The Age of Exploitation

essay I wrote for my history class

The Age of Exploitation

Evan Devereaux

History 222

11/24/16

“Every Spaniard went out among the Indians robbing and seizing their women wherever he pleased...the Indians decided to take vengeance on any Spaniards they found isolated or unarmed.” (Columbus p.187) If the inclination of Christopher Columbus to explore the uncharted waters of the New World was well-intended, the outcome of his four voyages fell short of any aims for peace or international harmony. The relationship between European explorers and New World natives in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was curbed significantly by the deficient understanding these groups had of the cultural backgrounds of one another. This relationship was restricted further by the unfamiliarity of explorers with the New World environment, coupled with the alienness of European technology to the native peoples of this land.  

The primary motivations of Christopher Columbus to discover the New World had both monetary and ecclesiastical roots. Columbus “aimed to Christianize the world while enriching himself.” (Worlds Together Worlds Apart p.449) Columbus justified these intentions upon encountering the natives of what he believed were the Indies by asserting that these peoples were unsubscribed to any faith system. Disregarding the fact that he could not communicate effectively with these peoples, whose language he could not speak, Columbus insisted that “(natives had) no religion,” and that they “all believe(d) that power and goodness dwell(ed) in the sky.” (Columbus p.118) This practice of assuming the ignorance of natives characterizes the relationship between the Italian navigator and the peoples he encountered, misidentified, and often trivialized. Columbus considered these natives “people to be won and converted,” (Columbus p. 55) and qualified them as “amazingly timid.” (Columbus p.117) Throughout his logbook, Columbus repeatedly equates the behavior of natives, the weapons they use, and their sophistication as a people in general to that of children in Europe. This is reflective of a poor cultural understanding of the inhabitants of the lands Columbus explored in the late fifteenth century. This idea is pivotal to his treatment of natives. In his mind, Columbus had discovered a world of children living without supervision, and it was the will of God that Columbus set them along a righteous path. Of course a task so noble should not go monetarily unrecognized. Perhaps his greater intention in exploring his New World was the acquisition of gold. Columbus constantly was in search of gold, asking the natives of each island or landmass he landed on where he could find it and making frequent reference to the “goldfields” of Ciabo. Unfortunately, Ciabo was absent of any goldfields, however this would not impede the habit of the navigator to make grand promises of gold reserves in order to receive further sponsorship from the Spanish monarchy. The legends of gold in the New World were proving infinitely less than what Columbus and the Spanish had hoped for, but Columbus was determined not to lead fruitless, unyielding expeditions. The original mission of exploring the unknown “now gave way to warfare, and to exploitation.” (Worlds Together Worlds Apart p. 450)

At the end of his first voyage Columbus claimed he had discovered gold in Hispaniola, what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. For this, he was granted a second expedition with a larger fleet and over two thousand men at his disposal. The Spanish began implementing “institutions of colonial rule over local populations in Hispaniola.” (Worlds Together Worlds Apart p. 450) But the Spanish soon found that they were ill-adapted to survive in the New World, and the unwelcoming nature of living in an alien environment would help to ignite conflict between Spanish colonists and the natives they were colonizing. Two years after Columbus’s first voyage in 1492, “starving Spaniards raided and pillaged Indian villages.” (Worlds Together Worlds Apart p. 450) Very quickly it became apparent to the native populations that these strangers from afar intended to stay and to ensure their survival and prosperity by subjecting native peoples to the necessary labor these conditions required. Cultivating resources, procuring precious metals--this was what the Spanish colonists imposed on native peoples. The Spanish Monarchy rewarded the enslavement of natives with systemized grants, or, encomiendas. The result was a devastating death count of natives and an emergent class of prosperous encomenderos. Natives suffered in droves perishing from “disease, dislocation, malnutrition, and overwork.” This was a cruel, exploitative system, a “model that the rest of the New World colonies would adapt.” (Worlds Together Worlds Apart p. 450) Sadly for the natives, this system wasn’t going anywhere as the superior technology of the Spanish granted these invaders unrivaled militaristic advantages.

In his logbook, Columbus notes on multiple occasions the inferiority of native technology. He refers to the natives of Hispaniola as an “unarmed people” whose weapons “are not very terrible to men of (the Spanish) nation.” (Columbus p. 136) To assure the king of Hispaniola that his people could be kept safe from their Carib enemies with the support of Columbus’s sophisticated gunpowder technology, the navigator demonstrated the destructive power of his cannons, insisting that the king “need no longer fear the Caribs because the Christians would kill them all.” (Columbus p. 95) When relations between the Spanish and the natives shifted from friendly to hostile, the natives found themselves overwhelmed by the the brutal application of european weaponry which “struck them as otherworldly.” (Worlds Together Worlds Apart p. 450) The Spanish were ruthless in their demonstrations of force over the natives. An Aztec account of such a demonstration capitalizes on this ruthless aggression. The author or authors describe from an eyewitness point of view a festival at which the Spanish conquistador Corte is present. The conquistador became enraged after the Aztecs made sacrifices in front of him, after which a great slaughter of the natives commenced. “The Spaniards attacked the musicians first, slashing at their hands and faces until they had killed them all.” (Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico p. 307) This event was far from uncommon in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and as discussed previously, exemplifies the culture clash between natives and explorers, resulting in ruin for these people at the hands of the technologically advantageous European colonists.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

Very good information. New generation don't have concern for history. The new land. Most discovered looking for gold or better route to China.
Coyote