On the island, which I have already said is called Hispana, there are very high and beautiful mountains, large farms, groves and fields fertile for cultivation and pastures, and which are well suited for the construction of buildings. The convenience of this island`s ports and the excellence of the rivers in volume and health exceed human belief, unless you see them. In this, the trees, pastures and fruits are very different from those of Juana. In addition, this Hispana is rich in different types of species, gold and metals. Residents.. are all, as I said, supplied with any kind of iron, and they are poor in weapons which are completely unknown to them and for which they are not suitable; Not because of any physical deformity, because they are well made, but because they are shy and full of terror. But when they see that they are safe and that all fear is banished, they are very innocent and honest and very liberal of everything they have. Cross, Columbus asked his girlfriend Michele da Cuneo to keep an indigenous woman, whom he captured, and then brutally raped her, according to his own statements. [97] Tony Horwitz notes that this is the first recorded case of sexuality between a European and a Native American.

[201] The punishment for an Indigenous person who did not fill the golden dust bell of his falcon every three months was to cut off the hands of those who had no signs and let them bleed to death. [78] [202] It is believed that thousands of Indigenous people committed suicide by poison to escape persecution. [110] The neutrality and accuracy of Bobadilla`s 48-page account accusing Columbus and his brothers of using torture and mutilation to rule Hispaniola have been disputed by historians in light of the anti-Italian sentiment of the Spaniards and Bobadilla`s desire to adopt Columbus` position. [203] [204] [205] Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who saw the report, notes that “Columbus` government was characterized by a form of tyranny. Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place. [139] On the thirty-third day after leaving Cadiz, I arrived at the Indian Sea, where I discovered many islands inhabited by many people. I took possession of it for our happiest king by proclaiming and publicly unfurling his standard without anyone resisting. The island of Juana, like the others in its vicinity, is extremely fertile. It has many ports on all sides, very safe and wide, above comparison with all the ones I`ve ever seen. Many very wide and health-promoting rivers cross it; And there are many very high mountains in it.

All these islands are very beautiful and have very different shapes; easy to cross and full of the widest variety of trees reaching all the stars… America was not discovered by Christopher Columbus. North and South America had been inhabited for more than ten thousand years when Christopher Columbus arrived. Hundreds of different nations with their own languages, customs, religions and economic systems were already occupying the country when it stumbled upon it on its way to Asia. Norwegian settlers preceded his arrival in the Americas about five hundred years ago (see AJ-056 to AJ-060), and ample evidence suggests that European fishermen had briefly touched the coast in the decades before his first voyage. Columbus never saw the North American continent, let alone went ashore and planted a flag; and until the anniversary of his death, he believed he had traveled to islands close to China. Columbus had always claimed the conversion of unbelievers as the reason for his explorations, but he became increasingly religious in his later years. Between 1482 and 1485, Christopher Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa and reached the Portuguese trading post of Elmina on the coast of Guinea (in present-day Ghana). Before 1484, Christopher Columbus returned to Porto Santo to discover that his wife had died.[22] He returned to Portugal to settle their estate and take his son Diego with him.[23] In 1485, he left Portugal for Castile, where in 1487 he found a mistress, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.[24] [25] It is likely that Beatriz met Columbus while he was in Cordoba, a meeting place for many Genoese merchants and where the court of the Catholic Monarchs was located at regular intervals. Beatriz, then unmarried, gave birth in July 1488 to Columbus` natural son, Fernando Columbus, named after the monarch of Aragon.

Columbus recognized the boy as his offspring…