Columbus' Breach of Promise

[Miguel Sague Jr]

When Columbus sailed West from the port of Palos in Spain, headed toward his historic encounter with the America continent, he carried a contract arrived at between himself and the royal couple of Spain that outlined their agreement as to what would be the result of his discoveries.

This contract did not specifically include in writing any directive concerning the proselytizing to or conversion of Indigenous people to the Christian faith. Nevertheless, there is evidence that this issue was important to the king and queen of Spain and that Columbus made assurances to them that he would do everything he could to convert the Native people that he discovered. These assurances appear in documentation recorded in his own handwriting and sent to the Spanish royals after he was made governor of the colony in what is now Dominican Republic.

The Indigenous people of the Caribbean experienced intense proselytizing and conversion activity carried out by the Spanish colonists in the early era of the conquest. Most of this religious indoctrination work was carried out by clerics, monks and priests specifically brought to the colonies to convert the Natives, oftentimes by force. Columbus was expected to lead and energetically encourage this work. He agreed to do it and he promised the Spanish royalty that he would. A special Papal decree in 1493 ordered the colonists to convert as many Indigenous people as they could.

This all worked well for the evangelizers until some of them realized that becoming a Christian gave the newly converted Tainos certain rights that proved inconvenient to those who intended to exploit them. Slave labor was limited to Native people who had not been baptized. Once these people were baptized, they acquired certain rights that gave them the opportunity to escape the harshest aspects of colonization. This was very inconvenient to people like Christopher Columbus, who sought to extract every little bit of labor and servitude from the Indigenous people he had discovered on the Caribbean islands. Columbus began to create obstacles that made it difficult for the priests and monks to convert the Natives. Although it was a terrible experience to lose one's culture and spiritual tradition by accepting Christianity, the tough reality was that life became less lethal and easier to bear if they were converted.