e" of seeing and treating the Native Americans as savages at worst and silly children at best, in need of Christianizing and civilizing, as if their own religion and civilization were so backward as to be useless:
From the roving and adventurous nature of these people, . . . he had thought that, when the precepts of religion and the lights of civilization had reformed their savage manners, and cannibal propensities, they might be rendered eminently serviceable as interpreters, and as means of propagating the doctrines of Christianity (Irving 211).
Still, as favorable as Irving is toward Columbus, he is also, at least at one point, fair enough to note that the crimes committed by the Spaniards against the natives were not always done for the most noble purposes, as was claimed:
The conversion of infidels, by fair means or foul, by persuasion or force, was one of the popular tenets of the day; and in recommending the enslaving of the Caribs, Columbus thought he was obeying the dictates of his conscience, when he was in reality listening to the incitements of his interest (Irving 211).
Even here, however, one notes that Irving gives Columbus the benefit of the doubt, accep
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