Know more about Christopher Columbus' role.
Was Columbus a blueprint for what would come?
Christopher Columbus did not discover America. He was looking for the Indies. He did stumble across the Americas and yes, it did change the world.
However, Columbus’ voyages to the ‘New World’ were not that new. What followed was not new either.
The first steps across the Atlantic had occurred in Roman times and again in mediaeval times. Two Normans, Jean de Bethancourt and Gadifer de la Salle took the Normans’ next migratory step and went to the Canaries. Using Spanish investment in the early 1400’s they ventured to the Canaries to profit from a rare dye found there. They also possibly enslaved the native Guanche people. In the years that followed other European powers would also want to take control of the spoils. Indigenous people would be enslaved and resist colonisation.
Madeira was also taken over by the Spanish in the 1420’s. Immigration and environmental damage began as land was cleared for crops. As well as having travelled to other countries such as Ireland and England, Christopher Columbus also spent some time in Madeira. Here, the climate was right for sugar cultivation. And here the Spanish used enslaved Africans from the Guinea coast and the Guanches.
Sugar had become a status symbol for the European rich by the late mediaeval period, and its cultivation by colonisation and enslavement already had its blueprint.
11th October 1492 Columbus landed in the West Indies (believed to be Watling Island) and on that day noted in his diary that he would take and enslave the indigenous people. And people were indeed taken back to be presented to the Spanish royal court. (When the Taino people were presented to the Spanish royal family in a bizarre ceremony, the royal began to cry to show how they would be saved from their non-Christianity.)
Ned Blackhawk in his book, The Rediscovery of America notes:
Cruelties and violence against Native peoples characterised the first century of Spanish Imperialism. On his second voyage, Columbus enslaved ‘five hundred and fifty souls . . . around two hundred of (whom) died. ‘and he cast those who died ‘into the sea’. Slavery, overwork, famine and European pathogens killed Native peoples across the Caribbean, creating the most horrific of all chapters in Native American history. Indigenous communities throughout the region sought to drive the invaders out, but in vain – Taino, Arawak, Carib, and numerous other peoples were decimated.
The process of colonisation, enslavement and enormous environmental change, driven by the pursuit of power and profit, loosely wrapped up in religion and altruism, had been practised even before Columbus arrived in the Americas. However, he was about to set into motion this trade on a multi-continental scale that would change the world forever.
​
-
Gibson, C. (2015) Empire’s crossroads: A history of the Caribbean from Columbus to the present day. London: Pan Books. Pg 21-22
-
Gibson, C. (2015) Empire’s crossroads: A history of the Caribbean from Columbus to the present day. London: Pan Books. Pg 25-26
-
Hannah-Jones, N. et al. (2022) The 1619 project: A new origin story. New York, NY: Random House Large Print, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. P. 75.