Columbus is regarded as a great explorer, a master navigator, and an enthusiastic businessman today. The majority of historical books written today describe his story with admiration. But who was Columbus really, and is he deserving of being hailed as a hero?

Columbus was a ruthless thief and mass murderer whose main goal was to find gold because the Spanish Crown allowed him to keep 10% of the gold he brought back to Spain. In order to accomplish his objective, he was prepared to kill and torture a large number of Native Americans.

The Arawak tribespeople who lived on the islands welcomed Columbus and his crew with gifts as his lead ship, the Santa Maria, arrived at the Bahamas’ coast. The Arawaks did not understand the concept of battle so they weren’t possessing arms and lived in communal village settings. They happily welcomed Europeans.

Columbus penned in his journal, “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 when I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men, we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

He took the Arawaks he had grabbed onto his ship, where he questioned them about the resources the island had. As they had no knowledge of any gold, he kept them as prisoners while sailing to Hispaniola, the island that is now home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He discovered some gold traces here, killed a few locals, captured more people, and then left for Spain, leaving part of his crew to search for and store gold. Winter set in while the convicts were traveling to Spain, and many of them died from the cold.

When Columbus returned to Madrid, he portrayed what he had seen greatly exaggeratedly and begged the king and queen to support another trip. His bluff was successful, so he left once more with 17 ships and more than 1,200 troops. His objective was now dual: to bring back as many slaves as possible in addition to the gold.

The 500 healthiest Arawak men, women, and children were chosen from his capture of 1,500 and loaded onto his ships. Of them, 200 died en route to Spain and his crew threw them off into the Atlantic ocean. Columbus mentioned, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”

But in order to keep his investors pleased, he needed to find some gold. As a result, according to historian Howard Zinn in his groundbreaking book A People’s History of the United States, “In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all people fourteen years of age and older to collect a certain amount of gold every three months. They received copper tokens from wearing around their necks when they brought them. Indians who were discovered without a copper token had their hands amputated and were then 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.”

The Arawaks of Haiti attempted to organize an armed rebellion against the Spaniards. Still, it was quickly put down because the Europeans possessed armor, weapons, and horses while their foes only had cane-swords. The Arawaks started committing mass suicide; infants were slaughtered to protect them from the Spaniards. According to Zinn, “through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians in Haiti were dead in two years.”

The original Arawaks and their descendants vanished from the island within a century and a half.

Young priest Bartolome de las Casas traveled to Cuba with Christopher Columbus and has since written a terrible account of the atrocities he and his troops perpetrated there. All natives were treated as slaves and even made to carry Spaniards around on their backs. The Spaniards “thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades”. In another incident, Las Casas writes how “two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun and beheaded the boys.”

The gold mines employed the locals as slave labor. Three-quarters of the men passed away from weariness. Their spouses and kids had no better circumstances. Women were forced to labor in the fields till they passed away. When they gave birth, they had no milk to nurse their infants because they were too weak from overworking and being on the verge of starvation. According to Las Casas, he witnessed 7,000 newborn deaths over the course of three months.

Although it is unavoidable that population estimates from 500 years ago are approximate, Bergreen believes that Hispaniola had roughly 300,000 residents in 1492. 100,000 people perished between 1494 and 1496, half of them via mass suicide. The population had decreased to 60,000 in 1508. It was only thought to be 500 by 1548.

Naturally, some indigenous hid in the mountains to escape the Spanish army, only to have Columbus’s men attack them with dogs.

The brutality of Columbus’ authority over Spanish settlers pales in comparison to the atrocities he committed upon the Carib and Taino Indians. In order to prevent famine, he ordered at least a dozen Spaniards to “be whipped in public, fastened by the neck, and linked together by the feet.” He gave the woman an order to have her tongue cut out for “speaking ill of the Admiral and his brothers.”

Another woman who made a fake pregnancy claim was “stripped and put on the back of a donkey… to be whipped.” He “ordered the hanging of Spaniards for stealing bread” (Bergreen, 315-316). In a letter to Doa Juana de la Torre, a close friend of the Spanish queen, Columbus admitted sexual slavery of 9-10-year-old girls. He mentioned, “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.”

Meanwhile, in the same land of America Christopher Columbus Day is celebrated and his legacy is cherished.

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