The Arrival of the Old World
Christopher Columbus Meeting the Taino Civilization
Let us go back to grade school, where most American schoolchildren were taught to recite the following poem for Columbus Day celebrations:
"In fourteen ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind, and rain.
He sailed by night; he sailed by day;
He used the stars to find his way.
A compass also helped him know
How to find the way to go.
Ninety sailors were on board;
Some men worked while others snored.
Then the workers went to sleep;
And others watched the ocean deep.
Day after day they looked for land;
They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand.
October 12 their dream came true,
You never saw a happier crew!
“Indians! Indians!” Columbus cried;
His heart was filled with joyful pride.
But “India” the land was not;
It was the Bahamas, and it was hot.
The Arakawa natives were very nice;
They gave the sailors food and spice.
Columbus sailed on to find some gold
To bring back home, as he’d been told.
He made the trip again and again,
Trading gold to bring to Spain.
The first American? No, not quite.
But Columbus was brave, and he was bright."
While it served as an entertaining way to bring poetry into the 20th century classroom, we have since learned of the many inaccuracies this poem promotes. In 1492, Italian navigator Christopher Columbus DID sail the ocean blue, where he sighted an island he named La Isla Española (later anglicized as Hispaniola).
His arrival ended the Arawak Taíno, Ciboney, and other indigenous peoples’ lifestyles as they knew it. With him soon came the Spanish, carriers of lethal European diseases whose gluttonous aspirations for gold led to their enslavement of vast numbers of people, both indigenous and West African (or of West African descent). Their arrival devastated the indigenous population, which fell to about 30,000 by 1514 and virtually vanished by the end of the 16th century.
While the Spanish mostly restricted their settlements to the eastern end of the island, French pirates entrenched themselves on the western end of Hispaniola and eventually founded Port-de-Paix (Port-au-Prince, which would become the Haitian capital). In 1697, the Treaty of Rijswik formally ceded the western third of Hispaniola (Haiti) from Spain to France, who further increased the slave population and began to see rapid returns on what would soon become France’s most prosperous New World colony.
