Christopher Columbus and the Subjugation of the Natives

Christopher Columbus and the Subjugation of the Natives Among the more notorious dimensions of the age of exploration and colonization is the impact which this massive wave of maritime transmigration would have on the indigenous populations of those locations where European settlers made landfall. And perhaps no historical figure is as emblematic of this impact than Christopher Columbus, who in his ambition to bring gold, spices and cotton home from the lands he believed to be the West Indies, would help to set off one of the most complete genocides in human history. As the text by McKay et al (2003) demonstrates, Columbus approached the natives that he encountered in the Caribbean with a sense of European superiority that would come to define colonialism and to justify its attendant ethnic cleansing. Indeed, the perspective offered by Columbus is that of a conqueror establishing dominance over a people quite vulnerable to subordination. When Christopher Columbus reached the coast of the Americas, he believed that he had discovered a New World. And for the Europeans, the connotation of a New World was that it promoted an entitlement to explore, conquer and colonize otherwise unchartered territory. This perspective would, of course, fly in the face of the fact that the New World had in fact been populated by indigenous tribes that are described as plentiful in most accounts of first discovering America. For Columbus, the presence of these populations would challengeShow MoreRelatedChristopher Columbus Discovery Of The Americas919 Words   |  4 PagesChristopher Columbus’ discovery of the Americas set the precedent for the European conquest of it. In fact, his tactics of taking land, wealth, and labor from the indigenous populations were carried out by many of the Europeans who later came to the Americas. 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