In the year of 1492 Christopher Columbus, an Italian merchant seaman in Portugal, set off on his first voyage in search of a new route to India. What he could not predict was that his voyage would transform Europe’s knowledge of the globe and would set the stage for an economic system that continues to affect the world today. Although the original copy is lost, a version of Columbus’ diaries was collated by Bartolomé de las Casas and in this essay, I will be analyzing it. I will explore how the process of colonization of the New World is portrayed in these diaries through the desire for another reconquest, the seemingly friendly descriptions of the interaction with the native people, and the contrasting ideas of slavery that can be seen throughout his journal. I will analyze how this portrayal can be criticized using other evidence from the journal itself, as well as the opposing message from Las Casas’ work.
One of the reasons for Columbus’ voyage west was to find a new route to reach India which Spain, Portugal, and other Mediterranean countries had traded with until the creation of the Ottoman Empire. The expanding empire of the Turks meant this trade route was disconnected and these countries had to find new means of trade. However, another key historical event had also just occurred in Spain: La Reconquista, resulting in the expulsion of the Jews and Moors by the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand. The reconquest had been very successful in the religious unification of the country and many people, including Columbus himself, saw this voyage as an extension of militant Christianity (Phillips & Phillips, 2011, p. 70).
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It has been argued that La Reconquista in Spain provided the Christian Iberians with the military knowledge to be able to extend their work and repeat this same structure and process elsewhere (Phillips & Phillips, 2011, p. 60). Columbus characterizes the aim of his voyage as a means of converting the people of India to the religious beliefs of his Spanish homeland by appraising them as a population and then deciding on “the measure to be taken to convert them” (Columbus, et al., 1990). In the prologue of his journal, which is written more as a personal letter to Isabella and Ferdinand, he gives the reader the impression that he is going to India to educate the people about the religion of Christianity (the Indians had previously requested this of Rome, but Rome had not delivered) at the request of the Catholic Kings (Columbus, et al., 1990). We are therefore led to understand from this prologue that this voyage is religiously motivated as well as a chance for another possible reconquest. Columbus seems to lose this vision and as he continues to document his expedition, he mentions them less. The Journal of Columbus is not the original copy and is a shortened version, it is therefore not known if other religious motives weren’t included further on in his writings which simply did not make it into this copy. This could explain why the reasons for his venture are vague and inconsistent throughout his record of the events (Restrepo, 2003, p. 105).
When Columbus set out on his voyage, he believed he would be the first to seek a Western passage to Asia. At that time Europeans did not know about America's existence; therefore, when he did eventually reach land, he was not initially aware that it wasn’t India but was the countries of Central America. Columbus however, wasn’t the first to venture further into the Atlantic Ocean. As Phillips mentions, before 1492, other European excursions had been funded at different latitudes with the same purpose of expanding trade, and if it weren’t for Columbus’ benefactors (the Catholic Kings) some other explorers would have likely stumbled upon the Americas within the same period (Phillips & Phillips, 2011, p. 70). The voyage is undertaken by Columbus for the King and Queen of Spain and because they have also sponsored his journey, he chooses to document his time, day by day to keep them informed of every detail. Knowing that the monarchs were the intended audience of his writings, allows us to critique many aspects of his journal because there is potential exaggeration used to make himself look good and his voyage appear a huge success. For example, the initial description of Columbus meeting the indigenous people is described in a calm and friendly manner with an exchange of gifts between the two parties: “red hats and glass beads” for the natives and “cotton thread and spears” for the ship’s crew. From these meetings, Columbus is already highlighting the apparent ease of trade with the colonies, he even goes as far as to say they “gave us what was asked of them” which could suggest the Spanish were taking advantage of them (this idea will be explored in greater depth further on in this essay).
In addition, Columbus describes the native people treating their arrival like a gift from God: and they were “throwing themselves on the ground and lifting their hands to the sky” as if they were so blessed to have received them (Columbus, et al., 1990). This description could be critiqued as an exaggeration to represent themselves (the Spaniards) in the best light possible to Isabella and Ferdinand. Moreover, Columbus had previously documented that these natives had experienced visits of a violent nature by people from other nearby islands in which the natives had defended themselves. One would assume after that, they would be more cautious with all non-natives that arrived on their land, but it could be said that this idea of foreign visits is also an exaggeration. The attacks from the other islands are supposedly the cause of the natives’ wounds but he could have been covering up that his arrival wasn’t as peaceful as he reports it to be. Other conquistadores, such as Francisco Pizarro who defeated the Inca empire in the early 16th century, described his account of the conquest as if there was no indigenous resistance at all, so his defeat sounded incredibly victorious. In reality, it was his ambush tactics that delayed his indigenous opponents in reacting, so one could claim that these conquests for colonization also weren’t as peaceful as they were recorded to be (Seed, 2011, p. 84).
To further critique these descriptions and link back to the idea of militant Christianity, it is worth noting that La Reconquista was not a peaceful process it was quite violent. The reconquest was an attack on the non-believers of Catholicism as well as a war between the Spanish kingdoms and the Moorish Al-Andalus and as Walbert mentions the soldiers fighting this battle were the perfect men to conquer the New World because they were greedy for wealth and strongly devoted to the King and Queen. (Walbert, 2019) The idea that colonization was violent in the New World is further supported in the accounts of Bartolomé de las Casas (which we investigate further in this essay).
A contradictory characterization of the peaceful colonization process in Columbus’ diaries is its portrayal as a means for slavery. At that time in Europe, the Portuguese were colonizing some islands in the Atlantic (e.g. Madeira) as well as the West coast of Africa where they had set up slavery systems. Moreover, some of these slaves were taken from the Canaries to work in Madeira (Phillips & Phillips, 2011, pp. 68-69); with this knowledge, it could be interpreted that Columbus is suggesting the indigenous people as potential slaves because he constantly compares them to the Canary Islanders. He could use these descriptions so that the Catholic Monarchs can truly understand the appearance of these people by using a familiar image, however, this isn’t just an interpretation because Columbus himself talks about using them as slaves. He states multiple times that he thinks they would make good slaves because they are quick learners and he writes “One could keep them all in subjection and make them do whatever one might wish” and there is no doubt that this is about using these people for the conquerors’ means (Columbus, et al., 1990). Furthermore, he continuously gives descriptions of their bodies, describing how they are in great form and are very good looking and he also highlights their craftsmanship by writing about the boats the natives had made from tree trunks (Columbus, et al., 1990). Again, by describing them in such a way, he is trying to sell an idea to his monarchs and is presenting an opportunity for economic growth and geographical expansion - in other words, imperialism.
The version of Columbus’ journal that we read today is not the original text it was first gathered by Bartolomé de las Casas. Born in 1484, Las Casas became heavily involved in the conquest, especially that of Cuba, yet turned on the process of colonization after witnessing a massacre in the New World and soon started to defend the rights of indigenous populations (Clayton, 2009, p. 1528). In his personal published account of his experience of colonisation, he describes in shocking and often graphic detail, the devastation the Spaniards brought upon the colonies. In his prologue alone he writes of “the infinite number of human souls despatched to Hell in such ‘conquests’” by “the violence, the oppression…the killing…the depopulation” of the indigenous populations by the Spanish (Casas, 1552). He also draws on his authority in this same passage mentioning the vast amount of experience he had during the conquests of the New World which validates his argument. The accounts of Las Casas give a very different view on colonization to that of Christopher Columbus and this allows us to speculate on how much of Columbus’ perspective we can take as the truth.
To conclude, Columbus characterizes the process of colonization mainly as the beginnings of slavery, yet he tries to illustrate it as a peaceful process to appear in a good light to his intended audience, the Catholic Kings. We can criticize his perspective with the knowledge that he was writing back to the Monarchs and therefore he could have made his account seem very positive to grant favor to his benefactors. However, from the accounts written by Bartolomé de las Casas, we have a very contrasting view on colonization within the same period giving us further reason to question the accuracy of Columbus’ accounts and question the real process in which the Spanish colonized the Americas.
Bibliography
- Casas, B. d. L., 1552. A Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies. 1992 ed. London: Penguin.
- Clayton, L., 2009. Bartolome De Las Casas and The African Slave Trade. History Compass, 7(6), pp. 1526-1541.
- Columbus, C., Ife, B. & Penny, R. J., 1990. Journal of the first Voyage =: (Diario del primer viaje) 1492. Warminster: Aris & Phillips.
- Phillips, W. & Phillips, C. R., 2011. Portuguese and Spaniards in the age of European expansion. In: T. Holloway, ed. A companion to Latin American history. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 58-72.
- Restrepo, L. F., 2003. The cultures of colonialism. In: The companion to Latin American studies. 1 ed. s.l.:Routledge, pp. 101-140.
- Seed, P., 2011. Exploration and conquest. In: T. Holloway, ed. A companion to Latin American history. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 73-88.
- Walbert, D., 2019. Spain and America: From Reconquest To Conquest. [Online] Available at: https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/spain-and-america-reconquest#footnote2_2r3lwly [Accessed 29 November 2019].
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