Christopher Columbus has been celebrated as the original colonizer
of the Americas. He has even been honored enough to receive a national holiday.
But what most people don’t know is that he actually is responsible for the decimation
of the population of Hispaniola.
While it is true that he was the first to sail across the Atlantic
Ocean and find land, it is also true that he is responsible for depleting the
island of Hispaniola of its resources and population. It is argued that
Hispaniola had a population ranging from sixty thousand to eight million
people.
It is here that Columbus decides to plant his roots,
building a fort and forcing a quota of gold dust on the natives. The
enforcement of this quota is what scared many people to run for the hills, only
to get hunted down by packs of dogs.
The Spaniards used the Caribbean islands and islands of the
west indies as their own, malicious playground; exploiting the region’s rich
source of gold and silver.
Not only did they exploit the resources of the islands, but
the people too. Until the introduction of African slaves, many of the island's natives were sold into slavery. Women and young girls were prayed on for sexual
exploitation as well.
The news of Columbus’s success would be spread, and Europeans
would soon flood the area. Men would use pirating to escape debt or to find
prosperity by abusing the people of these islands.
Christopher Columbus doing this set a terrible precedent for
many explorers to come after him, and most of what he did was done outside of
the law. For the next couple hundred years, the Caribbeans and west indies will
be used to steal goods, each pirate gaining off of the prosperity of the island’s
natives.
Brockell, Gillian, and
Washington Post. “The Lucayan: The Indigenous People Christopher Columbus Could
Not Annihilate.” National Post, 14 Oct. 2019,
nationalpost.com/news/world/the-lucayan-the-indigenous-people-christopher-columbus-could-not-annihilate.
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