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1492

1492. The greatest story ever forced upon students for over half a millennia. What we know. The Sighting. 1492, crewmember sights the Bahamas Promised a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis ( $ 139,270.60 worth of silver) Columbus’ 1 st theft in the New World!. The Meeting.

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1492

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  1. 1492 The greatest story ever forced upon students for over half a millennia

  2. What we know

  3. The Sighting • 1492, crewmember sights the Bahamas • Promised a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis ($139,270.60 worth of silver) • Columbus’ 1st theft in the New World!

  4. The Meeting • Arawaks meet him with gold earrings • Taken to Cuba, then Hispanola (Haiti/Dominican Republic) • Visible gold in river, gold mask received • First trade dispute, first two murders

  5. The Report • “Hispaniola is a miracle. Mountains and hills, plains and pastures, are both fertile and beautiful ... the harbors are unbelievably good and there are many wide rivers of which the majority contain gold. . . . There are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals.... “

  6. The Promise • To bring “as much gold as they need . . And as many slaves as they ask”

  7. The Return • 17 ships • 1200 men • Island to island taking slaves • Men from previous expedition dead

  8. The Dividends • Great slave raid – 1500 Arawaks in pens, loaded 500, 200 died • “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”

  9. The ROI • Ordered all 14+ year olds to mine • Given copper tokens every three months • Without tokens? Hands cut off

  10. The Resistance • Impossible to find enough gold • Impossible to fight against armor, muskets, iron swords, and horses • Arawaks committed mass suicides • In two years through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Arawaks on Haiti were dead

  11. The Source • Bartoleme de lasCasas • “endless testimonies . . . Prove the mild and pacific temperment of the natives” • “they are extremely generous with their possessions” • “they put no value on gold or other precious things”

  12. The Source • Spaniards: • "rode the backs of Indians if they were in a hurry" or were carried on hammocks by Indians running in relays. "In this case they also had Indians carry large leaves to shade them from the sun and others to fan them with goose wings." • Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades." Las Casas tells how "two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys."

  13. The Mines • 6-8 month shifts killed 1/3 of workers • Wives stayed to work the fields • “Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides ... they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation.” • “In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk . .. and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile ... was depopulated. ... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write.”

  14. Back to the Source • In 1508 "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...."

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