Columbus Enslaves Taino

1495

On Hispaniola, Columbus began organizing systematic captures of the indigenous Taino population to be sent to Spanish slave markets. The Taino population would collapse over the next three decades from disease, labor, and slaughter. A million people or more, by some estimates, simply disappeared from the Caribbean historical record. His forced labor systems established the brutal template replicated across the Spanish Americas, making his governorship one of history's most consequential.