Columbus Day
October 14th is Columbus day. It's almost a month away, so this may be a little early, but I read this on my lunch break and thought I'd share.

They are the best of people in the world and above all the gentlest- without knowledge of what is evil- nor do they murder or steal...they love their neighbors as themselves and they have the sweetest talk in the world...always laughing.
-Christopher Columbus describing the Arawak Indians in his journal

It seems CC thought very highly of the "Indians." Indeed, his descriptions of them describe a paradise. It sounds like the type of society that we are constantly told could never exist because people are naturally wicked and greedy.

They are very simple and honest and exceedingly liberal with all they have, none of them refusing anything he may possess when he is asking for it. They exhibit great love towards all others in preference to themselves.
-Christopher Columbus in a letter to one of his Spanish patrons

They sound like they were a great people and that they already understood the christian ideal. I don't see why they needed converting.

They would make great servants. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
-Christopher Columbus describing the Arawak in his journal

Oh yeah...it wasn't about God. It was about Gold. The Arawak were forced by Columbus to bring him gold. They were sent out to bring it back and if they did not bring back a certain amount by the end of the day, his men would cut of their arms as a warning to the rest of them. Those who tried to run were hunted down with dogs to be killed. If they managed to escape they died of starvation or illness.

...of all the infinite universe of humanity, these people are the most guileless, the most devoid of wickedness and duuplicity...yet into this sheepfold there came the Spaniards who immediately behaved like ravening beasts...Their reason for killing and destroying is that the Christians have an ultimate aim which is to aquire gold.
-Batrolome de las Casas, a Dominican priest who came to the new world a few years after Columbus. This quote is from his book The Devestation of the Indies

Greed is the cause of most of the atrocities man commits and yet in America we applaud the greedy and make them to be heroes. Happy Columbus Day.