Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Sunday, October 10, 2010

COLUMBUS, THE INDIANS, AND HUMAN PROGRESS

From Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States."

"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:



"They... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned.... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."


These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus.


Columbus wrote:


"As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts."


The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold?


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The Indians, Columbus reported, "are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone...." He concluded his report by asking for a little help from their Majesties, and in return he would bring them from his next voyage "as much gold as they need . . . and as many slaves as they ask." He was full of religious talk: "Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities."


Because of Columbus's exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives. But as word spread of the Europeans' intent they found more and more empty villages. On Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor.


Now, from his base on Haiti, Columbus sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route. The rest arrived alive in Spain and were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town, who reported that, although the slaves were "naked as the day they were born," they showed "no more embarrassment than animals." Columbus later wrote: "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."


But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.


The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.


Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.


When it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island.


The chief source-and, on many matters the only source-of in formation about what happened on the islands after Columbus came is Bartolome de las Casas, who, as a young priest, participated in the conquest of Cuba. For a time he owned a plantation on which Indian slaves worked, but he gave that up and became a vehement critic of Spanish cruelty."

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THE FIRESIGN THEATER TELLS A COLUMBUS DAY STORY:

8 comments:

Sue said...

Interesting... I took a quiz tonight (it's on my sidebar) and one of the questions was this..

An asteroid is headed for Earth. You have a seat on the last shuttle off the planet. If you could bring only one book with which to build a future civilization, what would it be?

One of the answers is Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States."

Hmmmmmm, interesting you should post this tonight!

Shaw Kenawe said...

Wow, Sue. Weird coinkydink. Every young person who takes history courses in high school should have Zinn's book as a companion piece. Most US history books the kids get in school leave out the whole history of this country. I believe people have the capacity to see their country's history--good and bad--and still feel loyal to it.

Unfortunately, too many people believe in hiding the dishonorable parts of our history and pretend they never happened.

That makes us complicit in perpetuating a big lie as a gift to succeeding generations.

I believe we're a strong enough country to be able to face our mistakes and to do better by learning from them.

Becky said...

So, I was reading your post from last year regarding Columbus and have since added your blog to my bookmarks. There was a bit of a battle on my Facebook page after I posted a link to a video from Reconsider Columbus Day. So I was doing research and found your blog. In the comments, someone had mentioned the Zinn book. I will be ordering the new edition that comes out next month for my teens. I have a dog-eared copy of Lies My Teacher Told Me but am glad to find something more geared to my high-schoolers.
Sooo, thanks for speaking up! :)

Shaw Kenawe said...

Hi Becky,

Welcome. I read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen, and highly recommend it as a companion to Zinn's book.

There are people who believe telling the truth about our American history is being disloyal or "America bashing."

It is no more "Blame America First" than would be an adult acknowledging that his or her parent had been an alcoholic or drug abuser and recovered.

Who is it who said "My Country, Right or Wrong" is like saying "My Mother Drunk or Sober?"

Anonymous said...

There are no Arawaks to celebrate Columbus Day. Thanks to him and the Spaniards, they were all slaughtered. No descendants exist.

Why are we celebrating a mass murderer's day?

dmarks said...

I've read and written about this for a while, and the details I find often make it look even worse.

I've also seen the indigenous population of Hispaniola (completely and intentionally eliminated within 60 years) as higher than one million.

Italian-Americans, liberal and conservative, defend Columbus Day out of a misplaced Italian pride. Columbus had nothing to do with Italians migrating to the United States. And he explored, raped, and killed in the name of Spain, not Italy.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Well, well, dmarks. We agree completely on this.

Columbus has nothing to do with Italian pride. Agreed.

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