Christopher Columbus tortured slaves, say official historical documents

Category: slavery Dated: 24/07/2006
An historian in Seville, Spain has studied historical documents which reveal that Christopher Columbus was a tyrant who tortuted slaves.

Raymond Enisuoh

The Transform Columbus Day Alliance
Christopher Columbus was a tyrant who presided over a bloody reign of terror according to documents revealed 500 years after his death.

The mercenary and pirate who reportedly discovered America frequently tortured slaves and starved his subjects in colonies on the Caribbean island, Hispaniola.

Columbus also mistreated native people when he was viceroy of the capital of contemporary Dominican Republic.

After arriving in the Caribbean in 1492 Columbus eventually fell from grace 8 years later because of his sadistic conduct in Santo Domingo. In 1500 Columbus was brought back from the city as a prisoner at the behest of the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, to stand trial.

Consuelo Varela, a historian in Seville who has studied the documents believes they are the most important Columbus revelations for a century.

Varela said: “We hear of a poor boy who was caught stealing wheat grain. They cut off his ears and nose and put shackles on him and made him a slave. Columbus ran the colony with an iron fist.”

As the world marks the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ death in 1506 critics say some of the negative accounts of Columbus’s life may come from his enemies.

DNA tests on Columbus’s descendants are also underway in various countries to pinpoint once and for all his definite birthplace - which was heretofore said to have been Genoa in Italy.

The Transform Columbus Day Alliance [TCDA] however, is a longstanding international coalition of over 80 social justice organisations that are committed to challenging traditional ethnocentric views of Columbus as a pioneer and sole discoverer of the Americas.

The TCDA said: “Our opposition to Columbus and Columbus Day is not anti-Italian. We celebrate the beautiful , positive contributions of Italians around the globe. In the same vein we reject the position that Italian culture can or should be a celebration of colonisation and slavery.”

The Jamaican Reggae world has also long had their reservations about the legacy of Christopher Columbus. On his track Columbus reggae legend Burning Spear labelled Christopher Columbus “a damn blasted liar” On Peter Tosh’s song Here Comes the Judge, Tosh’s magistrate tries and convicts Columbus and others for a myriad of crimes against black people.

http://www.blackbritain.co.uk/news/details.aspx?i=2225&c=slavery&h=Christopher+Columbus+tortured+slaves%2c+say+official+historical+documents