Christopher Columbus first encountered indigenous people in Bahamá (the Spaniards later changed the name to The Bahamas). This happened during his first trip in 1492. He writes that the people there called themselves Lucayans, not Tainos. After his second voyage in 1493, he started referring to all the natives in the Caribbean islands as Tainos, including the ones in Bahamá. This is just another inconsistency in Columbus’s account. He also wrote that these natives had no weapons (a complete lie!) were very peaceful, did not know war and could be easily overpowered and made into slaves. However, after the Santa Maria, one of the three vessels that traveled with Columbus, hit a reef, it had to be scuttled, and 39 men were left behind on the island of Ayiti-Kiskeya (known today as Santo Domingo). Columbus made that decision because he could not accommodate them on the two remaining vessels for the return trip to Spain. When Columbus returned the following year, he discovered that all 39 men had been killed and the small fort they had constructed was burned to the ground. So, are we to believe that the native people on this island all of a sudden became belligerent and miraculously produced weapons out of thin air? Are we also to believe that the natives of all the Caribbean islands called themselves Taino including the ones Columbus originally said had called themselves Lucayans? Christopher Columbus’s accounts are full of inconsistencies, things he made up and others he deliberately lied about in order to convince Queen Isabel la Católica of Spain to continue financing his endeavor. The fact is that the indigenous people of the Caribbean had no words for ethnicity, nationality or race…these were European concepts. They referred to themselves according to the Yukayeke (village) they were from. The idea that Columbus found these people running around like little robots yelling Taino, Taino! is absolute nonsense. The Queen subsequently had him brought back to Spain in chains for lying! So, are we to believe everything this man wrote? Furthermore to make the unilateral decision to group all these native people together and call them something he kind of and sort of came up with on the spur of the moment is not only absurd, but also an insult to the intelligence of their descendants!
