Columbus Disillusionment

On the voyages of Columbus, there was great tension amongst Columbus and his crew, as they ventured into the New World. Some of the causes of these conflicts were the stresses of exploration, disillusion about the New World, and competition and competing ideals amongst Columbus and crewmembers. This history reveals some of the challenges to come that European empires would face as they began to create overseas empires because those would also be full of conflict and tension regarding reactions to preconceptions about the Americas and continued competition between Europeans, and their competing ideals.

One of the causes of tension on board Columbus’ first voyage were merely the stresses of exploration, particularly the consequences of the miscalculations

One of the main sources of disillusionment that would reveal most about the challenges to come is the relationship between the native peoples and the Europeans. Columbus’ crew did not realize the complexity of the relationships that they would face with the Indians, especially since Columbus embellished his interactions with the native peoples from his first voyage. He describes them as bringing gifts, giving thanks to god, and even praising them as if they had “come from heavens”. He gives several other accounts of the natives bringing gift to the Europeans, and overall being of a mild disposition. It is easy to see where Columbus’ later crews would have formed their preconceptions about the Indians, and why they may have been shocked when they traveled to the Caribbean themselves. This tension helps predict the future difficulty involving the relationships between Europeans and Indians, because their relationship would never be an easy one after that. By expanding their empires into the Americas in their relentless quest for gold and other profits, the Europeans faced the issue of what to do with the Indians. A great number were killed by foreign disease, more would be killed by violence as the empires expanded into Mexico and further, and the others would be forced to labor under the encomienda system. Although this system worked out rather well for the Europeans, since their empires increased on an enormous scale and they did find great profit, a large number of Indians would still suffer, and some Europeans like de las Casas would not be afraid to speak out about it. The preconceptions they had about the native people would lead to difficulty for later Europeans because the relationship they developed with them would reflect a greater unequal power structure.