It was very interesting to read about Columbus’ thoughts as he travels through the area and encounters native people. It was surprising to me that his first view of them was not necessarily negative. He comments that he believes they are intelligent and that he believes they could easily be converted to Christianity. He mentioned many times that they were very good looking. It was also interesting that he was able to communicate fairly well with the native people even though he would have known nothing of their language. Almost every comment he makes is about how the resources could be useful to Spain or how he could get the local people to give them to him.

Some questions I have are:

How is he able to communicate in so much detail with the native people without knowing the language?

Do we know what the native people actually thought of the Spanish when they arrived? Columbus believed they thought they were Gods, but he also says he believes they had no religion.