Spanish Conquest

The promise of gold and a sea route to India. Those were the two J main reasons why Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella backed Christopher Columbus's voyages.

- Elizabeth Howard

Columbus made four journeys across the Atlantic Ocean between 1492 and 1502. But instead of finding a trade route to India, he landed in the Americas. Thinking it was India, he called the land "the Indies" and the people there "Indians." Sailing from island to island in the Caribbean Sea, he claimed them for the Spanish king and queen.

More than 1,000 years earlier, the Indigenous Taino people had migrated from the northern coast of South America and settled on a number of those Caribbean islands. They lived in small villages, groupe by clans and ruled by a cacique, or male chief. Their society was matrilineal and agricultural. Women made decisions related to families and local Taino village groups. Women also grew crops of pineapples, cassavas, and sweet potatoes, while men hunted and gathered seafood.

Columbus noted in his journal that the Taino "... are the best people in the world, and above all, the gentlest." Assuming they had no religion of their own, Columbus declared that "they would easily be made into Christians." Roman Catholicism was the official religion in Spain, and Spain's rulers hoped to spread their religion to their colonies. Columbus also made a darker observation. With little effort, he thought, "All the inhabitants could be taken away to Spain, or made slaves on the island."

Everywhere Columbus explored, he asked where he might find gold. The Taino people freely gave the bits of gold that they wore to the Spaniards. But it wasn't until Columbus landed on present-day Hispaniola that the Spanish found quantities of the precious metal. That discovery led to the destruction of the Taino people and their way of life throughout the West Indies.