Impact of Columbus Voyages on the Indigenous People Essay Example for Free

Impact of Columbus Voyages on the Indigenous People Essay The indigenous people were accustomed to sicknesses of their own but none like the ones brought by the Spanish. With the coming of these diseases many of the indigenous people died from small pox and chicken pox. Realizing this effect the diseases had on them many might have committed suicide and led up to other ways in which the indigenous people died out. After Columbus had left for the first time his men became lazy and put the indigenous people to work and as a result these people attacked but it was futile and many of them died. This was because the Spanish men were better armed with steal and metal weapons, powerful crossbows unlike the simple arrows and bows of the indigenous people. As taken from Caribbean History: Foundations Book 1 written by William Claypole and John Robottom it says ‘The Spaniards used horses for quick attacks and retreats, while the Tainos suffered dreadful casualties by rushing headlong at the enemy. In a very short time, tens of thousands were killed’. Afterwards the people were forced to pay taxes of gold and cotton or they were forced to give several weeks of free labour. The way in which the indigenous people were killed also known as genocide happened under the Spanish rule and decreased the population of these people. Indigenous people were polytheistic and their God’s were known as Zemis that they represented with wood, bone and stone carvings. Their Gods gave them good crops, sun, rain and corn. They believed deeply in these Gods and so when the Spanish tried to change their belief to that a foreign one with one God it was very difficult for them also because they were not interested in Christian learning. This made them see that there will no longer be the sun, rain and corn. Their religious practices were changed because of forced conversion to what the Spanish referred to ask Christianity. The Spanish saw the indigenous people as ‘heathens’ and wanting to please their country tried very hard to force their region on these people. Family was a big part of the indigenous society even in those where they were not a formed community like the Kalinagos who moved around and did not stay in one place. The breaking up of families made it difficult for the people to feel the togetherness of a community again. The adult males were taken away and moved around, the Kalinagos because of their war-type behavior rebelled and were killed by in the Spaniards in the wars they became part of. After so many years of fighting and trying so very hard to defend themselves, it eventually turned them into warriors which in the beginning they were not. Even if at first they were not accustomed to the fighting, suicide, killing and raids they now had to deal with these many things. Some of these indigenous people fled to the mountains and became maroon .As extracted from Karifuna/Kalinago of Dominica by Sidney Mejia ‘Indigenous people were thus being regularly displaced or exiled (to make way for plantations) to areas that were less fertile.’ They did things like destroying crops, refusing to work, poisoning the water supply and burning the food stores trying to succeed in getting back what they were before.