Christian History 1400 to 1499

1492

The conquest of the New World began when Columbus, a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader, set sail in the year 1492.

The first inhabited island he landed on was the Caribbean. Within hours of landfall, Columbus seized and carried off six natives who, he said, “ought to be good servants… would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion.”

On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross to make the declarations required - the requerimiento – to claim ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. No one dared object to this and if the Indians refused or delayed the acceptance, the requerimiento continued.

1493

In whichever island Columbus touched, his men killed indiscriminately whatever animals and natives found. As Columbus’ son Fernando noted, they were “looting and destroying all they found.” The natives were either killed or made into slaves,  but Columbus only justified these inhumane acts because he saw his affairs as the fulfillment of prophecies in Isaiah. To any objections, Columbus only responded with "…with the help of God, we shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of Their Highness. We shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them."

Eyewitness recounted that once the Indians were in the woods, they will form into squadrons and pursued. Whenever Spaniards found them, Indians were slaughtered mercilessly like sheep. Children were taken away from their mothers’ arms and flung to the dogs.

Various kinds of atrocities were invented by the Spaniards on Columbus’ second voyage. It has been further written, “The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties. They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Savior and the twelve apostles… then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive.”

In less than a decade after Columbus' first landing, the native population of the island of Hispaniola (Santo Domingo & Haiti) — and thousands and thousands of people — had dropped by a third to a half. Before the next century ended, the populations of Cuba and many other Caribbean islands had been virtually exterminated.

“When the Christians came to these islands they said, take this Bible, close your eyes and pray, so we did; when we opened our eyes all we had was this Bible and the white man had all our Islands.”  - Hawaiian Kahuna