Fact Checking Columbus

I knew that Columbus was a controversial figure,  especially regarding his treatment of the native people of South America.   So before I taught my son about him, I wanted to learn more about him myself--to get both sides of his story before I attempted to share it with my child.  One thing lead to another and I soon found myself knee-deep in research, eventually going back to even some translated original sources.  And, through that journey I stumbled on some gross inaccuracies in many popular blog posts and articles about this historical figure.     I wanted to help clear up a few of those today, and try to give a more well rounded picture both of Columbus and those who came after him.

WARNING:   This post contains some graphic descriptions of historical violence which are not appropriate for young children. 

  
Did Columbus Commit Atrocities Against Native Americans?

One of the most inaccurate (and sadly, often quoted) articles I came across  about Columbus was the The Huffington post article "Columbus Day? True Legacy: Cruelty and Slavery."    Here is a sample from that article where it talks about various atrocities it attributes to Columbus...

One of Columbus’ men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus’ brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest. He described how the Spaniards under Columbus’ command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades. According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. He says that Columbus’ men poured people full of boiling soap. In a single day, De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people. “Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel,” De Las Casas wrote. “My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.”
~ From "Columbus Day? True Legacy: Cruelty and Slavery." by Eric Kasum, published October 11, 2010   

Bartolomé de las Casas spent his life speaking out against the atrocities committed against the native peoples of South America by Spanish settlers and conquistadors.  But he never worked for Columbus, and only arrived in the new world after Columbus had been stripped of the Governership of Hispaniola (the settlement Columbus had founded in what is now Haiti).   It was years after that when de las Casas became a priest, and even later when he came to the conviction that what was being done to the native peoples was wrong and started what would be a life long quest to end their oppression. 

The atrocities mentioned in the quote above are real, but those specific ones were were not committed by nor ordered by Columbus.    De las Casas told how it was under Governor Bobadilla (the governor after Columbus, who had previously arrested Columbus and sent him back to Spain) that Spanish colonists would cut "slices off [Indians] to test the sharpness of their blades"  (History of the Indies, Book 2, Chapter 1, Collard translation).   The massacre where Indian children's legs were cut off as they fled happened under Nicolás de Ovando, the third governor of Hispaniola, not Columbus (History of the Indies, Book 2, Chapter 9, Collard translation).   And anything that de las Casas "saw with his own eyes"  would not have happened under Columbus, since de las Casas was not in the New World when Columbus governed there.

De las Casas did compile a history of Columbus' time in the new world using other's accounts though (including things he heard from people he knew personally during his time in the Americas).   In it he paints a picture of a man who started with noble aspirations and who initially treated the native people he encountered with some level of respect.  After his first encounter with the inhabitants of the New World Columbus  wrote...

"I want the natives to develop a friendly attitude toward us because I know they are a people who can be converted to our Holy Faith more by love than by force."

(This was significant, as the different orders of Catholic priests in the New World would later be bitterly divided over whether the native people's were "rational beings" who should be brought to the faith peacefully, or people incapable of choosing for themselves who must be forcefully converted).   

On this first journey Columbus forbid his men from stealing or harming any of the tribes they met that were peaceful (though even at this early stage he took captives in order to teach them Spanish...with the intent to use them as guides and translators).    And when, on his second journey, he discovered that the men he left behind had been killed, he resisted the initial calls for vengeance on the local tribe, who claimed innocence.   

But as time went on Columbus' treatment of the natives began to change.  Life in the new world was not easy, and the colonists began to rely more and more on native help.   This was, at first, voluntary (done for trade, or in hopes of making beneficial alliances).  But this changed during Columbus' 2nd voyage.

After Columubus had set up conlonies and outposts on Hispaniola, he left to explore Cuba.   But when he left he ordered a large amount of men to "journey the length and breadth of the island, enforcing Spanish control and bringing all the people under the Spanish yoke."  ( Las Casas on Columbus:  Background and the Second and Fourth Voyages pg 118). These men, in his absence, raped women, took men captive to be servants, and stole from the indigenous people, leading the tribe members to kill some Spanish soldiers, and the Spanish retaliated in turn and killed a number of Arawak. When Columbus returned, the four primary leaders of the Arawak people in Hispaniola were gathering for war to try to drive the Spanish from the Island. Columbus gathered a large number of troops, and joined with one tribal chief that allied with them, and met for battle.  In spite of being greatly outnumbered due to their superior weapons the four tribes were routed.

After this...

"The admiral [Columbus] made his way across much of the island over the course of the next nine or ten months, waging cruel war on all the rulers and people who did not come to accept his authority over them, as he himself explains in a number of letters he wrote to the king and queen and to others. These days and months saw devastation across a wide swathe of the country, with huge massacres, and the extermination of whole villages... But every day saw yet more butchery as they were killed in the cruelest and most inhuman of ways, easily overtaken by horses and...run through with a lance, or cut to shreds by a sword, or sliced clean through and then eaten and torn to pieces by dogs, with many of them being burned alive or subjected to merciless and brutal torture of all kinds. " 
Las Casas on Columbus:  Background and the Second and Fourth Voyages pg 148 

This continued until tribes surrendered and agreed to pay tribute or were driven to the mountains or other remote parts of the island.

In the mindset of both Columbus and the Spanish monarchs, providing "tribute" was not the same as "slavery."  But many of those captured during the conflict, before surrender,  were directly enslaved and given to Spanish soldiers, and 600 of these prisoners of war were sent back to Spain to be sold as slaves.  Some were dying on the ships before they even left port.

Columbus saw enslaving and selling the native people's as a way to make the colonies profitable.      In a letter he encouraged the idea of selling natives as slaves on the mainland, saying he could send as many as 4,000 and that they could bring in 20 million profits.      He compared them to African slaves, writing that "...one of these is worth three of them, as I see it.   When I went to the Cape Verde Islands, where there is a great trade in slaves... I saw that that they demanded for the most decrepit of them eighth thousand maravedis." And he went on to say "Even if at first they die, that will not always be the case, for the same thing happened with the blacks and the Canarians at the beginning.  And the Indians even have an advantage over the blacks, for unless one escapes, his owner will not sell him for any amount of money."  (History of the Indies, by Bartolome de las Casas, Book 1, Chap 150, translated by Michael Hammer and Blair Sullivan in Las Casas on Columbus, The Third Voyage).

Later, the when a portion of the colonists revolted, he gave in to their demands and allowed them to have native people assigned to them, and for those who chose to return to Spain to take a certain number of slaves.   These are the slaves which Queen Isabela objected to him sending, saying she wanted subjects, not slaves.


Did Columbus Encourage Sex Trafficking?

Many sites I've visited claimed that Columbus encouraged selling young girls for sex, using this quote....

"A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand, and for all ages a good price must be paid."

That quote is indeed by Columbus, and if it sends chills down your spine and turns your stomach...well, I'm right there with you.   But Columbus was not praising this practice.  Though he was not against slavery, as discussed earlier, here he  was talking about what other men have done as a way to distinguish himself from them. The letter, as a whole, is written to the woman who nursed queen Isabella's son, as a way to win favor and counter accusations made by some of the colonists against him.    Considering his audience and the purpose of the letter, the idea that is he is encouraging selling women and young children for sex in this context makes little sense.

 I should know how to remedy all this, and the rest of what has been said and has taken place since I have been in the Indies, if my disposition would allow me to seek my own advantage, and if it seemed honorable to me to do so, but the maintenance of justice and the extension of the dominion of Her Highness has hitherto kept me down. Now that so much gold is found, a dispute arises as to which brings more profit, whether to go about robbing or to go to the mines. A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand, and for all ages a good price must be paid.

I assert that the violence of the calumny of turbulent persons has injured me more than my services have profited me; which is a bad example for the present and for the future. I take my oath that a number of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water in the sight of God and of the world; and now they are returning thither, and leave is granted them.

~Letter from Columbus to Doña Juana de Torres, 1500

In another letter, Columbus wrote...

Our people here are such that there is neither good man nor bad who hasn't two or three Indians to serve him and dogs to hunt for him and, though it perhaps were better not to mention it, women so pretty that one must wonder at it.  With the last of these practices I am extremely discontented, for it seems to me a disservice to God, but I can do nothing about it...[nor] other wicked practices that are not good for Christians.  For these reasons it would be a great advantage to have some devout friars here, rather to reform the faith in us Christians than to give it to the Indians."

~From another letter by Columbus, included in the biography Columbus by Felipe Fernández-Aermesto, pg 133-134

I can't tell from this passage whether Columbus was concerned for the women or just concerned about the spiritual state of his men.  But what is clear from these passages is that the native women were being sexually exploited, that Columbus didn't approve of the practice, but felt unable to stop it. 

It seemed this was a perpetual problem.   On his final journey to the New World when Columbus and his crew were shipwrecked in Jamaica and the indigenous people came out to trade with them, Columbus ordered all but two of the crew to stay on the ship.   One crew member,  don Hernando, wrote that Columbus did this  because "no manner or order or punishment could prevent our men from stealing and molesting women if they went ashore, and this would greatly endanger our friendly relations with the Indians." (History of the Indies, Book 2, Chapter 30, pg 133, Collard translation)  

This suggest that Columbus had attempted to prevent the rape of the native women through some manner of punishment in the past, and had given up on it.   Regardless, Columbus was not just culpable for not preventing their abuse:  he was responsible for enslaving native women and therefor putting them in a situation where sexual exploitation almost always follows.

Furthermore, Columbus bears fault for who he chose to bring to the New World.     He wanted the King and Queen to send men and women to help establish trading colonies there...but knowing that the monarchs were concerned about the financial burdens of supporting these colonies, he suggested that in stead of recruiting men and women who would have to be paid a wage, that the King grant pardons to criminals in exchange for a few years service in Hispaniola.   So, Columbus was directly responsible for the recruit of many of the "turbulent persons" who accompanied his 3rd voyage. 

Though not all of the men involved in the abuse were pardoned criminals.   A chilling account of rape and sexual slavery is found in a letter by Columbus' childhood friend, Michele da Cuneo ...

"...I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores."

~Quote found via Wikipedia, cited from Cohen, J.M. (1969). The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus. NY: Penguin. p. 139.  

After Columbus

I believe the errors pointed out above stem not just from poor researching, but from a human tendency to want to simplify history.   Many times in history the actions of many are combined into a tale of one legendary hero or villain.  But the history of the mistreatment of the Native Americans by Europeon colonists is larger and longer than just what happened under Columbus, and to quote a member of the Osage Nation...

"...by blaming Columbus for five centuries of history, we ignore the majority of that history, and risk repeating it."
-Patrick T. Mason

 
While it is certain that Columbus' practices in governing the colonies had dire consequences for the native populations, the condition of the native peoples under those those who came immediately after him was even worse.  In fact, in his section on Hispaniola in "Brief Account" de las Casas writes that not much of the devastation of the Islands, or unjust wars, happened before Queen Isabella's death (which also covers all the time that Columbus was governing there).    

While Columbus failed to restrain his men from abuses, Bobadillo allowed a free-for all.    This is how de las Casas describes life for the native peoples under Bobadillo and compares it to the time under Columbus...

[Bobadillo] assigned Indian tribes to them, making them very happy.  You should have seen those hoodlums, exiles from Castile for homicide with crimes yet to be accounted for, served by native kings and their vassals doing the meanest chores!   These chiefs had daughters, wives, and other close relations whom the Spaniards took for concubines either with their own consent or by force.   Thus, those 300 hidalgos lived for several years in a continuous state of sin, not counting those other sins they committed daily by oppressing and tyrannizing Indians....The comendador [Bobadillo]  didn't give a straw for all this:  at least he took no measures to remedy or avoid the situation.  He would frequently tell them take as many advantages as you can since you don't know how long this will last"; he cared even less for the hardships, afflictions and deaths of the Indians.   The Spaniards loved and adored him in exchange for such favors, help and advice, because they knew how much freer they were now than under Columbus.

The admiral [Columbus], it is true, was as blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians.   However, if he did not report the harm that certain Spaniards caused them, and if he assigned a tribe of Indians...and a few others to do work for them or find gold, it seems the occasions were very, very rare, and he acted as if forced to it by his own men, on account of past rebellions.
~History of the Indies, Book 2, Chapter 1, by Bartolome de Las Casas (translated by Andree M. Collard)

Under Bobadillo the conditions changed from exploitation, to something worse.  Under his watch murder and abuse for sport took place...cutting off slices of Indians and beheading young boys for fun.  And while the next governor, Nicolás de Ovando, was better at controlling the colonists, under his command there were massacres where native people were burned alive and children cut down as they tried to run away. 

Later, under future leaders and Conquistadors, the atrocities continued....people were not just slaughtered but tortured (men burned alive, boiled, eaten by dogs. etc.).

While these atrocities did not happen under Columbus, it's important to know they happened.   It helps us  understand why Native American groups commonly do not see Columbus Day as something to be celebrated, but a day to mourn...for his discovery was the beginning of a very dark time in their history.


Did Columbus Really Discover America?

Because of this dark history, it's tempting to want to downplay Columbus' discovery of America.   It is true that Columbus was not the first European to make his way to American shores.   Lief Erickson discovered a route to North America hundreds of years before Columbus.   But Leif Ericson's discovery resulted only in a short lived settlement that was soon abandoned, and it's affect on world history was small.   Columbus' discovery, on the other hand, resulted in the lasting collision of two worlds long separated.   It created a exchange of ideas, technologies, resources (and sadly, disease), that would change civilizations around the world, and is considered by many to be one of the most important events of history.

And it was still an achievement even if he wasn't the first.   To quote again from Bartolome de las Casas....

"Is there anything on earth comparable to opening the tightly shut doors of an ocean that no one dared enter before?   And supposing someone in the most remote past did enter, the feat was so utterly forgotten as to make Columbus's discovery as arduous as if it it had been the first time."
~History of the Indies, by Bartolome de Las Casas (translated by Andree M. Collard) - Book 1, Chapter 76, pg 35

    

Many have tried to trivialize Columbus accomplishment by pointing out how he was wrong about the size of the earth, or that he didn't realize he had found a new continent and thought that he had discovered a route to Asia.    But even considering these things, the journey he took across the Atlantic took skill and courage, and was a great feat in spite of the errors he made along the way.

I think as humans we have trouble holding two disparate things about a person in our mind.   Its easier for us to create on dimensional heroes and villains than to hold the truth that a person in one lifetime can do both horrible and admirable things, or that even admirable accomplishments can have negative effects.  

De las Casas, the same man I quoted who heaped high praise on Columbus for his discovery, also acknowledged how Columbus' feat was tainted by the actions that followed it.   He wrote....    

"...he would have done great things and produced inestimable benefit in this land if he had realized that these people did not owe anything to him or to any other person in the world just because they had been discovered."

~History of the Indies, Book 2, Chap 154.9, from Las Casas on Columubs:   The Third Voyage" translated by Michael Hammer and Blair Sullivan

That type of balance can be hard to come to.   Sometimes it's easy to just leave out the things, good or bad, that do not neatly fit into a simple caricature.  But to teach history well, it is important to try to teach history as it was, even with it's messy complex characters...not just to go the easy route of turning complex historical figures into simplified heroes and villains.

 

How Do We Teach This History?

So, how do we teach this complex and often brutal history...to children?   This is something I've struggled with myself.  In some sense, we simply can't.   When I first tackled the history of American exploration my son was only 6.   There was no way I was going to expose my son to descriptions of rape and torture and brutality.

But Columbus was an important figure who affected history in profound ways...so I couldn't just ignore his story (though I now think it would have been wiser to put off teaching it until my child was a little older).   I didn't want to build up Columbus as a hero, but neither did I want to set him up as merely a villain, as the truth seemed to lie somewhere in between.

I thought even at 6 my child could handle and, to some extent,  understand, the concept of slavery.  So, I found and read him a short children's book on Columbus that did at least spend some time talking about that, as well as talking about Columbus' life and voyages.   After we read the book my son looked up with questioning eyes...

"So, Columbus was a hero?"

"No, not exactly."  I replied, pointing him back to that page on how Columbus took slaves.

His brow knotted, and after a moment he looked up at me again.

"So, he was a bad guy?"

And there it was.   I always thought that it was teachers who taught children to see the world in terms of heroes and villains.   But even though I had gone out of my way to do the opposite, my child still saw it that way.   I had tried to show him shades of gray, but he wanted black and white.  Maybe that is just the way it is when we are young.  Sometimes it's hard to break from that when we're older too.

But shades of gray are important.   The ability to see both the good and the bad in an individual is necessary for so many reasons...not least of these because it's important for us to also see that in ourselves.   If we look through history and only see heroes and villains it colors our view of the people who are making history now.   Kids need to know that sometimes even people who seem like "good guys" can cause harm, and even people who seem to be "bad guys" sometimes still do some good things.

SUGGESTED HOMESCHOOL
RESOURCES ON COLUMBUS

Videos on Columbus

More will be added later...

CORRECTIONS & THINGS I'M STILL FACT CHECKING:

• Earlier I included this sentence above:  "He pushed them to mine for gold, even cutting off the hands of some natives who did not bring him what he thought a sufficient amount (though, this was not particularly worse than the punishment he at times implemented on the Spanish colonists)."   Someone knowledgeable about  Columbus has contacted me about this, saying that he's found no proof that this punishment that this happened (hands were cut off for other reasons under Ovando, not Columbus, and Columbus did require gold as a tribute from some natives in an area near the mines, but I haven't found any original sources saying that he cut off hands of natives as punishment).  I've since found a full article on this, debunking this myth and showing how it started.  
  
  MORE ON THIS:   What I did find was the original reference to Columbus ordering a tribute of a hawksbill of gold in History of the Indies, on his 2nd voyage...this was after a number of tribes joined together to try to oust the Spanish, and the Spanish won that battle and then went and started attacking towns.   The tribes then surrendered and as part of that surrender agreed to tribute (a hawksbill of gold per man of a certain age who lived near the mines, and a certain amount of cotton per person who lived away from the mines...at regular intervals).  They did not say what the punishment for not bringing this was, only that it was "light" (in quotes, so it might have been Las Casas being sarcastic, but I'm not sure if the quotes were in the original or just the translation, which I should check).  The amount was hard to get and the chiefs tried to convince Columbus to take land in stead.  Eventually Columbus reduced the amount to a half hawks-bell.  There is no mention of hands being cut off as punishment, which, seeing how this is las Casas writing this, would be an odd omission if this actually happened, as he usually records those types of details.
  
  

• I originally said Columbus brought pardoned criminals on his 2nd Voyage but it was actually his 3rd voyage.

•  I wanted to clarify that while de las Casas was not in the New World when Columbus was governing there, there time in the New World did overlap slightly, but they only had opportunity to see each other during one brief period of time.   Las Casas arrived in the New World in the fleet that also carried Nicolas de Ovando, who would be Hispaniola's new governor.   Columbus, on his 4th and final voyage, arrived in the the carribean shortly after Ovando had started governing there, but de Ovando denied him port (wouldn't let him land on the island). Soon afterwards, while exploring Columbus shipwrecked on what today is Jamaica and spend nearly all of the rest of that voyage there, until he was finally able to send word and get rescued.   This time, de Ovando allowed him only Hispaniola briefly, and de las Casas was briefly able to meet him (he had also met him as a child in Spain...maybe on several occasions).   These are the meetings in person I am aware of between the two.   But de las Casas never personally witnessed Columbus in a governing roll, nor was he ever under Columbus' command.
   
•  I have amended this article to better deal with Columbus use of slavery, including portions of a letter by Columbus I did not have when this article was first written.

• I have amended this article to add more details about the war the the 5 Taino tribes on the 2nd journey, content that was missing from the first, abridged, version of History of the Indies which I read, but which I found in a more complete version (at least regarding the Columbus voyages), in VII of the Repertorium Columbianum, Las Casas on Columbus:  Background and the Second and Fourth Journeys.  
   

SOURCES:
 
History of the Indies, by Bartolomé de Las Casas, translated by Andree M. Collard. (heavily abridged translation)

Las Casas on Columbus, The Third Voyage (book containing the full translation of De las Casas' account of Columbus 3rd voyage from History of the Indies), Edited by Geoffrey Symcox and Jesus Carillo, and translated by Michael Hammer and Blair Sullivan, published by BREPOLS (Belgium) under the auspices of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Las Casas on Columbus:  Background and the Second and Fourth Voyages, (book containing the full translation of De las Casas' account of Columbus 2nd and 4th voyages from History of the Indies), translated and edited by Nigel Griffin, published by BREPOLS (Belgium) under the auspices of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Historia de las Indias
I am currently going through and reading some of the untranslated chapters, with the help of Google translate (my Spanish being rather intermediate).

A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas (translated to English)

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas
 - this is another translation of the work above.   It is a little more readable, but each section is on another page making it harder to do a text search of.

Journals of the 1st Voyage of Columbus
This free online translation is searchable and has more content than some others.  There were 3 versions of Columbus journal we still have.  One by his son and two other versions transcribed by Bartolomé de las Casas, one of which had more content than the others (and which was discovered later).   This translation seems to take from all 3 versions.

Journals of the 1st Voyage of Columbus (another version)
This translation seems to have less content than the one above, probably just taking from the two versions of his journal and not from the 3rd that was found later (see note on Journal above). Footnotes are also somewhat different...not more or less, just different. 

Journals of the 1st Voyage of Columbus (another version)
This is similar to those above and I'm not sure what version it is, but just including it in case any of the above are taken down.

I, Columbus:  My Journal, edited by Peter and Connie Roop, translated by Robert H. Fuson (Great book for kids but very much abridged)

Columbus by Felipe Fernández-Aermesto

Christopher Columbus (History.com)

Why Columbus Day Courts Controversy (History.com)

Columbus - Wikipedia*

Lost Document Reveals Columbus as Tyrant of the Carribean

~Letter from Columbus to Doña Juana de Torres, 1500

Letter from Columbus to Luis de St. Angel on his first Voyage to America
This was written while in the Canary Islands on the way to America on his 2nd voyage, 15th of February, 1493, with a postscript on March 14th.

Bartolome de las Casas - Encyclopedia Britanica 

Bartolome de las Casas: The Only Way (introduction) by Helen Rand Parish

Bartolome de Las Casas : Great Prophet of the Americas by Paul S. Vickery

Forced Native Labor in 17th Century America

Lief Erickson - New World Encyclopedia

In tearing down Columbus, we ignore real violence against Indians, editorial in the Chicago Sun Times by Patrick T. Mason Oct 6, 2017, 6:26pm CDT
 

GRAPHICS (From Header)
Section of Le Retour de Christophe Colomb (1892)
Public domain in the United States


*While I tried to avoid using anything on Wikipedia that could not be verified elsewhere, it was a starting place for some research, and I did use one quote directly from there simply because it was the most complete version of the quote, in the most easy to read translation I could find online (and was sourced from a book which I didn't have access to but seemed a reputable source.)


OTHER ARTICLES FACT CHECKING THESE ISSUES
So, since writing this I've noticed a few others also tackling these errors.   I'm sharing links to some of them below.

Snopes Was Wrong About Columbus

Shared on Throwback Thursday.

 
Last Updated July 7, 2024