As we talked about for a little bit today in class, Columbus’ second voyage was mainly used as a means to map trade, and since he couldn’t find any spices or metals (though he told Ferdinand and Isabella so) he switched his focus to the trade of people. I find this very interesting and telling of how Columbus and his company viewed themselves over people, not just because they were in any way terrible people for enslaving others, but in the way that they viewed themselves enslaving others as a morally just or “good” thing to do.

Partway into the second voyage we find Columbus and his men searching for the village they left behind, and were later told that rival tribes killed them and injured the king, Guacamari. While they were told this information, however, they also “complained at the same time that the Christians had taken three or four women apiece” (pg 148). This, to me (but I definitely can’t say for certain), that Guacamari’s people got tired of the attitude of the Christians and killed them themselves. But what was the attitude of the Christians toward the native peoples?

When I was reading, one passage that really struck me was the one on page 139 of a lieutenant who took a native woman and kept her as a whore. The image was gruesome yet fitting, in my mind, of what conquerors could and did do. That the Christians defended each other and sought restitution for the loss of the settlement yet completely disregarded any fault they could have had in the situation is most definitely telling to Columbus and his men’s character.

For me, this brings up an interesting point in terms of mapping. We talked about this a little bit in class today as well, but I would like to comment further on the idea that Columbus wasn’t “mapping” for exploration or really for settlement, but merely for monetary gain. First this was for discovering gold, but then for using the native population when Columbus had to cover his ass in delivering to the Catholic monarchs. We classified this type of mapping as for trade, but I see it really only as a map for conquest. Trade, to me, would at least involve some sort of mutual gain, but enslavement of a people and  stealing resources is pretty much just conquest in my opinion.

So what does this say to me in terms of mapping in general? I think that, again to go back to a topic we’ve touched upon before, mapping is very subjective for something that should only give the facts. By “mapping,” I’m talking about both the act of map-making and the subject of a map. I’m sure if you had the native peoples Columbus saw also make a map (of travel, trade, the “known world,” etc.) it would be incredibly different. And that is not to say that either group of people were more intelligent or able to make maps (though by the end of the second voyage I’m really doubting Columbus’ skill), but that different people see or experience the world in different ways. This may be super meta/theological/religious studies-based of me, but different peoples grow and experience the world through different lenses, and those lenses determine how they 1) live together, and 2) interact with other groups/peoples.

There are most definitely flaws in Columbus’ party, and surely flaws on the native side of things so as to not over romanticize the other side of the story (but I don’t have evidence on the lives of these people in this time in any case). So I guess my main point in this is to try to point out how conceptually Columbus may have been wrong in thinking about these peoples, and how history is only told through one lens, and not every one (I would definitely love to be able to understand native Cuban life in this time period, but I can’t).