Before Columbus landed in the Caribbean (1492) there were the Guanahatabey, Ciboney, & Tanio people who inhabited that land. He took four voyages all together and I don’t know if they tell y’all that in school now but there were four. On his first voyage Columbus allowed a young girl to ride along with her relatives. He made sure that she would not be molested. The sailors, being rapists, would seize many Indian women and castrate the men. (P.S the women were definitely much darker)
He kidnapped around 20 Amerindians and took them back to Spain (along with gold trinkets, parrots, and other exotica) just for proof to show he landed and found a lil something. It’s said that the aboriginals believed the interlopers came down from the sky.
On his way back (2nd trip) he took w/ him 17 ships, 1200-1500 men (mostly criminals), cannons, crossbows, guns, calvary & attack dogs. Now he’s back on the islands and they start demanding food, gold, spun cotton, whatever the Natives had include their women once again.
Let’s also keep in mind that all Spanish settlers that stayed from the first voyage was killed off because of a revolt. The Natives trusted the Spanish at first but they came to their senses quick. Let’s never undermine the power and fight that the Natives put up. But after landing from the second voyage, to show these Amerindians he meant business, he began to use punishment by example. So if a native committed a minor offense, he’d do something like cut their ears or nose off and send em back to the village to make an example out of them.
Natives got tired, tried to revolt again & didn’t work. By 1495, Columbus & his boys sought out to take over Hispaniola. They rounded up about 1500 Arawaks, 500 became slaves, 500 were sent to Spain & 500 were released. This next piece of info is why we call them “white d3vils”. The reign of terror in Hispaniola began with Spaniards hunting Indians for sport and murdered them for dog food. Natives also had a quota they had to meet as far as locating gold and cotton. If you didn’t meet the quota your hands were cut off.
Pre Columbus population at Haiti was estimated around 8 million at its height. By 1496 it dropped down to an estimated 1.1 million and 12,000 by 1516. Columbus sent probably around 5,000 more slaves than any other individual across the Atlantic. Because slavery died out wit the Natives, that’s what influenced Spain to go to Africa but that’s another story in itself. In conclusion you can say that Columbus single handedly began the transatlantic slave trade. Pedro Alonso Nino AKA El Negro was the navigator for Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to the Americas.
{This post was written by Derrick Wilmore Jr.}
Sources: Cuba by T. Britton and The Four Voyages
The 41st Amendment 
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