- THE SANTA FEAN MACAZINE' SeDtember 1992' 16
THE SANTA FEAN MAGAZTNE, September 7992
C rist6bal Col6n's
Virtually everYthing of importance in
the succeeding 500 Years could be
said to stem from Col6n's landfall.
Story, Charles Bennett
It is probably a safe bet that 99 percent of the
inhabitants of Europe and North and South Ameri-
ca are aware that this year is the five hundredth
anniversary of the landfall of Crist6bal Col6n
("Christopher Columbus" is a latter-day Latiniza-
tion that he himself never heard) on a small island
in what we today call the Bahamas. The event used
to be referred to as the "discovery of America," but
in this current climate of political correctness, this
term is no longer deemed appropriate, nor was it
Col6n's historically accurate, of course. Instead of "discov-
ery," the event of the landfall and the resulting cul-
first tural collision in the Caribbean is now referred to
as the "encounter."
There may be indigenous native groups living
voyage in remote areas of South America, perhaps' that are
unaware of the Quincentenary. If so, it is ironic,
should be given that the native peoples of the Americas were
I impacted more than anyone else by Col6n's landfall.
propeny Nevertheless, googoles of words have been
and continue to be written about the Quincente-
considered nary and its many issues. A big budget film on the
Italian-born Spanish subject Col6n starring
a recon- Frenchman Gerard Depardieu will open at theatres
in October. The Quincentenary is being commem-
naissance. orated in the Americas and in Europe with a pletho-
ra of special exhibitions, expositions, conferences
and symposia, parades and pageants, regattas, festi-
vals, monuments and countless other programs and
projects.
When Col6n and his shipmates waded ashore
from his flagship the Nifia's longboat to "discover"
America, first off, of course, it was not
America-not yet anyway, and these Spaniards did
not discover it. They weren't even the first Euro-
peans to reach its shores. Leif Eriksson had landed
much farther north in A.D. 1000. But perhaps
these two points are relatively unimportant $iven
the big picture. What counts is that in this act two
Eri'C'bii hter
vastly different continents, both of which had
evolved independently on different land masses sep-
arated by an ocean, were suddenly joined, and a
transfer or exchange of plant species, animals and
technolo$y would soon be initiated that would dra-
matically alter life all over the world. Virtually
everything of importance in the succeeding 500
years could be said to stem from Col6n's landfall'
Soon there would be talk of the "New World"
in European circles, and the lar$est and longlest
migration in history would'begin. The key words
for this process Col6n initiated when he stepped
onto the beach of San Salvador Island were con-
quest, destiny, honor, salvation and civilization'
And the ensuing years would reveal that this pro-
cess was a stranSle mixture of admiration and
respect, avarice and the desire to subjugate a people
who seemed so wealthy and yet so weak. Sailin$
home in 1493 Col6n wrote a widely read letter
about his voyage in which he touched on this issue:
May gour highnesses belieue that in the
whole world there cannot be better or more gentle
people...These people are uery unskilled in arms.
With 50 men they could all be subjugated and
made to do all that one wished. (rouRNAL oF THE FlRsr
voYAcE,1492.1493).
Spanish conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo
(1492-1581), author of The True History of the
Conquest of Mexico (1632), further stated the issue
succinctly when he wrote that the Europeans had
come "to give light to those in darkness and also to
get rich."
Col6n's first voyage should be properly con-
sidered a reconnaissance. Actually, the encounter
that would remake two worlds began with Col6n's
second voyage to the Americas. He returned in
1493 with 17 ships under his command. These

Col6n never realized that his
attempts to reach the Spice Islands
sef in motion processes that would
dramatically alter life on our planet.
ships carried horses and Castilian cattle, fruit trees,
wheat and barley, sugarcane, hogs and other items.
Col6n's second voyage actually initiated the inter-
continental exchange that continues to this day.
New World products taken back to Europe included
corn, potatoes, dyes, pineapples, chile peppers,
tobacco, turkeys, tomatoes, peanuts, sunflowers
and other things. Indeed, the exchange was fairly
comparable in value: girains, vegetables, livestock
and technology.
This so-called Columbian exchange, involving
the transfer of numerous species between Old and
New Worlds, changed the health and diet of people
throughout the world, at the same time irrevocably
alteringi the environment of the Americas. Col6n
never realized that his attempts to reach the Spice
Islands set in motion processes that would dramati-
cally alter life on our planet.
The encounter had its downside also. Lately
it seems as though there is more attention paid to
the adverse aspects of the encounter than to the
positive attributes. The impact of the new Euro-
pean importations was immediate. The natural
vegetation of the Caribbean islands gave way to sin-
gle-crop plantations. Subsequently labor demands
to plant and harvest the new crops, as well as newly
introduced European diseases, quickly decimated
the Indian populations. After a little more than a
decade of contact, more than 3 million native
inhabitants would perish. One source estimates
that between 1493 and 1900, 90 percent of the
native population died.
Probably the most detrimental import from
Europe was sugarcane. Raising sugarcane became
one of the quickest routes to fortune. Sugarcane
plantations like those on the Island of Montserrat,
in the eastern Caribbean, were tremendously prof-
itable to their owners as shiploads of su5iar were
sent abroad to satisfy Europe's growing sweet tooth.
THE SANTA FEAN MACMINE, Septmber 1992, U
More than 100 sugarcane plantations operated on
the Island of Montserrat. To cultivate the sugar-
cane on Montserrat and other places in the
Caribbean, thousands of indentured servants and
later African slaves were brought in. Outside labor
had to be brought in, of course, because the indige-
nous Indian inhabitants of the Caribbean had died
so quickly after European contact. The sugarcane
plantation slaves were driven so hard because of the
strinEient harvest requirements of the crop that
tens of thousands died of disease, overwork and It is
malnutrition. It is said that each ton of sugar cost
the life of one slave. The exact number of slaves said that
brought to the New World is unknown, but esti-
mates rangie from 10 to 30 million. each ton
But leavin! alone the many controversies sur-
rounding the Quincentenary, New Mexicans can
take special pride in the fact that this is one place
of sugar
where the indigenous Native American people still
maintain their culture, their religion and their lan-
cost the
guages, and still own their ancestral lands although
undeniably each of these was severely impacted life of.
with the arrival of the Europeans. In fact, it could
be said that this co-existence of cultures
- the
one slave.
indigenous Native American people and the Euro-
place longer in New Mexi-
- has been taking
peans
co than anywhere else irr the United States. The
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of
American History recognized this unique fact in
focusing its Quincentenary exhibition American
Encounters on New Mexico, the scene of an
encounter between American Indian and European
cultures for the past 450 or so years.
No one can deny that Col6n's 1492 voyaSe set
in motion a series of political and cultural changes
that shaped the modern Americas. In a way the
impact of Col6n's dawn October 12 landfall in the
Bahamas continues to be felt in New Mexico to this
day, 1