Howard Zinn and Why I Chose to Call Columbus a Murderer.

            Readdressing the history of America’s discovery from the point of view of the Native American will reveal the ugly truth about Christopher Columbus’s voyage and his contribution to the discovery of America. History usually glamorizes the victorious; it always speaks in praise of the victorious while it ignores or depreciates the defeated. History has credited him with discovering America, but historian Howard Zinn argues that such glorification ignores the evils that Columbus has done to Native Americans.

            In his argument, Zinn mentions that Christopher Columbus hit a new uncharted land on his voyage to Asia, which is eventually known as America. Approaching the land, Christopher Columbus was warmly welcomed by the Native Americans. The Natives believed in sharing, but Christopher Columbus treated them with distrust. As a result, he was convinced that the Natives were simple and innocent and he could easily make them into slaves. Therefore, Native Americans became the foundation on which Columbus established the slave and gold mining industries.  In an effort to please investors, Native Americans, were tortured and killed. These investors included the King of Spain and others. Zinn’s argument seems to offer a contrasting picture of most people know about Columbus and his discovery. However, Zinn’s argument does not draw a complete picture of what Columbus has done to Native Americans. In fact, Native Americans suffered even more brutal treatment and other miseries from Columbus and his people. Examples include massacres or genocide, depopulation through disease spreading, child and woman as slave for sex and labor, and other inhumane cruelty to humiliate Native’s cultures and traditions.

           Columbus was the first settler who brought the genocide into “new world” even before the word “genocide” existed.  In his argument, Zinn mentions that Columbus ended his voyage to Asia landing in the Americas in 1942. Columbus sailed out his first voyage with three ships along with thirty -nine crew and the motive of the voyage was clear: to find new frontier for gold, silver, and colony control. Columbus had expected his arrival to Asia in four weeks because of his misassumption of the distance to Asia. However, he and his crews landed on an island in Bahamas after thirty- three days. It was one-fourth of the distance he wanted to go. On the island, he met with Arawak people. The Arawak people swam out to welcome Columbus and his people but he captured some Natives, assumed that they would lead him to source of the gold. He left the first island after two days and visited other several islands in Bahamas before he set out for Cuba. He fruitlessly spent couple weeks in Cuba without having finding the source of the gold. He arrived to Espanola from the Cuba, where he chose to set first Spanish colony.  He met a quick return to Spain after he arrived to Espanola. He described the Arawak and other natives as to be naïve and innocent to the king of Spain. Even though, the transition of Columbus’s first voyage with Native Americans went smooth and peaceful, Columbus’s second voyage was the declaration of the genocide.

            In Columbus’s second sailing, three sailing ships jumped into seventeen ships with all necessary arrangement for the genocide along with twelve hundred men. He was invested of returning as much gold, silver and slave as investors wanted. As a result, Columbus and his people started torturing and killing aboriginal people in pursuit of gold and silver. The Natives were bonded to return some among of gold in every three month in balance of their life. Columbus and his people killed the Natives who failed to return the bonded among of gold. When it was clear that there was not enough gold left, Natives were used as slave. Natives were being captured wherever they were found, for the slavery. Through the capturing, importing slave to Europe, many Natives were killed and died.   However, Zinn seems to emphasize what Columbus had done mostly but he covered how brutality had done quickly. Indeed, actually condition was even more brutal. What Columbus had done gives the Zinn’s controversy argument a place to dispute. Furthermore, how he had done will give the Zinn’s controversy argument a weighing side of the disputation.

            The article “Genocide in the America” by the David E. Stannard describes that under Columbus’s governorship, 50,000 Native people died within a matter of months following the establishment of the first Spanish colony on the island of Espanola. [David, Genocide in the America, page 1] 50,000 may seem small number compare with the total Native Americans that existed at the time Columbus arrived in America continent. However, it is huge number for an island like an Espanola. Stannard gives a rational comparison, according to his article; the loss of life was the proportional equivalent to 1.2 million Americans people today. This number would exceed the total death toll of the Civil War, World war-I, World War-II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. At mathematical simplification, Columbus and his people took approximately 1700 natives life per day, 70 natives died per hour, and approximately a native died per second!  The number seems to be frightening. David also mentioned in his article that Columbus’s hired soldiers  slice off Native woman’s breast for sport and fed their babies to the wolfhounds and mastiffs that accompanied by them. This is the scenario, many of us would not even have the courage to see it but Columbus and his hired soldiers had done this humane cruelty just to have fun!  However, this is fact, which is being concealed by the Columbus’s heroism.

           Columbus’s cruelty genocide was the start of many Natives massacres, which led to conclude a result of 60 million to 80 million Native Americans perishing from America continent before the seventeenth century.  This mass-killing tradition of Columbus’s continued on through the English invasion and the French invasion in North America. In an article “Were the Spaniards that cruel?” Cerio G said that “When the English and French arrived in the Americas; they systematically drove the natives from their land”. [Cerio, were the Spaniards that cruel, page 2] This is the system which was implied by Columbus and his people.  By the end of nineteenth century, there were only 250,000 natives in the United States. This was nothing but the reflections what Columbus had started. Zinn’s argument depicted the Columbus’s inhumane genocide in new world. However, accusing Columbus to be the first settler to conduct the genocide will give the argument to be more disputable.

            Depopulation through the disease spreading was another inhumane activity that Columbus and his people conducted with the Native, which Zinn has mentioned but ended it very quickly. In fact, this process of killing helped Spaniards to kill Natives efficiently than their swords did. It took life silently but affected in large number. Accompanied by European colonists, pathogens were the Native’s worse enemies. These organisms were more effective tools to depopulate of the Native Americans because these organisms were drown from highly competitive environment in Europe and so were hardy. Among the pathogens that Spanish conquerors brought to new world, the smallpox was a biological weapon that is an acute eruptive disease which killed more people than the conquerors themselves.  These pathogens were effective because the Natives did not have the immunity to European disease.

             According to the Crosby’s journal “Columbus and Ecological Imperialism”, most historians believe that these diseases were not endemic to the Native Americans worlds. Any new disease in a place become very efficient in killing people until the immune system creates its immunity. Consequently, new diseases are emerging at an unprecedented rate and, often with the ability to cross the border and spread. The smallpox, which was brought by Columbus and his people into the new world, did not only kill people in where it started but also killed people in where Columbus could not imagine going. It spread throughout the continent and killed millions of people.  

           Spreading disease would have be a result of a coincidence. Columbus and his people might not be intended to spread disease that accompanied with them. However, Columbus and his people did not seem to bother control the spreading or treat the Natives. Furthermore, He and his descended colonists used it as a weapon to dry out the Native Americans.

            Columbus was a man of his times, when European colonists did not believe killing, torturing and slavery were unnatural to do in pursuit of wealth. Zinn does not seem approach to the historical reasoning of Columbus’s killing. From the historical perspective, Columbus voyage was the period when most of European countries such as England, France, Portugal, and Spain were investing in colonizing, especial in Asia. Columbus also desired to establish colony in Asia and committed genocide that other colonists did with Indian, African, and Asian. However, Columbus was able to establish his desired colonization but not where he wanted to or not with whom he wanted to. Nevertheless, he had conducted every activity which would denote him to be a time-reflected colonist. Like other colonization, Columbus and his people killed and tortured indigenous people in pursuit of wealth and slavery. They raped women and traded women and children as slave for sex and labor. Columbus and his did what their time ask them to do. It was a just reflection of the times.

             Many colonists used the God and the Bible to explain their cruelty on indigenous people in the Columbus’s time.  Columbus also used the God and the Bible shoulder to approve his inhumane activities with Natives form the Spain authority.  Columbus’s viewed his genocide “Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities.”[Zinn, Howard, Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress, page 2] It seems that he did not even consider the Natives to be human, who would have follow same God but from another perspective of believing. He and his people killed the Natives as if the Bible or The God sent them to do so.

           Howard Zinn had revealed our point of view of the Columbus’s heroism of his contribution on America. He argued point on half of Native Americans. He visualized what Columbus has done to the Natives, which was never mentioned before. However, there are some other source also argue that the actual conditions was even more brutal than Zinn mentioned. These sources are emphasizing on the rate of the genocide, and the contrast with what Columbus had done and how had he did it.  However, above all, these arguments are to prove that Columbus was just another soldier, hired by the colony to expand colony’s control and to preserve the colony’s interest at any cost.

  

 

       

      

Reference:

1.      Howard Zinn, “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress” Chapter 1-“

2.      Stannard, David E. "Genocide in the Americas." Nation 255.12 (1992): 430. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. Web. 26 Nov. 2010.
3.      Cerio, G. "Were the Spaniards that cruel? (Cover story)." Newsweek 118.10 (1991): 48. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
4.      Warrick, Gary. "European infectious disease and depopulation of the Wendat-Tionontate (Huron-Petun)." World Archaeology 35.2 (2003): 258-275. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 23 Nov. 2010.
5.      Crosby, Alfred W. "Columbus and Ecological Imperialism." (1989): ERIC. EBSCO. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.

6.      Livi-Bacci, Massimo. "The Depopulation of Hispanic America after the Conquest." Population & Development Review 32.2 (2006): 199-232. Urban Studies Abstracts. EBSCO. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.