The Native Experience
"In order that they would be friendly to us — because I recognized that they were people who
would be better freed [from error] and converted to our Holy Faith by love than by force — to
some of them I gave red caps, and glass beads...in which they took so much pleasure and became
so much our friends that it was a marvel."
–Bartolemé de Las Casas, The Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America 14921493 (transcribed by Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley, Jr.)
When Columbus arrived on the shores of San Salvador in 1492, he encountered natives almost
immediately. At first glance, Columbus and his men noted the gold bracelets and trinkets worn
by the natives. They set out sailing around the Caribbean, claiming islands for Spain and
searching for the source of this gold. His account states that the Spanish befriended the natives,
but history delivers a far more brutal image of the conquest of the Americas – a mission
conducted in the name of God and the Spanish crown.
Whatever friendliness that existed between the Spanish and the natives soon disappeared. Some
of Columbus's men, such as Martín Alonso Pinzon, showed hostility toward the natives; Pinzon
notably attempted to kidnap six of them. The 1512 expedition to Cuba proved to be a harsh
suppression of the natives there. These expeditions gave young men such as Panfílo de Narváez a
chance to prove their worth – or to the natives, cruelty – in the New World. In the case of
Narváez, his reputation for violence would help him earn leadership of later expeditions to
Mexico and Florida.
What would this brutality include? Often, it began with the destruction of native culture.
Spiritual symbols and rituals were viewed as barbaric. Spanish soldiers would destroy their
symbols, replacing them with Christian relics. Spanish documents state that if the natives did not
accept Christianity, the Spanish would war on them. Forced labor became standard as well.
Under the encomienda system, Spanish colonists were granted a certain number of natives, who
would labor for them, often at the price of physical abuse. Yet even more violence occurred
during the exploratory marches of the Spanish. Villages would be looted, native men hurt or
killed (typically the consequence of retaliating against the Spanish), and women harmed.
Perhaps the deadliest weapon brought to the New World was disease. Smallpox, measles,
bubonic plague, and influenza, among other epidemics, wiped out large parts of the native
population. Without immunity to the diseases' ravaging natures, survival was difficult.
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