Did King Ferdinand tell Christopher Columbus to “Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards-get gold”?
The short answer to the question is in Chapter 19 of my book, “Christopher Columbus The Hero 2”:
Revisionists are becoming more creative in the things they incorrectly attribute to Columbus. One of the new ones is that King Ferdinand wrote a letter to Columbus on June 6, 1511, saying, ‘Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards-get gold.’ This quote is in several articles on the web, even in a school textbook. But the first problem we have is that Columbus died in 1506. The other problem is that the king did not say such a thing. Instead, the quote was a comment made by Sir Arthur Helps in 1856. It has nothing to do with Columbus. [1]
In addition, Sir Arthur Helps wrote a biography on Columbus where he portrayed him as a hero. His book is titled “The Life of Columbus.”
Sir Arthur’s “Get gold comment” comment came from another book he wrote [2]. In it, he quoted a letter King Ferdinand wrote to Diego Columbus (Columbus’ son) in 1511 by saying:
The conversion of the Indians is the principal foundation of the conquest, that which principally ought to be attended to. So act that the Indians there ( in Trinidad ) may increase, and not diminish, as in Hispaniola.
That’s the actual quote. Then Sir Arthur proceeded to comment the following:
This is a most unsatisfactory and vacillating letter, which it is not harsh to construe shortly in this way: ‘Get gold, humanely if you can, but at all hazards get gold, and here are facilities for you.’ The king tries to wash his hands of the ill consequences of this permission in a letter of the next month, in which he says, ‘Take care that our conscience be not burdened, and that the importation of Indians be without damage to them and to our people ...’ [3]
Whereas Sir Arthur saw Columbus with grace, he didn’t extend that benefit to the Spanish kingdom. Then he added, “These are but useless words: how was it possible to enter a country, take a number of its people, and transport them to another place, in any velvet manner?”
This is an ironic statement since Sir Arthur’s country of origin (England) became an empire by entering other countries, and they participated in the transatlantic slave trade as well. Not to mention that slavery was universal during the Spanish conquest era. This is clearly an anti-Spanish bias comment.
I will recommend people to read the entire letters [4] Sir Arthur Helps partially quoted and commented on, and I will challenge anyone to prove to me where the Spanish kingdom approved the abuse of the natives. They never did. In fact, it was unlawful. Those who did were reported and punished. In contrast, the Indigenous natives practiced slavery, accompanied with sanctioned abuses like cannibalism and human sacrifices. Yet, that part of the story is often swept under the rug.This is not a comment to shame the Indigenous people, but to bring a perspective that is usually ignored.
History is history, and universal slavery was part of it. Thankfully, we don’t practice it anymore. But to answer the question of this post, Did Christopher Columbus receive a letter saying, “Get gold Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards-get gold”? The answer is, “no.”
Footnotes: 1. Christopher Columbus The Hero 2 by Rafael Ortiz, Chapter 19, p. 157. 2. The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies. Vol. I. 1856. 3. Ibid, p. 234. 4. The title of the book is, Colección de Documentos Inéditos Relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista y Organización de las Antiguas Posesiones Españolas de Ultramar. Tomo 5, De Los Documentos Legislativos, I. Madrid, 1890. The ebook version is free on Google Play Books.
In this article, Vox uses the claims from non-primary sources, or selected quotes from the primary ones, with the same result of misdirection. This is no different than an atheist activist misquoting the Bible to Christians in order to "prove" there is no God. As usual, one of their “sources” is Howard Zinn, but this time they upgraded to include people like Laurence Bergreen, Benjamin Keen, and websites like the Oatmeal and Jacobin. Still, none of them are primary sources.
Vox’s second point (On Hispaniola, a member of Columbus's crew publicly cut off an Indian's ears to shock others into submission) is totally distorted.First of all, the “attack by more than 2,000 Indians” is vague and false. Second, though Columbus initially sentenced three natives to death, he gave them a pardon instead. Funny how that was omitted. Also, the reason why Ojeda cut the ear of one of them was not because he, or the other two, refused to help them “fording a stream,” but because they stole some items, refused to return them, and their chief refused to punish them and kept the stolen items to himself. Primary source: The Life of the Admiral by Ferdinand Columbus, Ch. 53.
Cutting ears was the way theft was punished back then in different cultures. In the case of this Taino tribe, they punished theft, even petty theft, by impaling the thief. Another detail omitted by Vox.
Primary source:Historia General by Oviedo, Lib. V, Cap. III, p. 139.
Point number 3 (Columbus kidnapped and enslaved more than a thousand people on Hispaniola)is false and convoluted. Columbus did not kidnap natives to enslave them. Enslaving people for no reason (as Vox is implying) was unlawful. Columbus made a treaty with a chief named Guacanagari in Hispaniola to protect him from his enemies, including the Caribs. The Caribs were a tribe of cannibals who were terrorizing the Caribbean, enslaving, killing, raping, and sometimes wiping out entire islands of its inhabitants. See primary source:The Life of the Admiral, Chapter 24.
The Caribs and the enemies of his ally chief were the only ones Columbus was allowed to enslaved. All this was temporary and later suspended, at the end of Columbus' third voyage. Not to mention that slavery was common and universal during this era and the natives were no exception to the rule.
Point number 4 goes together with the above. The payment of gold was a tribute, and paying tribute during this era was common as well. The “token” they were to wear was not a “symbol of shame” either, but rather their receipt that proved they paid the tribute. Fray Las Casas, who was the defender of the natives' rights, said the punishment for not paying the tribute was a “moderate” one. If the punishment was death, he would have not called it “moderate.” Primary source: Historia de las Indias by Las Casas, Tomo II, Lib. I, Cap. CV, p. 102.
Point number 5 (About 50,000 Indians committed mass suicide rather than comply with the Spanish) is false. Some of the enemies of chief Guacanagari, Columbus’ ally, destroyed the fields of Hispaniola so they could kill the Spaniards with starvation. As primary source Peter Martyr says, this was “foolish” because though it killed many Spaniards, it also killed many natives. Martyr is the primary source, and not Bergreen. Primary source:De Orbe Novo by Martyr, p. 108.
Vox’s point number 6 is titled: 56 years after Columbus's first voyage, only 500 out of 300,000 Indians remained on Hispaniola.That is ridiculous. Notice how Vox magically increased the number of death in their article, from 50,000 in point 5 above, to 100,000 in point 6. In addition, Columbus was out of office in Hispaniola in 1500, and he died 14 years after his discovery in 1492. The part that is true is that some Spaniards abused many natives behind the backs of their Majesties in Spain AFTER Columbus was out of office. As long as Columbus lived, he was able to punish those who would abuse the natives in any way, as ordered by the queen herself. This goes together with Vox’s next point, number 7: Columbus was also horrible to the Spanish under his rule.
That accusation was made up by Columbus’ political enemies in order to remove him from office. Charges like Columbus torturing the Spaniards or punishing them for no reason were false. No one believed the charges. Not the king, or the queen. In fact, Columbus was never tried on any of these charges and his accusers were arrested for mutiny. Fray Las Casas even said that if the accusations were true (that Columbus was mistreating the Spaniards) they deserved those punishments since they were the ones mistreating the natives, and not the other way around. Primary source:Historia de las Indias by Las Casas, Tomo II, Lib. I, Cap. CLXXXIII, pp. 513-514.
Not only that, but Vox's reference (from Bergreen’s book) is incorrect. Bergreen’s quote is not from pages 315-316, but pages 284-285. Point number 8 (Settlers under Columbus sold 9- and 10-year-old girls into sexual slavery) is debunked right here:Debunking Snopes and the Imaginary Child Sex Slave Ring Blog Link
Point number 9 (Indian slaves were beheaded when their Spanish captors couldn't be bothered to untie them) have absolutely nothing to do with Columbus. Assuming the Spaniards did such a thing, it doesn't compare to the atrocities natives committed against each other. Even Bergreen's book (page 214), used by Vox in the article, acknowledged the natives were not that innocent. They were slaveholders long before European contact, and they branded their slaves or broke their teeth as a mark of ownership. Columbus himself witnessed the natives carrying their naked slaves with ropes around their necks. Vox is silent about all this. Primary source: De Orbe Novo by Peter Martyr, The Third Decade, Book IV, p. 317.
Indigenous peoples like the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Caribs, and many others, mutilated, tortured, dismembered, killed, and ate their slaves for human sacrifices to their gods.
Though Vox “upgraded” themselves by using (mostly) Bergreen as a “source” for this article, they still keep doing what revisionists often do: That is, to accuse Columbus of things he never committed, sometimes in places and timelines of history he did not live, or distorting the facts, or omitting important details and historical context with the intention to create false narratives.
If you want to learn the real story of Columbus, I will suggest to read primary sources and skip the modern-day revisions. The book The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by his son Ferdinand is a good start.
Este es mi primer artículo en español. No es necesariamente un ataque a "El Financiero” o a el autor de “Cristóbal Colón no descubrió América”, sino una simple respuesta a las falacias que se encuentra en él. El artículo lo puede leer aquí:Enlace
No culpo al autor ni al website, porque este tipo de ataque anti-colombino se encuentra por ahí en todas partes. Así que empecemos a aclarar y a poner algunas cosas en su sitio:
Primero que nada, la palabra “descubrimiento” nunca significó “la primera persona en encontrar tierra desolada” en el contexto histórico de Colón. Él ya sabía que había gente aquí porque su propósito era llevar el evangelio de Cristo y establecer una ruta nueva para el comercio entre naciones. En otras palabras, el verbo “descubrir,” en el contexto colombino, siempre incluyó las tierras con gente en ellas.
Colón tampoco estaba buscando ser el primer europeo en alcanzar las Indias. Colón estaba inspirado por otro explorador europeo llamado Marco Polo, quien ya las había alcanzado. Una de las razones porque decimos que Colón descubrió América, es precisamente porque él no estaba en las Indias, sino en un continente que el Viejo Mundo no sabía que existía.
No se llamaba “América” hasta algunos años después que fue descubierta por Colón. América está en los mapas hoy a causa de las exploraciones iniciadas por Colón. El descubrimiento no fue sólo para España, Europa o el Viejo Mundo, sino para el mundo y la historia, incluyendo la historia de los indígenas. La mayoría de los pueblos indígenas no tenían historia escrita. Bien pocos (como los aztecas) tenían algo similar a los jeroglíficos egipcios. Mucho de lo que sabemos hoy de ellos es porque los exploradores europeos escribieron de ellos. La razón por la que sabemos que había indígenas con “conocimientos de medicina, ingeniería hidráulica, agricultura, astronomía”, etc, es porque los exploradores europeos escribieron de esto para generaciones futuras.
La humanidad de los indígenas tampoco fue ignorada. Si así hubiera sido, Colon no hubiera pensado en traerles el evangelio de Cristo. Nuestra raza hispana viene por causa de la union de europeos con indigenas y negros. Colón vino a unir, y no a dividir, como los propagandistas anti-colombinos hacen.
El autor menciona de una campaña militar que Colón estuvo envuelto en La Española, donde alguno de los derrotados fueron vendidos como esclavos. Lo que el autor no menciona es que la pocas batallas que Colón estuvo envuelto, fueron a la solicitud de otras tribus que estaban aliados con él para derrotar tribus enemigas.
El autor concluye con los conquistadores que vinieron después de Colón, apropiandose de riquezas, cometiendo genocidio y difamando a los indigenas como “salvajes”. Pero eso es falso. Contrario a lo que algunos piensan, América antes de 1492 no era el “Jardín del Edén”. El autor omite que muchas de las batallas hechas por los conquistadores, y los europeos subsecuentes, fueron hechas a la solicitud y con la asistencia de tribus indígenas aliadas con los europeos. Muchos grupos indígenas también estaban envueltos en canibalismo y sacrificios humanos, lo cual está confirmado por los indígenas mismos, incluyendo evidencia arqueológica. Si eso no es salvajismo y genocidio, entonces no se lo que es. El problema que tenemos es que estos autores anti-colombinos es que son bien parciales en como nos cuenta la historia. “Mira esto, pero no mires lo otro.” Se pasan quejándose de los sentimientos “eurocentristas” mientras escriben en español, el cual es un idioma de Europa. Estos malagradecidos no saben que hoy están en América por causa de Cristóbal Colón y su descubrimiento en 1492.
Some time ago, a Youtuber who goes by the name of “Knowing Better” (KB) made a video defending Columbus from many of the revisions out there. Yet, he said in the same video that Columbus was neither good or bad. I was also intrigued about why the video was subtitled “An Exaggerated Evil,” which means it’s been exaggerated, but still evil. I sent KB two emails, but he never answered back. KB has now produced this new video where he explains why he still thinks Columbus Day or his statues should be replaced. He says that has always been his position. Except that his explanations to justify his position are all wrong and historically incorrect.
First, let’s look at his errors and then we will correct Columbus’ biography:
KB says Columbus was looking for Cipangu, but in reality, he was looking for the Indies, which included Cipangu (Japan), Cathay (China), the surrounding islands and continent. 7:30.
KB says, Columbus did not come-up with this idea. Maybe he meant the idea of the existence of Cipangu, which is true. But the idea to reach the east by sailing west was his idea. Up to that time people reached the Indies by traveling by land or by circumnavigating the African continent, but not by crossing the Atlantic. People thought Columbus was insane because there was nothing but water between Europe and Asia. As for the Vikings, I’ll be posting about it soon.
KB also removes Columbus from his historical context when he says, Columbus assumed he was on “an island off the coast of Japan” when he reached America in 1492. 8:00. Except that it was not just Columbus, but EVERYONE else in the Old World that believed this. The people from the Old World did not know there was another continent on the other side of the globe.
KB claims Columbus kidnaped some Tainos so he could take them to Spain to teach them Latin. That is incorrect. It was Spanish and not Latin. 8:44.
KB is correct that Columbus did not start the Transatlantic slave trade. However, “Americans being enslaved in America” did not start with Columbus as he claims or implies. Slavery was practiced before 1492 by the Indigenous people and it was practiced in every continent of the world as well. 8:50
KB is also incorrect when he implies Columbus’ second voyage was the beginning of the Encomienda system. 9:15. More on that below.
Columbus was NOT a participant on the mistreatment of the natives and KB is wrong when he says that Columbus, as a governor, did not do anything to stop them. 9:50.
The King and Queen of Spain did NOT replace Columbus because of his inability to extract gold or the mistreatment of the colonists and natives. 9:55. That is false.
Columbus did not defend himself from child sex slavery after he was arrested and removed from office. There was no such a thing anyway.10:10.
Columbus was not directly responsible for the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands, nor he killed millions with diseases. Plagues killing great numbers of people had happened before, during and after Columbus in both the Old and New World. It was more common than most people know. Right now the coronavirus is killing thousands of people in China. Is that Columbus’ fault too? The reason why revisionists are getting away with this one is that most Indigenous peoples in the Americas did not have a written language where we can see their record of epidemics. In addition, Columbus is not responsible for anyone’s poverty today.
The first thing to notice with KB, and many people who oppose Columbus, is that the natives are mostly absent. They are only present when Spanish slavery is brought into the conversation. This absence gives the impression that the natives were strangers to the concept of war, conquest, and slavery. But the fact is that the natives of America were doing what everyone else was doing everywhere in the world before 1492. That is, they were conquering or being conquered, enslaving or being enslaved by other tribes.
It wasn’t uncommon for a weak nation to make a treaty with a stronger one to defeat a common enemy. Columbus himself made a treaty with a chief named Guacanagari, that he would defend the Tainos from the attacks of the Caribs. The Caribs were a tribe of Indigenous people who constantly invade the islands, raiding the Tainos, killing the men, castrating young boys, and raping the women. They commit the genocide of entire islands by killing and eating everyone since they were cannibals. The word “cannibal” is derived from the word “Carib” which is where we get the name of the Caribbean sea. Should we rename the Caribbean? Columbus kept his word when he returned for his second voyage. He either saved the Tainos from the Caribs, destroyed their canoes to prevent them from more raids, or he would take them and send them as “slaves” or prisoners to Spain.
However, when Columbus returned to Hispaniola he found 39 of his men dead. A rival chief named Caonabo, killed all of them. For more than a year Columbus tried everything he could to keep the peace, but Caonabo kept more attempts for assassinations. Later, the Spaniards disobeyed Columbus’ orders to keep the peace while he was absent from Hispaniola exploring the Caribbean. This costed the lives of more Spaniards by other rival chiefs and Columbus was forced to stop the bloodshed by arresting some of them. Meanwhile, Columbus’ ally, Chief Guacanagari, asked Columbus to help him fight Caonabo because he and the other rival chiefs killed one of Guacanagari’s wives (the chiefs were polygamous) and kidnapped another one. Columbus agreed since Caonabo kept harassing Columbus and killed more people. Columbus fought the chiefs, defeated them, sold some of them as slaves and made the rest to pay tribute. These were the norm during war back then, and the natives used to do the same. Do you see how much of the story was left?
Though Columbus and Spain saw the Tainos of Hispaniola as their allies, the queen reluctantly allowed Columbus to temporarily enslave only those who would engage in war against him until he obtained peace. What most people don’t know is that by the end of Columbus’ governorship, slavery was suspended. In the meantime, and contrary to what KB says, Columbus, as governor, punished the Spaniards who mistreated natives, as told by the queen herself. She is the one who authorized him to do so and he did.
During these times, a mutineer named Roldan usurped Columbus’ power and sent false reports to Spain that Columbus was mistreating colonists and natives alike. It was Roldan who, against Columbus’ policies, started the Repartimientos, which later evolved into the Encomiendas.
Columbus, as a wise leader, knew the Spaniards disliked that they were ruled and punished by a foreigner. At least that was their excuse. That’s why he requested Spain to send judges who could deal and sentence other Spaniards without the prejudice that they were sentenced by a foreigner. Columbus also asked for military help so that Roldan’s rebellion could be contained.
In the meantime, the queen sent a man named Bobadilla to investigate the false reports made by the rebels and see what was going on in Hispaniola. However, Bobadilla arrested Columbus first and asked questions later. He took the false testimonies of the rebels as “evidence,” and took the governorship of the island to himself. This is where the allegations that “Columbus was a horrible man” came from, and those allegations were false. Bobadilla put Columbus and his brothers in chains without due process, not even telling him why they were arrested. This was a political coup. Primary Source: The Life of the Admiral by Ferdinand Columbus, chapters 34-85.
As Columbus was sent to Spain in chains, he wrote a letter to a friend named Juan de las Torres complaining of everything stated above, and even more, of what had happened to him. He felt unappreciated after all he, as a foreigner, had done for Spain. It is this letter where revisionists, and now KB, claim Columbus admitted children were sold for sex or as sex slaves; except, the letter says nothing of the sort. This allegation is the most fantastic of all and the most stupid of the claims made by modern-day propagandists. Knowing Better should have known better. All you need to do is to read the full letter. PrimarySource: Writings of Christopher Columbus, Letter to Juana de las Torres, pp. 151-176
Are you telling me that Columbus incriminated himself of selling children for sex to a woman (Juana de las Torres) who was a mother and a friend of the queen? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? The closest thing I’ve seen about pedophilia was when Columbus was exploring the continent, when the natives sent two young girls to him and is crew for sex. One was 7 and the other 11 years old.
Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day!
Columbus was upset about the situation and said the girls were acting like whores. In turn, Columbus fed them, gave them gifts and returned them to their people. If he was a pedophile, why would he be upset? Primary Source: Columbus's Lettera Rarissima to the Sovereigns, from Journal and Other Documents by Morison, p. 381.
When Columbus arrived in Spain, he was immediately released because the king and queen did not believe the accusations. They compensated Columbus, they sent him letters of encouragement and in their own way apologized to him, lamenting to ever send Bobadilla. In return, they promised Columbus his titles, slavery was suspended, Bobadilla was removed from office and Roldan and his rebels were sentence for mutiny. Primary Source: The Life of the Admiral by Ferdinand Columbus, chapters 86-87.
Columbus made one more voyage, his fourth and last, to the continent. While he was busy exploring, the new governor of Hispaniola, Nicolas de Ovando, did not inform the natives that their slavery was suspended. It was him who implemented the Encomiendas and committed all sorts of atrocities until most of the natives died. Primary Source: History of the Indies by Las Casas, pp. 109-110.
After Columbus returned to Hispaniola from Jamaica, he was informed about the atrocities and reported them to the king and queen. Primary Source: Historia de las Indias by Las Casas, Tomo III, Lib. II, Cap. XXXVII, p. 190.
So how can Columbus be responsible for abuses he did not commit? Why did he report the abuses if he was a participant? Why would he severely punish the Spaniards (as told by the queen) if his administration was in favor of their mistreatment? Sounds more like he was the hero and not the fictional villain revisionists claim he was!
KB ended his video by saying, “get rid of Columbus Day.” My question to him is, “why,” if Columbus did not do any of the things he claimed in his video? And why replace Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples’ Day? If we should not celebrate Columbus Day because of war, conquest, and slavery, then by the same reasoning we should not celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day either, because they did the same and worst. If Columbus Day represents colonial abuses, which he did not commit, then Indigenous Peoples’ Day represented cannibalism and human sacrifices which they did commit.
There is a video on social media claiming Muslims reached America before Columbus, and that he knew about it. That there is archaeological evidence about it and that even the Pinzon brothers, who accompanied Columbus as captains in 1492, were Muslim Moroccans. Here are the facts debunking the claims made by the video:
1. Did Columbus know of any Muslim interactions with the New World before 1492? The answer is no because no Muslim reached America before him.
2. The Pinzon brothers were not Muslims, nor were they Moraocans, but Spaniard Catholics.
3. Columbus did not mention seeing any Mosque in Cuba “with inscriptions” because there was none and the natives did not have a written language. What Columbus said was there were two beautiful high mountains in Cuba “and one of them has another little hill on the top shaped like a handsome mosque” (Columbus’ Journal, Sunday 28 October 1492).
4. The natives of the Caribbean did not have temples, and unlike the Muslims, they were polytheistic.
5. The natives of Haiti were not black and did not carry spears of metal.
6. “Guanin” was not gold, nor was the Taino word for “gold.”
7. The Mandinka Africans did not travel to America before Columbus.
8. Barry Fell’s was a pseudo archaeologist and his “writings on epigraphy and archaeology are generally rejected by mainstream scholars.”[1]
9. The North American natives did not worship Allah, nor did they follow Muhamad. If there are any similarities with some house structures in North America it is because the natives of the New World came from the Old.
10. No native person spoke Arabic, nor did they use “dress” or clothes in the Caribbean. Columbus said the natives were “as naked as the day they were born” (Columbus Journal, Thursday, 11 October 1492).
11. The word “sheriff” and “mayor” are not Indigenous or Muslim Arabic words, but European. Places like California, Alabama, and Tallahassee are Indigenous names. Not Arabic.
The only thing the video mentioned that is partly true is that Columbus did study the works of some Muslim geographers. Yet, none of them spoke of reaching America before 1492. Columbus studied other geographers who were not Arabs, including Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians and Pagans.
The Washington Post wrote an article titled, Columbus brought measles to the New World. It was a disaster for Native Americans. My response? The article is ridiculous! First of all, diseases existed before Columbus, during Columbus, and after Columbus, both in the Old and the New World. Second, COLUMBUS did not bring measles into the New World since he himself did not carry that disease. Third, the claim that there were no epidemic diseases in the New World before Columbus arrived is based on pure speculation. The natives themselves believed their gods (and goddesses) put sickness on them. Among the sicknesses they experienced before any European contact was scabies, hemorrhoids, pustule, boil, eye sickness, gout, paralysis, stiffness, mumps, dropsy, leprosy, syphilis (one of their gods had syphilis too), other (unspecified) sexually transmitted diseases, other (unspecified) contagious diseases, other (unspecified) incurable diseases, etc. Some of the diseases mentioned above are viral or bacterial, debunking the article’s premise. [1] The Post states that the “Indigenous peoples suffered from white brutality, alcoholism, the killing and driving off of game,” ignoring the fact that the natives were destroying one another long before Columbus' arrived. The Caribs depopulated entire islands in the Caribbean through raids for cannibalistic purposes, while Central and South American natives were sacrificing thousands upon thousands of their own people to their gods. Does that count as genocide? [2] As for alcoholism, the Aztecs worshiped “Tezcatzoncatl,” who was the god of wine or “pulque.” The natives would get intoxicated with this drink and would kill themselves or kill others. One was not allowed to criticize the effects of the drink, because they attributed the consequences of it to the possession of the god itself, and not to the drunkenness of the individual. Murmuring against this wine was a sign of bad luck to the murmurer. [3] The Post also says that “we may never know the exact magnitudes of the depopulation,” but “it is estimated that upwards of 80–95 percent of the Native American population was decimated within the first 100–150 years following 1492.” First, they claimed they didn't know, but then they throw out numbers. Secondly, Columbus died 14 years after his initial discovery, and he was not “decimating” anyone. How can he be responsible for things that he did not commit, or things that happened when he was no longer present? This business of percentages is also disingenuous. It wasn’t 80 % of every native tribe of North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean who died due to epidemics, but rather 80 % (more or less) of natives who died in specific locations, at a specific times. For example, in Mexico (the specific location), a great percentage of natives died of smallpox in 1520 (a specific time), which by the way, was introduced by a black man. [4] Before Columbus, epidemics killed 30% of the populations of Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa, from 165 to 180 AD. It killed 40% of the populations of Europe, Egypt, and West Asia, from 541 to 542 (25 to 50 millions of people). It killed 30 to 60% of populations of Europe, Asia, and North Africa, with the Black Death, from 1346 to 1350 (75 to 200 millions of people). After Columbus’ death, epidemics kept killing people in every continent of the world. In other words, epidemics have been common throughout history. Trying to blame everything on Columbus is not just ignorant but plain stupid. References: 1. Historia by Sahagun. 2. De Orbe Novo by Martyr (or any historian of the era). 3. Historia by Sahagun tomo 1, p 40. 4. Historia by Sahagun, tomo 4, p 245.
