part of his legacy. After all,
they worked. The island was so well pacified that Spanish convicts, given a second chance
on Haiti, could “go anywhere, take any woman or girl, take anything, and have the Indians
carry him on their backs as if they were mules.”71 In 1499, when Columbus finally found gold on Haiti in significant amounts, Spain became
the envy of Europe. After 1500 Portugal, France, Holland, and Britain joined in
conquering the Americas. These nations were at least as brutal as Spain. The British, for
example, unlike the Spanish, did not colonize by making use of Indian labor but simply
forced the Indians out of the way. Many Indians fled British colonies to Spanish
territories (Florida, Mexico) in search of more humane treatment.
Columbus's voyages caused almost as much change in Europe as in the Americas. This is the
other half of the vast process historians now call the Columbian exchange. Crops, animals, ideas, and diseases began to cross the oceans regularly. Perhaps the
most far-reaching impact of Columbus's findings was on European Christianity. In 1492 all
of Europe was in the grip of the Catholic Church. As L-trousu puts it, before America, “Europe was virtually incapable of self-criticism.”“ After
America, Europe's religious uniformity was ruptured. For how were these new peoples to
be explained? They were not mentioned in the Bible. The Indians simply did not fit within
orthodox Christianity's explanation of the moral universe. Moreover, unlike the Muslims,
who might be written off as ”damned infidels," Indians had not rejected Christianity, they
had just never encountered it. Were they doomed to hell? Even the animals of America posed
a religious challenge. According to the Bible, at the dawn of creation all animals lived
in the Garden of Eden. Later, two of each species entered Noah's ark and ended up on Mt.
Ararat. Since Eden and Mt. Ararat were both in the Middle East, where could these new
American species have come from? Such questions shook orthodox Catholicism and contributed
to the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517.
Politically, nations like the Arawakswithout monarchs, without much hierarchystunned
Europeans. In 1516 Thomas More's Utopia, based on an account of the Incan empire in Peru, challenged European social organization by suggesting
a radically different and superior alternative. Other social philosophers seized upon
the Indians as living examples of Europe's primordial past, which is what John Locke meant
hy the phrase “In the beginning, all the world was America.” Depending upon their
political persuasion, some Europeans glorified Indian nations as examples of simpler,
better societies, from which European civilization had devolved, while others maligned
the Indian societies as primitive and underdeveloped. In either case, from Montaigne,
Montesquieu, and Rousseau down to Marx and Engels, European philosophers' concepts of the
good society were transformed by ideas from America.
America fascinated the masses as well as the elite. In The Tempest, Shakespeare noted this universal curiosity: “They wi!l not give a doit to relieve a
lambe beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.”76 Europe's fascination with the Americas was directly responsible, in fact, for a rise in
European self-consciousness. From the beginning America was perceived as an “opposite” to
Europe in ways that even Africa never had been. In a sense, there was no “Europe” before
1492. People were simply Tuscan, French, and the like. Now Europeans began to see
similarities among themselves, at least as contrasted with Native Americans. For that
matter, there were no “white” people in Europe before 1492. With the transatlantic slave
trade, first Indian, then African, Europeans increasingly saw “white” as a race and race
as an important human
they worked. The island was so well pacified that Spanish convicts, given a second chance
on Haiti, could “go anywhere, take any woman or girl, take anything, and have the Indians
carry him on their backs as if they were mules.”71 In 1499, when Columbus finally found gold on Haiti in significant amounts, Spain became
the envy of Europe. After 1500 Portugal, France, Holland, and Britain joined in
conquering the Americas. These nations were at least as brutal as Spain. The British, for
example, unlike the Spanish, did not colonize by making use of Indian labor but simply
forced the Indians out of the way. Many Indians fled British colonies to Spanish
territories (Florida, Mexico) in search of more humane treatment.
Columbus's voyages caused almost as much change in Europe as in the Americas. This is the
other half of the vast process historians now call the Columbian exchange. Crops, animals, ideas, and diseases began to cross the oceans regularly. Perhaps the
most far-reaching impact of Columbus's findings was on European Christianity. In 1492 all
of Europe was in the grip of the Catholic Church. As L-trousu puts it, before America, “Europe was virtually incapable of self-criticism.”“ After
America, Europe's religious uniformity was ruptured. For how were these new peoples to
be explained? They were not mentioned in the Bible. The Indians simply did not fit within
orthodox Christianity's explanation of the moral universe. Moreover, unlike the Muslims,
who might be written off as ”damned infidels," Indians had not rejected Christianity, they
had just never encountered it. Were they doomed to hell? Even the animals of America posed
a religious challenge. According to the Bible, at the dawn of creation all animals lived
in the Garden of Eden. Later, two of each species entered Noah's ark and ended up on Mt.
Ararat. Since Eden and Mt. Ararat were both in the Middle East, where could these new
American species have come from? Such questions shook orthodox Catholicism and contributed
to the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517.
Politically, nations like the Arawakswithout monarchs, without much hierarchystunned
Europeans. In 1516 Thomas More's Utopia, based on an account of the Incan empire in Peru, challenged European social organization by suggesting
a radically different and superior alternative. Other social philosophers seized upon
the Indians as living examples of Europe's primordial past, which is what John Locke meant
hy the phrase “In the beginning, all the world was America.” Depending upon their
political persuasion, some Europeans glorified Indian nations as examples of simpler,
better societies, from which European civilization had devolved, while others maligned
the Indian societies as primitive and underdeveloped. In either case, from Montaigne,
Montesquieu, and Rousseau down to Marx and Engels, European philosophers' concepts of the
good society were transformed by ideas from America.
America fascinated the masses as well as the elite. In The Tempest, Shakespeare noted this universal curiosity: “They wi!l not give a doit to relieve a
lambe beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.”76 Europe's fascination with the Americas was directly responsible, in fact, for a rise in
European self-consciousness. From the beginning America was perceived as an “opposite” to
Europe in ways that even Africa never had been. In a sense, there was no “Europe” before
1492. People were simply Tuscan, French, and the like. Now Europeans began to see
similarities among themselves, at least as contrasted with Native Americans. For that
matter, there were no “white” people in Europe before 1492. With the transatlantic slave
trade, first Indian, then African, Europeans increasingly saw “white” as a race and race
as an important human
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