To my Italian Brothers and Sisters in Seattle, Washington, who are upset by the citys transition to Indigenous Peoples Day: The 1492 voyage of discovery is, however, hardly all that is at issue. In 1493 Columbus returned with an invasion force of seventeen ships, appointed at his own request by the Spanish Crown to install himself as viceroy and governor of [the Caribbean islands] and the mainland of America, a position he held until 1500. Setting up shop on the large island he called Espa–ola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he promptly instituted policies of slavery (encomiendo) and systematic extermination against the native Taino population. Columbuss programs reduced Taino numbers from as many as eight million at the outset of his regime to about three million in 1496. Perhaps 100,000 were left by the time of the governors departure. His policies, however, remained, with the result that by 1514 the Spanish census of the island showed barely 22,000 Indians remaining alive. In 1542, only two hundred were recorded. Thereafter, they were considered extinct, as were Indians throughout the Caribbean Basin, an aggregate population which totaled more than fifteen million at the point of first contact with the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, as Columbus was known. Excerpted from the book Indians are Us (Common Courage Press, 1994) by Ward Churchill
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 20:50:03 +0000
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