andthe plan draw on both European and indigenous sources. How does this representation of Tenochtilán contrast withthe second set of images (from 1572) showing Tenochtilán and the South American Inca capital Cuzco side by sideand drawing solely on European sources? What do all three images taken together tell viewers about the interestsof the Spanish empire builders?

Sour

ce:G

eorg

Bra

un a

nd F

ranz

Hog

enbe

rg, “

Mex

ico,

reg

ia e

t ce

le-

bris

Hisp

ania

e no

vae

civi

tas”

and

“C

usco

, reg

ni P

eru

in n

ovo

orbe

capu

t,” in

Civi

tate

s O

rbis

Terra

rum

(Col

ogne

: T. G

ram

inae

us, 1

572)

.Ja

y I.

Kisla

k C

olle

ctio

n, R

are

Book

and

Spe

cial

Col

lect

ions

Div

ision

,Li

brar

y of

Con

gres

s (5

).

Sour

ce:H

erná

n C

orté

s, Pr

aecla

ra F

erdi

na[n

]di C

orte

sii d

e no

ua m

aris

ocea

ni. .

. .

(Nur

embe

rg: P

eypu

s, 15

24).

Facs

imile

. Ros

enw

ald

Col

lect

ion,

Rar

e Bo

ok a

ndSp

ecia

l Col

lect

ions

Div

ision

, Lib

rary

of C

ongr

ess

(60.

02.0

0).

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM


the Portuguese and then the Spanish launchedexpeditions into northern and westernAfrica.Goldand ivory initially attracted raiders and traders whoestablished ports and trading enclaves on theislands in the Atlantic and along the coasts andrivers. However, people soon became the mostvaluable “commodity.” Iberians enslaved Africanpeople and sent them to European cities and tolabor on the Mediterranean-style sugar plantationsbeing established on the Atlantic Island colonieslike the Canaries, Cape Verde, and São Tomé. Twoimportant results of the early slave trade should benoted. First,in theAtlantic world and in theAmericas,the stigma of slavery was attached to Africans.Second, the Iberian trade in slaves taken inAfrica ascaptives,or purchased fromAfrican slave traders orrulers, not only became the first step and a testingground in Iberian expansion overseas, but also pro-foundly shaped theAmerican experience.From thevery beginning, Africans provided both empireswith intermediaries, sailors, conquistadors, ser-vants, artisans, and plantation laborers. Of course,Africans served their own interests by carving outspaces for life within colonial society or engaging inanticolonial resistance on the poorly controlledfrontiers. In order to marshal thisAfrican labor andquell resistance, Europeans exported Iberian insti-tutions and practices and developed new ones.

At first, practices and institutions fosteredconquest and holding conquered lands; never-theless, gradually, the goals shifted to favor royalcontrol and the Church.To encourage conquis-tadors to invest their money and lives in findingand subjugating populous indigenous societies,victors were entrusted with the native popula-tions of specific towns or attached to specificethnic chiefs (called caciques or kurakas). Theseencomiendas allowed the encomenderos, whoheld them to collect tribute and labor servicesfrom Native Peoples in exchange for Christian-izing them and caring for their well being.Encomiendas proved tremendously profitable inplaces where the indigenous population sufferedlower mortality from the “Old World.” Severalfactors came together to bring about the end ofthe encomienda system: Indigenous peoples opposed the exploitation of encomenderos, the

Crown feared encomenderos’ power and auton-omy, and missionaries desired better access tothe people they aimed to convert. The New Lawsof 1542 limited the encomienda system severely,and it was eliminated within a generation or twofrom most places.

Instead of a society dominated by encomenderos,the Spanish Crown favored direct royal controland laws to incorporate Europeans, NativePeoples, and Africans into a colonial economy anda Christian society. The Crown establishedcabildos (town councils) to govern the citiesthat colonists lived in and the towns to which theIndians belonged. Corregidores (rural magistrates)supervised the collection of tribute from Indiansand their service in forced labor drafts. To governall groups and to represent the king, the Crownappointed viceroys in Mexico City (1535) andLima in Peru (1544). A judicial bureaucracy cen-tered on the audiencias (royal high courts) locatedthroughout Mexico and Peru managed disputeswithin this system and reached all the way back tothe Crown’s Council of the Indies established in1524 to draft laws and hear appeals.The Church,too, expanded its roles as it ministered to agrowing colonist and mixed-race population,mainly in cities. Church officials created a systemof parish priests throughout the indigenoustowns and neighborhoods, and they sent mission-aries to convert Native Peoples in more remoteregions. Crown and Church officials found thatto govern was to mediate among the variouslevels of administration and the factions withinAmerican society. This rule, through negotiationand the need to incorporate Europeans, Africans,and Native Peoples, allowed individuals fromthese groups to find ways to articulate theirinterests within royal and Church institutions.The flexibility required by colonial society influ-enced the operation of the Iberian empires.

The lives of colonial subjects and theirdirect experience of empire help people todayrecognize the centrality of indigenous peoples,Africans, and their American-born descendantsin the history of Latin America. The term“conquest” typically makes one think of con-querors defeating the Aztec and Inca empires,

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM

Section I Imperial Aspirations and the Limits of Colonial Domination 5

whereas “empire building” conjures up images ofbureaucrats and missionaries ruling over NativePeoples and slaves. Although it is true that asmall number of European men gained the mostfrom building colonial empires, the document ex-cerpts in this section reveal how peoples frommany different backgrounds participated in theprocess of making colonial Latin America. Docu-ments in which Columbus and Bernal Díaz de-scribe their relations with indigenous peoplesshow that a complex web of enmity and allianceswith indigenous peoples made European con-quest possible. Indigenous and Afro-LatinAmerican identities and experiences in the earlycolonial period were likewise much more com-plex than readers today usually assume.Garofalo’s archival documents explore howAfricans living and working in Diaspora on bothsides of the Atlantic played key roles in forging

empires and founding multiethnic societies.Matthew offers documents that allow readers toexplore why a Maya from Guatemala tried to“pass” as a Tlaxcalan Indian in the late sixteenthcentury, building an identity on claims of militaryservice to the Spanish during the campaigns ofconquest that fanned out from central Mexico.Spanish and Portuguese empire building contin-ued into the seventeenth century and often tookplace at the margins of colonial centers. Reportson the famous Brazilian quilombo of Palmares il-lustrate the power of maroon societies (runawaycommunities) to set limits on the reach of Euro-pean empires.The primary-source documents atthe heart of all these chapters relate a variety ofpersonal experiences of conquest, colonization,and empire building in colonial LatinAmerica andhelp readers to think beyond stereotyped inter-pretations of colonization.

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM

6

Chapter 1

Christopher ColumbusEvaluates Indigenous

Societies

Leo J. Garofalo, Connecticut College

Christopher Columbus recorded his firstimpressions of the Americas and the Amerindianshe encountered in the Caribbean, creating some

of the first and most influential accounts of theAmericas. His letters and reports directed to themonarchs sponsoring his missions and other highlyplaced nobles and clergymen began to formEuropeans’ image of the “New World.” The

�

BahamaIslands

documents excerpted here show Columbusevaluating indigenous society and proposing variousways that Europeans could interact with the peoplehe met during his first voyage (1492–1493).6 The

6Columbus launched three other voyages in 1493–1496,1498–1500, and 1502–1504.

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM

Christopher Columbus Evaluates Indigenous Societies 7

Spanish monarchy authorized and partially financedColumbus’s explorations. In return, Columbuspromised to reach Asia and give Spanish merchantsand royal power an opportunity to circumvent theOttoman-controlled Mediterranean trade routes andthe Portuguese maritime routes advancing southalong western Africa and around the Cape of GoodHope at the southern extremity of Africa.7 Not sur-prisingly, in his report to the Spanish Queen Isabeland King Ferdinand, Columbus discussed the op-portunities for trade, the search for valuable exports,the potential for Christianizing local people, ethnicdivisions, and slavery. Thus, Columbus sought bothto describe the potential of the lands and people be-fore him and to continue his search for a way west. Inshort, Columbus shaped his report to respond to theexpectations of the Crown. These accounts of the firstvoyage come to readers today further mediated byBartolomé de Las Casas. This Dominican friar, laterfamous for his denunciation of Spanish abuses duringthe conquest (see Chapter 6), made the only surviv-ing copies of the digest of Columbus’s log and per-haps incorporated additional information from asecond account also penned by Columbus.

An Italian sea captain from Genoa (1451–1506),Columbus had courted royal backers for a westwardvoyage to Asia (the East Indies) since 1483. Relying onMarco Polo’s map and miscalculations, Columbus un-derestimated the world’s circumference and concludedthat Japan could be reached by sailing 2,500 miles westof the Portuguese Azores in the Atlantic. Doubtingthese estimates and unwilling to grant the mariner sucha large share of the potential profits (the Spanish Crownallowed him 10 percent of the profits), the Portugueserejected Columbus’s request for underwriters. In 1488,the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias sailedaround Africa, establishing a Portuguese route to Asia’strade in spices and other luxuries and consolidatingPortugal’s hold on the trade in slaves from western andcentral Africa. Eager to catch up, the Spanish provedmore willing to invest in Columbus’s improbable ven-ture. Even if he fell short of Asia and only securedclaims to more islands in the Atlantic, Columbuswould advance the Spanish sphere of control further to

the west. Newly united by the dynastic marriage be-tween Queen Isabel of Castile and King Ferdinand ofAragon (1469) and fresh from the victorious conclusionto the campaign to drive Islamic rulers off the IberianPeninsula (January 1492), the Spanish monarchs metColumbus in the newly conquered city of Granada. ByApril, they agreed to back his plan to sail west andclaim for Spain territories and trade routes to Asia. Themonarchs promised him various rewards, including thegovernorship of his discoveries and the title of Admiralof the Oceans. The chance to outmaneuver Mediter-ranean enemies and Iberian competitors for trade ap-pealed to the Spanish Monarchs because it offered thechance to expand royal power, carry to new realms theircrusade to promote Christianity, and find the resourcesneeded to finance a more powerful state and fightagainst non-Christian empires. At first, Columbus’s ar-rival fell well short of fulfilling these goals.

Columbus reached the Bahamas first and otherCaribbean islands later and, eventually, the shores ofCentral America and northern South America. Thepeople he encountered were not Japanese and Chinese;instead, he met and began to kidnap Amerindians.When Columbus arrived, many ethnic groups inhab-ited the Caribbean, and later researchers came to labelthem as Arawaks because of similarities with theIndians in northeastern South America.8 The rapid de-struction of these societies in the two decades after1492 left little information about how Caribbeanpeoples understood their identities and occupied thisbroad region. What is known from the surviving doc-uments is that the people who lived in the Bahamascalled themselves Lucayo. Puerto Rico’s inhabitantscalled themselves Borinquen. On the large islands likeHispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Repub-lic), Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, the original populationreached into the hundreds of thousands. Perhaps amillion people lived in all these Greater Antilles. Theylived in permanent villages in thatch and wood houseswith roofs that were conical or rectangular in shape,and arranged in irregular fashion around a centralspace where the ethnic chief or cacique’s house was

7Rounding the Cape allowed the Portuguese to enter the IndianOcean and trade with Asia.

8Some ethnographers divide them into Taínos/Gautiao,Caribs/Caribe, and Guanahatabeys/Ciboney and assign them geo-graphical locations; Taínos in the Greater Antilles, Caribs in theLesser Antilles, and Guanahatabeys/Ciboney in westernmost Cuba.

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM


located. Caciques organized daily activities, rituals, andthe storage of food and surplus goods for future use.Islanders cultivated cassava and tobacco for ceremonialuse when rolled into large cigars and smoked throughthe nostrils. On some islands, a hundred people livedin each village. On others, villages might hold 1,000to 2,000 residents. Likewise, some caciques only con-trolled their local villages, whereas in other regionsthey owed allegiance to other caciques and might evenhave belonged to regional chiefdoms.

Beginning with Columbus, historians treat earlyreports of cannibalism with suspicion. This label hadfateful historical consequences throughout Spanishand Portuguese America. The charge of cannibalismamong Amerindians allowed the Iberian colonialregimes to distinguish “good” Amerindian populations

from “bad” ones, targeting the latter for punitive vio-lence, even enslavement and extermination. Thisprocess of categorizing facilitated and attempted tojustify to other Europeans Iberian acts of conquest andcolonization. Columbus and the chroniclers and mis-sionaries who followed him promoted a dualistic eth-nic typology of “Arawaks” and “Caribs” and spread itsuse across the Caribbean. They described Caribs asfierce and cannibalistic. They often used this label forany group selected for enslavement or particularly re-sistant to evangelization. Queen Isabel’s Royal Decreein 1503 legalized the plunder, enslaving, and sale onlyof “Carib” populations. When combined withEuropean diseases, warfare among Spanish factions,and the exploitation of local populations to minefor gold, the practices of enslavement and raiding

Printed in Basel in 1494 and describing encounters with Amerindians, this edition of Christopher Columbus’s lettersto King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel of Spain was illustrated by five woodcuts. This account’s seventeen editionsmade Columbus famous. In the part of the Caribbean described in the letters, Columbus met the Taíno people. Hedescribed them as “naked as the day they were born.” The Taíno possessed complex religious, political, and socialhierarchies and skills as farmers and navigators; nevertheless, their portrayals in text and image reflected little of thisreality. This first illustration was probably imaginary and adapted from drawings of Mediterranean places (forinstance, oared galleys were not used on Columbus’s voyages).What could European readers learn from theseaccounts and their illustrations? What could they not discover about the Americas in them?Source: Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), De Insulis nuper in Mari Indico repertis in Carolus Verardus: Historia Baetica (Basel: I.B. [Johann Bergman deOlpe], 1494). Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (48.01.02).

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM


devastated first the Native Peoples of the Greater An-tilles and then the Lesser Antilles. Between 1492 and1514, the population dropped from a million or moreto approximately 30,000 (and to only a handful of peo-ple by the mid-1500s). Amerindian labor for Hispan-iola and Cuba’s sugar growing and placer mining wasreplaced by enslaved people brought from WestAfrica. Disease and the actions of the first Spanish col-onizers in the Caribbean caused this acute labor short-age and a crisis in indigenous society just as theSpanish kingdom was attempting to become an em-pire and learn to govern new territories.

The Caribbean’s native populations were the firstto experience European methods of invasion and colo-nization and suffer the ecological and demographicconsequences. Beginning in 1494, Columbus madeHispaniola the focus of conquest. Following Iberianpractice and the model of subjugating the CanaryIslanders, Columbus and subsequent explorers andconquerors assigned the native population under spe-cific caciques to individual colonizers as a reward forservice during the conquest. However, Columbusproved a poor administrator of colonizing efforts. TheSpanish fought fiercely among themselves and soabused and decimated the local indigenous popula-tions that the Crown stripped Columbus of his gover-norship and sent him back to Spain in chains anddisgrace in 1499. Consequently, his family lost mostof its privileges and grants. The Crown eventuallycreated the administrative unit of the Audiencia9 of

Santo Domingo to govern the Caribbean Islands andthe littoral region of South America occupied bySpain. Colonizing efforts shifted to exploring and con-quering the mainlands. Columbus’s accounts, thus,initiated the process of building Spain’s overseasclaims in the Americas. The Caribbean became a test-ing ground for imperial strategies. These original voy-ages and the attempts to establish a Spanish presencein Hispaniola helped the Spanish Empire shape itsview of Native Peoples in the Americas, adapt Iberianinstitutions to American realities, and determine howto extract benefits from these new claims.

Questions to Consider:1. How did Columbus describe the Caribbean’s

potential and suggest ways to incorporatethese new lands and peoples into Europeanimperial and commercial systems?

2. What clues can you find in the letter tosuggest what the Native Peoples thatColumbus encountered might have thought of the Spanish?

3. What did Columbus write about religion and beliefs? How did Columbus try to takeadvantage of the Spanish monarchs’crusading spirit?

4. How did Columbus determine whether somepeople were more “civilized” than others?Might this letter tell readers today more aboutEuropeans than about indigenous peoples?9Royal high court.

Thursday, 11 October. . . . They reached a small island of the Lucayos, called in the Indian languageGuananhani.11 Immediately some naked people appeared and the Admiral [Columbus] went ashore

in the armed boat, as did Martin Alonso Pinzón andhis brother Vicente Yanez, captain of the Niña.12 TheAdmiral raised the royal standard and the captainscarried two banners with the green cross which wereflown by the Admiral on all his ships. On each sideof the cross was a crown surmounting the letters Fand Y (for Ferdinand and Isabel). On landing they

Christopher Columbus’s Account of His First Voyage,October 11, 1492 to January 2, 149310

10Source: Christopher Columbus, The Four Voyages, ed. and trans. J. M. Cohen (New York: Penguin Books, 1969), 53, 55–59, 60–67.11Watling Island in the Bahamas, Columbus’s first landfall. Fromhere, he continued through the Bahamas to Cuba and the Islandof Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic today). 12Columbus set out in three ships: the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria.

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM


saw very green trees and much water and fruit of var-ious kinds. The Admiral called the two captains andthe others who had landed and Rodrigo Escobedo,recorder of the whole fleet, and Rodrigo Sanchez deSegovia, and demanded that they should bear faith-ful witness that he took possession of the island—which he did—for his sovereigns and masters theKing and Queen. He further made the required dec-larations, which are recorded at greater length in theevidence there set down in writing. Soon many of thepeople of the island came up to them. What followsare the Admiral’s actual words in his account of hisfirst voyage and the discovery of these Indies.13

‘In order to win their friendship, since I knewthey were a people to be converted and won to our holyfaith by love and friendship rather than by force, Igave some of them red caps and glass beads which theyhung round their necks, also many other trifles. Thesethings pleased them greatly and they became mar-velously friendly to us. They afterwards swam out tothe ship’s boats in which we were sitting, bringing usparrots and balls of cotton thread and spears and manyother things, which they exchanged with us for suchobjects as glass beads, hawks and bells. In fact, they verywillingly traded everything they had. But they seemedto me a people very short of everything. They all gonaked as their mothers bore them, including thewomen, although I saw only one very young girl.

‘All the men I saw were young. I did not see oneover the age of thirty. They were well built with finebodies and handsome faces. Their hair is coarse,almost like that of a horse’s tail and short; they wear itdown over their eyebrows except for a few strands atthe back, which they wear long and never cut. Theyare the color of the Canary Islanders (neither blacknor white). Some of them paint themselves black,others white or any color they can find. Some painttheir faces, some their whole bodies, some only theeyes, some only the nose. They do not carry arms orknow them. For when I showed them swords, theytook them by the edge and cut themselves out ofignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are madeof cane. Some instead of an iron tip have a fish’s tooth

and others have points of different kinds. They arefairly tall on the whole, with fine limbs and goodproportions. I saw some who had wound scars ontheir bodies and I asked them by signs how they gotthese and they indicated to me that people came fromother islands nearby who tried to capture them andthey defended themselves. I suppose and still sup-pose that they come from the mainland to capturethem for slaves. They should be good servants andvery intelligent, for I have observed that they soonrepeat anything that is said to them, and I believethat they would easily be made Christians, for theyappear to me to have no religion. God willing, whenI make my departure I will bring half a dozen of themback to their Majesties, so that they can learn tospeak. I saw no animals of any kind on this islandexcept parrots.’ These are the Admiral’s own words.

Saturday, 13 October.14 At daybreak many of thesemen came to the shore—all young, as I have said, andall of a good height—a very fine people. Their hair isnot curly but straight and as coarse as horse hair. Allhave very broad brows and heads, broader than thoseof any people I have seen before. Their eyes are veryfine and not small. They are not at all black, but thecolor of Canary Islanders, as could be expected, sincethis is in the same latitude as the Island of Hierro inthe Canaries. They have very straight legs and nobellies, but well-formed bodies. They came to the shipin boats which were made from tree-trunks, like along boat cut out of a single log. They are marvelouslycarved in the native style and they are so big that fortyor forty-five men came in them. There are otherssmaller, so small that some carried only a single man.They row them with a paddle like a baker’s shovel andthey go wonderfully fast. If one capsizes they all startswimming and right it. They bale it out with gourdswhich they carry with them. They brought balls ofcotton thread and parrots and spears and other thingswhich it would be tedious to mention, and exchangethem for anything that was given them. I watchedcarefully to discover whether they had gold and sawthat some of them carried a small piece hanging from

13The Americas. This reference suggests here that Las Casasquoted these passages from Columbus’s own writings.

14Las Casas consulted and incorporated two now lost sets ofwritings by Columbus. This accounts for the repetitions in the de-scription of the island.

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM


a hole pierced in the nose. I was able to understandfrom their signs that to the south, either inland oralong the coast, there was a king who had large vesselsmade of it and possessed a great deal. I tried hard tomake them go there but saw in the end that they hadno intention of doing so. I decided to remain till theafternoon of the next day and then to sail south-west,for according to the signs which many of themmade there was land to the south, south-west andnorth-west. They all indicated that men from thenorthwest often came to attack them. So I resolved togo southwest to seek the gold and precious stones.

This island is fairly large and very flat. It hasgreen trees and much water. It has a very large lakein the middle and no mountains and all is delight-fully green. The people are very gentle and anxiousto have the things we bring. Thinking that nothingwill be given them, however, unless they give some-thing in exchange, and having nothing to give, theytake anything they can, jump into the water andswim away. But they will give all that they do pos-sess for anything that is given to them, exchangingthings even for bits of broken crockery or brokenglass cups. I saw one give sixteen balls of cotton fora [small copper coin], and in these balls there wasmore than an aroba [25 pounds] of cotton thread.

I should like to forbid this and let no one take anycotton except at my command; then if there were anyquantity I would order it all to be taken for yourMajesties. It grows here on this island, but owing toshortage of time I can give no exact account of it. Andhere too the gold is found that they wear hanging fromtheir noses. But in order not to waste time I wish to goand see if I can strike the island of Chipangu [Japan].

Now when night fell they all went ashore intheir boats.

Sunday, 14 October. At dawn I order the ship’s boatand the boats of the caravels [ships] to be made ready,and coasted the island in a northeasterly direction inorder to see other and eastward part and to look forvillages. I saw two or three, whose people all camedown to the beach calling to us and offering thanks toGod. Some brought us water, others various sorts offood, and others, when they saw that I did not intendto land, jumped into the sea and swam out. We un-derstood them to be asking us if we came from the

sky. One old man got into the boat, and all the others,men and women alike, shouted, ‘Come and see themen who have come from the skies; and bring themfood and drink.’ Many men and women came, eachbringing something and offering thanks to God; theythrew themselves on the ground and raised theirhands to the sky and then called out to us, asking usto land. But I was afraid to do so, seeing a great reefof rocks which encircled the whole island. Insidethere is deep water which give sufficient anchoragefor all the ships in Christendom. But the entrance isvery narrow. It is true that there are some shoalswithin this reef, but the sea is as still as well water.

I went to view all this morning, in order to givean account to your Majesties and to decide where afort could be built. I saw a piece of land which is muchlike an island, though it is not one, on which therewere six huts. It could be made into an island in twodays, though I see no necessity to do so since thesepeople are very unskilled in arms, as your Majestieswill discover from seven whom I caused to be takenand brought aboard so that they may learn our lan-guage and return. However, should your Highnesscommand it all the inhabitants could be taken awayto Castile or held as slaves on the island, for with fiftymen we could subjugate them all and make them dowhatever we wish. Moreover, near the small island Ihave described there are groves of the loveliest trees Ihave seen, all green with leaves like our trees inCastile in April and May, and much water.

I examined the whole of that anchorage andthen returned to the ship and set sail. I saw so manyislands that I could not make up my mind which tovisit first. The men I had taken told me by signs thatthere were so many that it was impossible to countthem. They mentioned more than a hundred byname. In the end I looked for the largest and decidedto go to that one, which I am doing. It is about fiveleagues from the island of San Salvador, and the restare rather more or rather less. All are very flat, with-out mountains and very fertile. All are populated andmake war with one another, although the people arevery simple and do not look savage.

Monday, 15 October. I stood off that night, fearing toapproach land before morning because I did not knowif the coast was free from shoals. At daybreak I hoisted

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM


told the sailors to give him back his canoe whichthey had taken on to the ship’s boat, and sent himashore. I then raised sail for the other large islandwhich I saw to the west and ordered that the secondcanoe which the Niña was towing be set adrift.Shortly afterwards I saw the man to whom I hadgiven these gifts come ashore.

I had not taken the ball of cotton from him, although he wished to give it to me. The peoplegathered around him and he appeared astonished. Itseemed to him that we were good people and that theman who escaped in the canoe must have wronged usor we should not have carried him off.

It was to create this impression that I had himset free and gave him presents. I was anxious thatthey should think well of us so that they may not beunfriendly when your Majesties send a second expe-dition here. All I gave him was worth more than fourmaravedis.16

So I set sail for the other island about ten o’clockwith a southeast wind which veered southerly. It isvery large and, according to the signs made by themen we had brought from San Salvador, containsmuch gold, which they wear as bracelets on theirarms and legs and in their ears and noses and roundtheir necks. This other island was about nine leagueswest of Santa María, and thus part of its coasts apparently runs from northwest to south-east, forupwards of twenty-eight leagues.

Like San Salvador and Santa María it is very flatwith no mountains. All the beaches are free fromrocks, although all have submerged reefs near shore,for which reason it is necessary to look carefully before anchoring and not to anchor too near land.The water, however, is always very clear and you cansee the bottom. A couple of Lombard shots off landthe water is so deep around all these that it cannot besounded. They are all very green and fertile and sub-ject to gentle breezes. They contain many things ofwhich I do not know because I did not care to landand explore them, being anxious to find gold; andsince these islands show signs of containing it—forthe natives wear it round their arms and legs, and itis certainly gold, because I showed them some pieces

sail. As the island was more than five leagues away—indeed more like seven—and the tide was against me,it was midday when reached this island. I found thatthe coast which faces San Salvador runs north andsouth for some five leagues, and the other coast whichI followed runs east and west for more than tenleagues.15 And as from this island I saw another largerone to the west, I hoisted sail to run all that day tillnight, since I should otherwise not have been able toreach its western point. I named this island SantaMaría de la Concepción. And it was almost sunsetwhen I reached this point. I wished to learn whetherthere was gold there, because the men I had takenaboard at the island at San Salvador told me that herethey wore very large gold bracelets round their legsand arms. I thought that this tale was probably a lietold in the hope of getting away. Generally it was mywish to pass no island without taking possession ofit. Though having annexed one it might be said thatwe had annexed all. I anchored and stayed there untiltoday, Tuesday, when at daybreak I approached theshore with the armed boats and landed.

There were many people all naked and likethose of San Salvador. They let us go about the islandand gave us all that we asked for. But as the wind wasblowing from the southeast I did not wish to delayand went back to the ship. A large canoe happeningto lie alongside the Niña, a little before midnightone of the men from San Salvador who was in the car-avel jumped overboard and went off in it. A few min-utes later another threw himself overboard also andswam after the canoe, which went so fast that no boatcould overtake it, for it had a considerable start.

So they came to land and left the canoe. Severalmembers of my crew went ashore after them andthey ran off like frightened hens. We took the canoethey had abandoned aboard the caravel Niña; it wasapproached by another small canoe with a man whohad come to barter a ball of cotton. Since he wouldnot board the caravel some sailors jumped down andseized him. Having seen all this from the forecastlewhere I was standing, I sent for him and gave him ared cap and some green glass beads which I put in hisarms and two hawk’s bells which I put in his ears. I

16Worth only a small amount of money.15Columbus exaggerated many of these estimates.

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM


which I have—I cannot fail, with God’s help, to findout where it comes from.

When I was in mid-channel, between SantaMaría and this other island which I have named Fernandina [Long Island], I found a man alone in acanoe crossing from one to the other. He was carry-ing a lump of their bread, about the size of a fist, anda gourd of water and a bit of red earth which hadbeen powdered and then kneaded; also some driedleaves which they must have valued very high sincethey gave me a present of them. He also carried a nativebasket containing some glass beads and two blancas[coins], by which I knew that he had come from SanSalvador to Santa María and was now on his way toFernandina. He came alongside and I let him comeaboard as he asked. I had his canoe hauled aboardalso and all that he carried kept safe. I ordered thathe should be given bread and honey and somethingto drink. I shall carry him to Fernandina and restoreall his possessions to him so that he may give a goodaccount of us. Then when, God willing, your High-nesses send others here, we shall be favorably received and the natives may give us of all they possess.

Tuesday, 16 October. Having left the islands ofSanta María de la Concepción at about midday forFernandina, which appeared very large in the west, I sailed for the rest of the day in a calm and couldnot reach it in time to anchor for the water wasnot clear enough for me to see bottom and one hasto take great care not to lose the anchors. So I layoff all that night and in the morning saw a villageoff which I anchored. This was the native villageof the man I had found on the previous day withhis canoe in mid-channel. He had given such agood account of us that canoes swarmed round theship all that night. They brought us water andsomething of all they had. I ordered presents to begiven to all of them, that is to say, strings of tenor a dozen small glass beads and some brass clap-pers of a kind that are worth a maravedi each inCastile and leather tags, all of which they valuevery highly, and when they came aboard I hadthem given molasses to eat. And afterwards atnine in the morning I sent a ship’s boat ashore forwater and they most gladly showed our menwhere it could be found and they themselves

carried the full casks back to the boat. They weredelighted to give us pleasure.

This island is very large and I decided to sailround it because as I understand, in it or near it, thereis a goldfield. The island is eight leagues west of SantaMaría and from the cape where I touched, the coastruns north-north-west and south-south-east; I sawquite twenty leagues of it and it still continued. As Iwrite this I have set sail with a south wind intendingto push on round the island until I come to Samoet,which is the island or city where the gold is, for allwho have come aboard the ship have said so. Both thepeople of San Salvador and Santa María told us so.

The people here are like the people of those islands; both in language and customs, though herethey seem to me rather more civilized, more tractableand more intelligent, for I see they are better able tobargain for the cotton and other trifles which theyhave brought to the ship than were the other peoples.And I saw on this island cotton cloths made likeshawls. The people are more friendly and the womenwear a small piece of cloth in front which just hidestheir private parts.

This island is very green, flat and fertile and Ihave no doubt that they sow and reap Indian cornand other crops throughout the year. . . .

They have no religion and I think that theywould be very quickly Christianized, for they have avery ready understanding. . . .

Wednesday, 17 October. At midday I set sail from the village off which I had anchored andwhere I had landed and taken water to make a cir-cuit of this island of Fernandina. The wind wassouthwest and south. It was my intention to followthe coast of this island from where I was to thesoutheast, since it runs as a whole from north-north-west to south-south-east. I wanted to takemy course to the south-south-east, because all theIndians whom I have aboard and others from whomI inquired tell me that southwards from here liesthe island they call Samoet, where the gold is. MartinAlonso Pinzón, captain of the Pinta, in which I hadplaced three of these Indians, came to me and saidthat one of them had very explicitly given him tounderstand that the island could be rounded morequickly in a north-north-westerly direction.

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM


I saw that the wind would not help me on thecourse I wished to steer and that it favored the othercourse, so I steered north-north-west, and when I wasabout two leagues from the island’s cape [LongIsland] I saw a marvelous harbor with an entrance, orrather two entrances, since there is an islet in themiddle. Both entrances are very narrow, but it wouldhave been large enough to provide anchorage for ahundred ships if it had been deep and free of rocksand the entrance channels had been deep also. Ithought fit to examine it closely and take soundings;therefore I anchored outside and went in with all theships’ boats and we found that it was shallow. WhenI first saw it I thought it was the mouth of a river, soI had ordered casks to be brought to take water. Onland I saw eight or ten men who quickly came up tous and pointed to a nearby village, where I sentmy men for water, which they took, somegoing armed and others carrying the casks. As thevillage was some distance away I had to remain therefor two hours.

During that time I walked among the trees,which were the loveliest sight I had yet seen. Theywere green as those of Andalusia in the month ofMay. But all these trees are as different from ours asday from night and so are the fruit and plants andstones, and everything else. It is true that some treeswere of species that can be found in Castile, yet therewas a great difference; but there are many othervarieties which no one could say are like those ofCastile or could compare with them. The peoplewere all of the same kind as those already described;their condition was the same; they were naked andof the same height. They gave whatever they pos-sessed for whatever we gave them and here I sawsome ships’ boys exchanging small bits of brokencrockery or glass for spears.

The men who had gone for water told me thatthey had entered their houses and that they werevery clean and well swept and that their blanketsare like cotton nets. These houses are like largetents. They are high and have good chimneys. Butof all the villages I saw none consisted of more thana dozen or fifteen houses. Here they found thatmarried women wear cotton drawers, but girls donot, until they reach the age of eighteen. Here therewere mastiffs and small dogs and here they met one

man who wore in his nose a piece of gold about halfthe size of a castellano17 on which they saw letters. Iwas angry with them because they had not bar-gained for it and given as much as they were asked,so that we could examine it and see where the coincame from. They answered that they did not dare tobargain for it.

After taking the water I returned to the ship,raised sail and followed a north-westerly course alongthe shore to the point where the coast turns east-west.Later all the Indians insisted that this island wassmaller than Samoet and that it would be better toturn back in order to reach that island sooner. Thenthe wind fell and began to blow west-north-west,which was unfavorable to the course we had been fol-lowing. I therefore turned back and sailed all thatnight in an east-south-easterly direction, sometimesdue east and sometimes southeast in order to keepclear of land, because the clouds were very thick andthe weather very heavy. The wind was slight and Icould not make land to anchor. In the night heavyrain fell from after midnight almost till daybreak andit is still cloudy with more rain to come.

We are now at the southeastern tip of the island,where I hope to anchor until the weather clears, andI can see the other islands to which I am going. It hasrained practically every day since I have been inthese Indies. Your highnesses must believe me thatthese islands are the most fertile, and temperate andflat and good in the whole world.

Suggested Sources:William D. Phillips and Carla Rahn Phillips,The Worldsof Christopher Columbus (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), places Columbus in his time.Alfred W. Crosby outlines the ecological transforma-tions caused by pathogens, European livestock, andAmerican food crops in Columbian Exchange: Biolog-ical and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport,CT: Greenwood, 1972). Neil L. Whitehead writesabout Native Peoples in the Caribbean and their

17A small coin.

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM


reaction to Spanish colonization. See Neil L.Whitehead, “The Crises and Transformations of In-vaded Societies: The Caribbean (1492–1580),” in TheCambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Ameri-cas, ed. Frank Salomon and Stuart B. Schwartz(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), vol.3, part 1, 864–903.

Sources written in the period also provide valu-able insights. Ramón Pané compiled the earliestethnographic account of Caribbean peoples’ livesand religion in An Account of the Antiquities of theIndians: Chronicles of the New World Encounter(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999). Addi-tional letters and other documents related toColumbus are collected in Geoffrey Symcox and

Blair Sullivan,Christopher Columbus and the Enterpriseof the Indies: A Brief History with Documents (Boston:Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005). Alvaro Nuñez Cabezade Vaca recorded his shipwreck in Florida and histravels among indigenous groups until reachingnorthern Mexico in The Narrative of Alvar NuñezCabeza de Vaca, trans. Fanny Bandelier (Barre, MA:The Imprint Society, 1972). For a film re-creation,see Cabeza de Vaca, dir. Nicolás Echevarria(Mexico/Spain: Producciones Iguana and InstitutoMexicano de Cinematografía, 1993). The fictionalfilm Jerico follows a Spanish missionary in this earlyperiod as he abandons a raiding party and joins atribe. See Jerico, dir. Luis Alberto Lamata (Venezuela:Bolivar Films, 1988).

M01_OCON5083_01_SE_CH01.QXD 6/15/10 2:49 PM