Because Columbus captured more Indian slaves than he could transport to Spain in his small ships, he put them to work in mines and plantations which he, his family and followers created throughout the Caribbean. His marauding band hunted Indians for sport and profit -- beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies as food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of Columbus' arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one- third of the original Indian population of 300,000. Within another 50 years, the Taino people had been made extinct -- the first casualties of the holocaust of American Indians. The plantation owners then turned to the American mainland and to Africa for new slaves to follow the tragic path of the Taino.
Originally posted by: AmusedOne
Originally posted by: CrowDog
Early "Americans" have acomplished what Hitler set out to do, Genocide. This country was stolen.... Columbus was a murderer of women and children.... And all this Patriotic talk makes me sick.
Fusking whiner. Columbus was European. The US didn't exist for another 300 years.
And the Indians themselves weren't saints either. The Euros simply had better technology. Do you honestly think it would have been any different were the tables turned and a post-iron age Aztec culture discovered a pre-bronze age Europe?
Sorry guys, but I saw this and felt the need to reply. I apologize in advance, because I am here looking for trouble.....
I have no idea where are you getting your data about this. I am from Mexico and really pisses me off when cr@p full of false facts is said.
the conquer of the Americas was a combination of several factors, and yes, I mean several combined factors.... one factor missing and the conquer would have taken place 200 hundred years later.
The old Americas were divided mainly in AridoAmerica and MesoAmerica, where Mesoamerica was the developed part and Aridoamereica was the wild part. As rough estimate, Aridoamerica was north of the cancer tropiccus and mesoamerica was south of that (that means, Mexico and Peru, the most advanced places in the prehispanic continent)
Columbus arrived to the Americas in 1492, but his trips were mainly discovery ones. No war missions in his 5 trips. The conquer started in 1519 (that is way more than 4 years) when Hernán Cortés arrived to the beaches of Tabasco and Campeche in México. The rulers there were the "Totonacas", but cortés was not only a warrior, he was also a great potician. The Totonacas were enemies of the Aztecs (as was almost any other tribe in Mexico). Among all those tribes, there was the legend of Quetzalcoatl coming back.
Quetzalcoatl was the god of the wind in the Aztec culture, as well as in the "Tolteca" culture. He founded Tula in the classic period (600 AC - 1200 AC) but left the city. When he left he went East, and promised he would be back to reclaim his kingdom in a "ce-acatl" year (that means uno-caña or one-stick in the 52 years calendar period -4 symbols and 13 numbers-). Quetzalcoatl was always depicted by the legend as a blonde tall guy with a beard....
When Cortés arrived to México in 1519 (by coincidence, a one stick year) the Totonacas rulers immediately pledged loyalty to him, thinking he was Quetzalcoatl (first factor in his favor). He got some gifts, among them a young slave called "Malintzi", also know as "Malinche" who later adopted the Spanish name "Marina". This lady was a princess whose parents were dethroned by the Aztecs, and she was made slave. Onviously, she had hate for the Aztecs, and she was very smart. She learned Spanish very quicly and became Cortés' right hand (second factor in his favor)
The emperor of Tenochtitlan (capital of the Aztecs) was Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, an arts man but not a warrior (third factor). Under his rule, some military campaigns were lost and the generals didn't like him. Moctezuma heard about "Quetzalcoatl" and got scared, as he thought that the god was back. He sent promptly a group of people with gorgeous gifts for Cortés. When cortés got the gifts, he got greedy and got all the information about Tenochtitlan and the treausres in there. The ambition wa stronger than the caution, as he had only 3,000 soldiers and the Aztec empire had more than 200,000 tough warriors. He left Campeche and went to look for Tenochtitlan. However, he got several hundreds of totonacas warriors (this is one of the biggest factors of his success, as most of his army was native indians enemies of the Aztecs)
The road was not easy against the enviroment, but having "Malinche" in his side got him allies all over the place, and his army was growing. Near Tlaxcala, he had a very tough battle against the "Tlaxcaltecas", the worst enemies of the Aztecs and the only culture to remain independent surrounded by Aztecs. The Spaniards survived, thanks to the number of indians in their army. The Tlaxcaltecas realized that these could be very powerful allies to fight against the Aztecs, and they make peace with the Spaniards and get convinced by Malinche to join Cortes.
Cortes faced also Panfilo de Narvaez, a Spaniard sent from Cuba with 4,000 ment with orders to stop Cortes. However, Cortes secretly convinced Narvaez men to join him and the obly battle they had was mainly to kill Narvaez.
Malinche saved cortes in several places, such as Cholula where language skills let he know about a plot to kil the invaders. Finally, Cortes arrived to Tenochtitlan where he met Moctezuma. Here, the emperor surrendered to the "god" and gave him the kingdom. Not all the aztecs believed in these gods, as they could witness how greedy they were. they realized also that these were men because they bled, moaned and died also. These warriors wanted to kill the invaders. the leader was a noble great warrior called "Cuitlahuac", relative of Moctezuma. Moctezuma got killed by his own people after the Spaniards commited a lot of attrocities and Moctezuma asked his people to stay calm.
After Moctezuma was killed, the Spaniards were trapped in the "Tlaloc temple" and one rainy day, they tried to escape. The city was buit in the lake, with only 3 land bridges access. The bridges were removed by the Aztecs. More than half way to one bridge, the spaniards were discovered and a bloody battle began. More than 30,000 of cortes men died, and only less than one hundred spaniards survived. The Aztecs thought Cortes was dead, but he survived, and cried below one tree when he saw the rest of his army (that is a famous tree, called "arbol de la noche triste" or "the sad night tree")
He got back to Tlaxcala where he started to plan the conquer of the city. They built 13 "bergatines" (boats) and cut all food acces to the city. He also started destroying one by one the military places around the city, and left Tenochtitlan without communication from Malinalco, their biggest military camp outside of Tenochtitlan. Cortes attacked the city during 4 months, after that the city emperor surrendered (Cuauhtemoc). Hundreds of thousand of indians, aztecs and tlaxcaltecas died, but the main reason of ther death wasn't the battle or starvation (the Aztecs were able to grow plants within the city, as they doid when they found it in 1325). The main death cause was small pox, brought in a Spaniard ship by a black African slave. Small pox won the war, as the spaniards were alredy immune to it, and it was new disease here so no defense was possible.....
Facts and lies:
"The superior European technlogy conquered the new world": big lie, because unless a machine gun was used there is no way that a 7,000 army could defeat over 200,000 of the best warriors in this part of the world. The weapons helped, but after the initial impact they caused the Aztecs got used to them.... and beat them, as witnessed in the tlatelolco battle that lead to 'the sad night"
the new world was conquered by the natives themselves, who aligned their forces to the strangers. Mexico wasn't a lonely island with 150 cannibals that could get defeated by the Europeans, the tribes had tens of thousands of warriors.....
Small pox won the war, as it is estimated it killed 80% of the Aztec warriors. A healthy empire could have defeated the spaniards, even with the help of the tlaxcaltecas.....
Pre-bronze natives meet post-iron spaniards: Well, against some beliefs, the Aztecs knew iron and how to work with it. They knew the wheel also, but the reason why they didn't use iron is because it was a scrap metal. Big lie, they knew iron, they just didn't use it for weapons.
Uff.. long post, read it if you want, and flame if you like to...