The Christian View of the Natives by
Heather ThomasSome would say that Christopher Columbus was a devout Christian. He believed that "his was a mission that would put Christian civilization on the offensive after centuries of Muslim ascendancy" (Dor-Ner 45). Columbus' original mission was to find a western route to the Indies. But when that failed, his mission became clear: convert these new people to Christianity. Throughout this paper I will show the view of the natives by Columbus and Christendom and how these views changed over a span of fifty years. Columbus made it very clear that he was doing this not only for Ferdinand and Isabella, but also for the faith that he was subject to (Dor-Ner 150). He may not have always had the backing of the Papacy, but he always claimed to be doing, whatever it was that he was doing, for the Church. In 1492, when Columbus first arrived, the first thing he saw were a bunch of naked people. I guess to someone who is used to "civilization" this would be somewhat shocking. His first impression of them was recorded in his log. He says that all he saw were young people, handsome and well built, and they seemed to be friendly and well-dispositioned (Dor-Ner 152). So first contact was not a hostile thing. This friendly attitude towards the natives did not last long. There was a settlement left on the island of Hispaniola, after the first voyage, called Navidad. The settlers were supposed to be cementing relations and trading with the natives. On the night of November 27, 1493, when Columbus was on his second voyage back to visit this colony, he was met with only silence. All that was found were the ashes of the town and the remains of the settlers bodies (Dor-Ner 206-207). From this point on the views and approach of Columbus changed. This, to me, makes sense though. They had no reason to believe that the Tainos were a hostile people prior to this event. All of Columbus' wishes for a peaceful trade and conversion were destroyed. Dor-Ner sums up this event nicely when he says this: "As the inevitable conflict of races developed, each side would see the other as alien, less than human, and thus not worth the same consideration as one's own people (Dor-Ner 208). Columbus' entire attitude changed. He started looking at them in a different way. He immediately came to the conclusion that these people would make excellent slaves. There was a kind of duality to his thinking. On one page of his journal he writes about how he believes that the natives could easily be made free and converted. A little further down he writes that they'd make good skilled servants. Within two days time he then wrote that "with fifty men you could subject everyone and make them do what you wished (Dor-Ner 152). You can see how quickly his attitude changed. He didn't immediately begin to capture these people for slaves. Ferdinand and Isabella gave Columbus specific instructions for the second voyage not to injure them and to only try to convert them. Columbus still went searching for gold on the second voyage. It wasn't until the third voyage that he started sending slaves back to Spain. Columbus blatantly disobeyed the orders of the Crown. He desperately wanted to do something that could make up for the gold and riches that were never found. With the return of the ships from Hispaniola on the second voyage, Columbus sent a letter back to the King and Queen calling the people cannibals, wild people, fit for any work, well proportioned, and "who, when they have got rid of the cruel habits to which they become accustomed, will be better than any other kind of slaves" (Dor-Ner 213-214). These people were only looked at as evil. It would make it a lot easier to do these injustices that he was about to undertake. Columbus got his justification from the Church, not from the papacy, but from the precedents set by the Church. It was common knowledge that the Church could exercise it's power over anyone who rejected the word of Christ (Dor-Ner 222). This may be true, but at this time, they hadn't even tried to convert the natives yet. So how could he get away with this? Hans Kung puts it this way: "He had looked for every possible prophecy in the Bible for his enterprise, and took it for granted that those outside the Catholic Church were damned" (Kung 654). He also tried to justify sending slaves back to Spain by saying that it was good for the slaves. It would help them get rid of their horrible ways (Dor-Ner 213). The first group of 500 slaves were shipped back to Spain in February of 1495. Others that were enslaves were used for the colonists living in Hispaniola as labor. The colonists were encouraged to go on raiding parties to capture more slaves (Dor-Ner 215). It didn't take long for the Crown to ban any slavery from the New World. That didn't stop Columbus from sending them home though. During the years 1495 and 1496 all of Hispaniola was subjugated (Dor-Ner 215). It only took four years for the attitude of Columbus to change completely. Within four years he successfully defeated a whole island nation of natives. He began something that set a precedent for other conquistadors for the next forty-five years. It was finally realized by some people that what was happening was going against the Crown and more importantly, against the Church's wishes. In 1510, a Dominican friar, Fray Anton Montecino, gave a sermon to the settlers in Hispaniola, preaching against the injustices done to the Arawak nation (Dor-Ner 220). He was the first to speak out against this. In his sermon, he called the natives "God's people, these innocents, whom you destroyed. By what right do you make them die?" (Dor-Ner 221). In 1516, Bartolome do Las Casas, also spoke out against the enslavement of the natives. He did believe it was okay though to use African slaves instead, and even suggested that they be imported into the islands. This was supposed to save the lives of the natives, but by the year 1518, the last surviving people of the Arawak nation was killed either by smallpox or overwork (Dor-Ner 218) It was already too late for these people. These few friars who spoke against the enslavement didn't achieve anything. The Church was finally coming to see that their mission of converting the natives to Christianity wasn't being done, it wasn't even being attempted. The settlers and conquerors were supposed to tell them about Christianity and then if they still rejected it they could be enslaved. Well, the conquerors were being met with blank stares because the Indians had no clue as to what the Europeans were trying to say. The Europeans took to be a rejection. It took the papacy another thirty years to officially recognize that these people were indeed human and that they are also God's people. It was finally believed that it wasn't their fault they were born in sin and couldn't help acting so savagely (Dor-Ner 324). In 1537, Pope Paul III wrote his famous bull, the Sublimus Dei, saying that "the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to out information, they desire exceedingly to receive it" (Sublimus Dei). This official stand of the Catholic Church didn't stop anyone from enslaving the natives or even killing them, but it was a start. It took fifty years for people to even declare that the beasts that they were killing were indeed human and capable of understanding religion. They went from being looked at as a friendly people, to slaves and evil abominations, to truly innocent men who need and want to receive the Word of God. It took five hundred years for people to truly realize that what we did was just plain wrong. Bibliography Davies, Nigel. Voyagers to the New World. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1979.
Dor-Ner, Zvi. Columbus and the Age of Discovery. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991.
Dyson, John. Columbus: for Gold, God, and Glory. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.
Kung, Hans. Christianity: Essence, History, and Future. New York: Continuum, 1995.
Sublimus Dei. http://www.listserv.american.edu.