Slavery: The Log Of Christopher Columbus

Since early history, slavery has existed. We start to begin to see slavery-like actions when Columbus founded the new world. He thought that the natives would be easy to take over due to their lack of religion. But the Columbian exchange was the event that introduced African American slavery when African slave owners would trade slaves for other goods. Those slaves were brought into the new world or what is today, America. Years after the thirteen colonies gained their independence from the British, problems started happening within America. This started the conception that people of the African American decent, black people, or slaves, were to be viewed as property not at other human beings. Shortly after sparked all of the controversies that were set because of slavery. When …show more content…
The natives would practically give Columbus the gold. In the American History reader, one of the excerpts from The Log of Christopher Columbus, Columbus says, “When they saw the difficulty we were having, these Indians from the other place departed, begging me to keep a hawks bell for them until tomorrow. They said that they would bring four pieces of gold as large as the hand” (Columbus 23). The natives were trading large amounts of gold that they had just to get jingle bells that Columbus and his men had which shows their generosity and docility. Columbus also describes them as “cowardly beyond help” (Columbus 25) because they were very helpless. Columbus says “the King did not know what arms are, since his people neither posses nor use them…this all came about because we had had a conversation about the people of Caniba, whom they call Caribes, who came to seize them and who carry bows and arrows with out iron tips” (Columbus 24). The natives did not know how to use weapons to protect themselves making them easily compromise-able which is why he says they