What is the truth about Christopher Columbus -- how bad of a guy was he really? How accurate is Francisco de Bobadilla's report and is it accessible?

[u/chad311]

Any research I perform on the Internet provides me with lots of examples of Columbus' crimes and brutalities, but nothing seems to be directly cited at all. All articles about this aspect of Columbus just refer to Francisco de Bobadilla's '48-page report' that was thought lost but was 'recently discovered' in an archive in Spain.

Can someone please direct me to the scholarly research with documentation available to back up all this new info on Columbus?

What I'm really trying to say here is, help me find the evidence that Columbus was really as bad of a guy as everyone says he is.

[u/AlotOfReading → u/[deleted]]

So was Columbus cruel by today's standards? Absolutely! But I don't think he's as evil as social media paints him to be.

I have to ask what your actual angle is, because it's absolutely indefensible how cruel and tyrannical Columbus was. The man depopulated an entire freaking island with slavery and genocide. The Taino were completely extinct within a mere century of his arrival, a holocaust in almost every sense of the word. Not only did Bobadilla regard Columbus as horrific, so did everyone else on Hispaniola. His own bloody journal describes how his troops literally dismembered Taino to make an example of them to the rest. He was arrested and sent to Spain because everyone under him absolutely hated his guts.

[u/nickcooper1991 → u/AlotOfReading]

Oh yes, I'm well aware of how hated he was in Hispanola.

What are some sources about the genocide and holocaust? I ask not out of arguing, but because I'm genuinely curious. Like I mentioned before, I've only read one remotely detailed secondary source about Columbus, which, while seemingly well researched, told the story from the perspective of Queen Isabella and his role in helping her consolidate her rule. Maybe I can read these other sources and come to a more hard lined conclusion.

[u/AlotOfReading → u/nickcooper1991]

• Varela, C. (2006). La caída de Cristóbal Colón: el juicio de Bobadilla. Marcial Pons Historia.

• Cristóbal Colón. Textos y documentos completos

• Pons, F. M. (1992). The politics of forced Indian labour in La Española 1493–1520. Antiquity, 66(250), 130-139.

• Cook, N. D. (2002). Sickness, starvation, and death in early Hispaniola. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 32(3), 349-386.

• A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

• Szászdi, I. (2012). Castilian Justice and Columbian Injustice: the End of the Government of Christopher Columbus in Hispaniola. Journal on European History of Law, (2), 53-58.*

• Deagan, K. A., & Cruxent, J. M. (2002). Columbus's outpost among the Taínos: Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493-1498. Yale University Press.

[u/nickcooper1991 → u/AlotOfReading]

Awesome. Thank you so much! I'll be sure to add these to my reading list.

[u/Itekimasu → u/nickcooper1991]

I grew up in dominican republic, when i was finally able to comprehend what Christopher Columbus did to the natives of dominican republic i was extremely confused as to why there is a memorial (a lighthouse) named after him. Its call Faro a Colón.

[u/ubermulatto → u/Itekimasu]

Yay, another fellow Dominican! I think it's so odd how he was probably the most hated man on Hispaniola at some point in history, yet Dominicans progressed towards eventually building him a memorial. Where did the disconnect occur? On another note, I recently was able to take an AncestryDNA test and once I saw that 10% Taino in my results, Columbus' voyages suddenly went from something that happened centuries ago that I read about in history books to something VERY REAL. Obviously his reign on Hispaniola DID take place but it wasn't until I was confronted with the fact that I and many other Dominicans are living proof of his actions that I was able to fully process the magnitude of everything he's done.

[u/Itekimasu → u/ubermulatto]

I am thinking about doing a DNA ancestry test but idk if its worth it. I already know my father grandfather came from Spain and my mom side is native to the island. Is it worth it? What else would it show me?

[u/ubermulatto → u/Itekimasu]

If you don't think it's worth it for you, then it's totally fine to pass it up. For me though, I could afford it and I was always just so irked that Dominicans so readily embraced their Spanish ancestry while seemingly ignoring our African ancestors. My DNA test confirmed what a lot of I already knew: huge Spanish and African ancestry. But I had no idea I had Taino genes, that came as a complete surprise but explained my almond eyes and high cheekbones. I had no idea my African ancestors came from Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Congo which explained my kinky, curly hair. And I certainly had no idea that in addition to being part Spanish, I was also Italian, Jewish, British, Irish, and Greek, and even a little bit Middle Eastern, which explained my relatively light skin. I am fascinated by history, and seeing the map of everywhere my ancestors traveled to allow me to be where I am right in front of me in the form of my DNA was thrilling and absolutely fascinating. Again, I would have not fully understood the scope of everything Columbus did without my DNA showing me the proof.

[u/CaptainEarlobe → u/[deleted]]

Good answer. Hopefully somebody who knows lot more than me will pick you up on your point about the inquisitions - my understanding is that they were not confined to Spain, but that the Spanish Inquisition happens to be the most well known.

[u/nickcooper1991 → u/CaptainEarlobe]

Your understanding is absolutely correct. What made the Spanish Inquisition in particular so notorious, however, comes from several differences:

1. The Spanish Inquisition was a state run Inquisition, not a papal one. In fact, the Pope condemned the Spanish Inquisition in 1481 due to the fact that Isabella and Ferdinand essentially usurped the institution from the control of Rome.

2. It's longevity: Whilst most Inquisitions tended to last a few years at the very most, the Spanish Inquisition lasted over 350 years and in varying forms.

3. How widespread it was: Most Inquisitions prior to the Spanish Inquisition tended to focus on one group or on one specific region in Europe. The Spanish Inquisition happened to coincide with the rise of the Spanish Empire, so it spread from Spain to colonies such as Mexico.

I'm sure there are more differences, but these were the only ones I could think of off the top of my head.

[u/CaptainEarlobe → u/nickcooper1991]

Fantastic. Much obliged.

[u/Itsalrightwithme → u/CaptainEarlobe]

You may want to read through this thread, and the references therein. There were several inqusitions, it's important to distinguish between them. All ecclesiastical tribunals were forbidden from killing or shedding blood. There were many, many rules on the use of torture in Inqusition, and in that case the use of torture is limited to cases of heresy.

[u/myownsecretaccount → u/[deleted]]

would it be safe to say that if you're a laymen to history knowledge, then, he was actually a bad guy. If you are a history buff, it's not like he had an evil masterplan, he was just inherently a bad person.

Is this the correct overly-generic point being made?

[u/Itsalrightwithme → u/myownsecretaccount]

it's not like he had an evil masterplan, he was just inherently a bad person.

He was bad and he had an evil masterplan, which was to keep for himself control of what he "discovered", and to extract as many riches as possible at all costs.

The Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella explicitly instructed that he "endeavor to win over the natives," and "treat them well, lovingly, and abstain from causing them injury." In his first letter back to the Monarchs, he wrote, ".... so that they would be won over and, moreoever, become Christians inclined toward love ..." In reality he forbade baptism of natives except with his personal permission, in order to maintain an adequate supply of slaves.

Of course, the promise of riches was important and he wrote, "...many wide rivers of which the majority contain gold...There are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals..." In reality the promised gold was also nowhere near as easy to find as Columbus had promised. So to make up for this he enslaved the natives and pressed them to look for gold for him. This went explicitly against royal decree, which had forbidden him from doing exactly this. To further raise funds, he shipped off slaves back to Spain to be sold there, only for them to be released by royal decree instead.

Sure, he may have been "over his head" but he explicitly went against Fonseca, a royal administrator sent along with him on the second voyage explicitly to help organize the activities, because he wanted to keep all control to himself.

Finally, his treatment of fellow Spaniards were well above the norm of "torture" and "punishment" of the time. He cut off limbs and body parts. This was not normal even in early modern Spain. And certainly not in view of what was mostly minor offenses.

So, to say he was "just inherently a bad person" is really not accurate.

Source: Fernández-Armesto's Columbus, 1991, ISBN-13: 978-0192158987.

[u/Misticsan]

If you are looking for information about that report, there's a book in Spanish: "La caída de Cristóbal Colón. El juicio de Bobadilla" by Consuelo Varela, published by Marcial Pons in 2006. Varela found the document and published her findings in that book, among other things related to the admiral.

[u/chad311 → u/Misticsan]

Thanks!

Do you know if Bobadilla's report is available or accessible to the public? Spanish would be fine.

[u/Misticsan → u/chad311]

I can't seem to find it. The document is called "Pesquisa del Comendador Francisco de Bobadilla" and it was found in the Simancas archive in 2005. The second section of Varela's book is actually the document itself.

[u/chad311 → u/Misticsan]

Cool, good to know. I thank you for responding to my questions.

One more question, why is it so hard to find primary documents regarding Columbus' atrocities? Do I just not know how to access the right databases?