

Columbus And The Indies Essay

620 words - 3 pages

On February 18th, 1493 Cristobal Colon would write a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella that would change the course of humanity and expansion for the strongest world empires of the time, Britain and Spain. Cristobal Colon would write this letter 20 days into his discovery of what he believed to be India. Distinctively he refers to the people as objects based on the idea of possessing them without any objections. Thus, inferring that these people have no quantitative reasoning or system of hierarchy and will abide solely to the crown of Spain. The means of expression used by Colon create the assumption that the Indians are cowards, and primitive, to him they are oblique and homely and astoundingly still live in a world of no vanity nor have an appreciation of material worth. Consequently, in the Symcox book Colon states that the Indians have a closer relationship to the lord based on their lifestyle, selflessness, and kindness to strangers. Colon in this letter also ascertains a degree of innocence in the Indians while drawing a distinction amongst the Europeans advantageous actions in the exchanges for broken objects for pieces of valuable gold. Throughout the letter, Columbus describes his prohibition in the colonist to trade unfairly with the people that worshiped them as if they had been sky fallen.
Columbus ulterior motives are dominated by the socio cultural and religious teachings of the Catholic Church. Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile are God given kings, the idea was the centralization of power in their autocratic governance. The goal of expansion into the western world would be to propagate the dominion of the Catholic Church and the power of the Spanish empire to lands unknown to humanity at the time. The main paradox is presented in the beliefs system of the...

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