Who's to Blame

In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, which led to abusing and killing thousands of natives. Of course he couldn't do this on his own, he needed his men, the King and Queen of Spain, the System of Empire, and of course he needed the Tainos, to kill. Different historians blame different parties involved, but I say, why not share the blame? I think that the system of empire is 5% responsible, the King and Queen are 10%, and Columbus' men are 15%, leaving the majority of the blame, 70% on Columbus. This leaves the Tainos not responsible at all.

The King of Queen of Spain, born into royalty, wanted to expand their territory and conquer new lands. They knew this wouldn't come easy and most likely would involve mistreatment and killing. With the expedition the king and queen expected gold and jewels, and they knew that they could expect this when Columbus sent them a report in February of 1493 saying that he found "many spices and great mines of gold and other metals." They also were aware that Columbus was mistreating native Tainos when he brought some back after his first expedition in May of 1493, so the King and Queen can be partially responsible because they put their money and trust into a man who was a liar and they also continued to support Columbus' expeditions even when they knew that his intentions and actions weren't respectable, but in August of 1500 they did send a commissioner to take charge of Espanola.

Next, Columbus' men can be blamed a little bit more than the King and Queen because even though Columbus was their leader, they did not necessarily have to listen to Columbus, and on some occasions they took part in the mistreatment of the Tainos, such as in 1493 when the men left behind at La Navidad brutally mistreated the Tainos by stealing from them and raping the women. But in their defense in 1494 there were records of Columbus beating his men, so obviously they were intimidated that he would start killing them just as he killed the Tainos, but on the other hand Columbus' men were made up of large numbers and could have easily overthrown him, so that is why I blame them a little bit more than the King and Queen.

Now the System of Empire, who I blame only about 5% because the only fault I see that they committed was valuing property over people. All that they were looking to do was expand the Spanish empire, but they weren't in charge of Columbus or the expedition.

For what is left now, 70% of the blame, I put on Columbus. Right from the start of the expedition he was misleading and heartless because when his shipman Juan Rodriguez Bermejo spotted land which would entitle him to the lifetime pension, Christopher claims that he was the one who saw the land first just so he can get the pension. Also, since he couldn't find any large amounts of gold or spices Columbus started capturing slaves and shipping them back to Spain simply because