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The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus

In Washington Irving's The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, some of the crimes committed by Columbus and his fellow Europeans against the native population are portrayed. This study will focus on those crimes against Native Americans, as portrayed by Irving and other authors, and on the impact of the crimes on the size of the native population.

The provided selections from Irving's book do not give a complete picture of the crimes committed by Columbus and other Spaniards in the New World. Irving is largely sympathetic to Columbus and has clearly chosen not to cover at length or in detail the crimes committed by the Spaniards, as depicted more objectively in other works. Instead, Irving glosses over the crimes or minimizes and excuses them as necessary. In the section on Columbus' appearance in court in Spain to answer charges against him, Irving once again casts Columbus in the best possible light, emphasizing above all others' Columbus' words in defense of himself.

For the most part, Irving presents Columbus' voyage and exploits in the New World as if he were Jacques Cousteau on a pleasant and amiable journey to exotic locales, as if Columbus were a sociologist of sorts rather than a leader in a conquering army:

Continuing his course, he arrived one evening in sight of a great island covered with beautiful forests, and indented with fine havens. It was called by the natives Boriquen, but he gave it the name of San Juan Bautista; it is the same since known by the name of Porto Rico (Irving 191).

One reads much more of this travelogue sort of reporting than of accounts of the crimes of the Spaniards against the natives. In fact, the major conflicts reported in the selected sections of the book have far more to do with squabbles and outright fighting among the Spaniards themselves than with significant conflicts between the Spaniards and the Native Americans.

Several references demonstrate the Spanish "crim...

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The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:12, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690062.html