The Taino People of the Caribbean Are NOT Extinct

Columbus and His Trajectory

To Christopher Columbus, and the Spanish Catholic kingdom behind him, the voyage to the American lands sought a "discovery." The Grand Mariner was among a handful in Europe to suspect that strong wind currents blew across the great ocean, going west farther south and back east on the northern latitudes. Why he knew this, how he came to be the first to ascertain it for a major European power, what he sought and how he was thinking about potential "discoveries" defines the true story, not only of Columbus, but of the thinking and tenets that guided (and justified) the colonization of the American Indian continent. It is a fact that Columbus knew that conquest and Spanish political hegemony would follow a promising discovery. He hoped to and did get very rich by his "discovery."

On August 3, 1492, Columbus sailed south to the Azores (a route he knew well and where he would turn west) out the port of Palos, in southern Spain. Thousands of Jews sailed out of Spain, mostly from the same port, on the previous day. The inquisition was at its zenith in Spain in 1492; all remaining Jews were to convert or die. Executions by fire were still common. It was a pious, "Christ-bearing" Columbus who went forth with the Catholic King's mandate, carrying the mission of conversion to fuel his drive to "discover."

Landing in Guanahani (renamed San Salvador), Columbus planted a Spanish flag, ordered a Catholic Mass and proclaimed himself Viceroy over the new lands. For days, large dug-out canoes full of curious Lucayo-Arawak men paddled out to the strange, giant ships. The large canoes glided quickly over the water. Caciques (chiefs) went out with warriors carrying bows and arrows and lances, but also food and other gifts. Cdumbus sought information about larger land falls and about the source of golden amulets he received as presents. From his log, we know what Columbus thought about these new people and how he analyzed their worth. One can only wonder what thoughts crossed the Tainos' minds at this first encounter, what interpretation their unique cosmology could give these events.