It was interesting to read through Columbus’ journal entries and see his point of view on his expeditions. One interesting point of focus is his opinion of the natives.  Columbus essentially enslaved and abducted natives for his cause – it’s rather disturbing how he writes in his entries as if he’s doing the right thing and that he was merely acting on “God’s will” (there’s clearly nothing wrong with enslaving and abducting people, quite a holy mission indeed). None of this should come as surprise but it was a bit startling how much deception and romanticizing he does of almost everything that occurred, and from this we can only guess that Columbus most likely left some details out; since there’s no documentation of the natives’ perspective of the events, it’s impossible to figure out exactly how things unfolded.

Some questions:

(1) If the natives acted violently at Columbus’ arrival, would things have turned out differently?

(2) Did any of Columbus’ own crew turn against, or at the least merely disagree, with what he was doing?

(3) Clearly Columbus was not a very good person but why his he idolized (ie. in North America) and why is the darker side of his expedition not really discussed?