What did Columbus do to the colonists at Hispaniola?
The first and most important thing to understand is that the Native American population on Hispaniola (and later, Cuba) was destroyed over the course of a century or less, and that the Spanish were primarily responsible for this. Certainly Columbus was not a perfect person by any means, and was a man of many flaws. But neither was he a genocidal mass murderer. The destruction of these peoples is a historical tragedy, but this complex episode deserves more study than simply assigning blame. Columbus initially had friendly relations with the Native Americans he encountered in the West Indies on the first voyage. Beginning with the second voyage, these relations began to sour, with some tribes more than others. The Spanish had come to America as conquerors. In 1492, they had just successfully finished a centuries-long war to evict the Moors from Spain, and the idea of spreading Christianity (in general) and Spanish control (in particular) was central to Spanish culture. The idea that one
