Haiti's first contact with Europeans
I found it very interesting and distressing to read about the first contact between Europeans and the natives (Arawaks) of the island on which Haiti is located. I was reading part of my daughter's AP US History assignment, from a book which tells about the U.S. history that MY generation was never allowed to study.
The island was referred to as Hispaniola when Columbus first arrived there. Out of the timbers of the Santa Maria, which had run aground, he built a fort, the first European military presence in the "new" world. His report to the Court in Madrid included:
"Hispaniola is a miracle. Mountains and hills, plains and pastures, are both fertile and beautiful... the harbours are unbelievably good and there are many wide rivers of which the majority contains gold .... There are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals..."Columbus report of the natives:
"[the natives] are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone..."He promised the Court in Madrid that he would bring them back "as much gold as they need... and as many slaves as they ask." He promised this in the name of "God": "Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities."
His 2nd expedition returned with 17 ships with the clear goal to bring back slaves and gold. His expedition in Haiti found almost no gold. In 1495, he collected 1500 Arawaks and put them in pens. They picked the 500 "best" slaves and put them on ships for Spain. 200 died enroute. The rest were sold as slaves. Columbus later wrote "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."
In time however, most of the slaves died in captivity. So instead, Columbus enslaved them on the Island of Haiti and forced them to collect gold for him. He found, however, that the "fields of gold" did not exist. Each slave was given 3 months to collect a certain quantity of gold. If they failed, as most did, since the gold was not as plentiful as they imagined, their hands were cut off and they were allowed to bleed to death.
There are more horrific facts, too many for me to type here. My point is this... after reading these horrible things that OUR ancestors committed, I thought about how the Grace of God is allowing us to pay back just a small amount of the incredible injustice and evil our ancenstors did to the ancestors of our Haitian brothers and sisters. Thank God for his Grace, and for the privilege to do his work and help undo the evil of the past and of this world.
that's my 2 cents, altho probably closer to a dollar :-)
(source: "A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present" By Howard Zinn)
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