Editing Christopher Columbus (section)

=== Criticism and defense ===
Columbus has been criticized both for his brutality and for initiating the depopulation of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, whether by imported diseases or intentional violence. According to scholars of Native American history, [[George Tinker]] and Mark Freedman, Columbus was responsible for creating a cycle of "murder, violence, and slavery" to maximize exploitation of the Caribbean islands' resources, and that Native deaths on the scale at which they occurred would not have been caused by new diseases alone. Further, they describe the proposition that disease and not genocide caused these deaths as "American [[holocaust denial]]".<ref name="TinkerFreeland2008">{{cite journal |last1=Tinker |first1=George E. |last2=Freeland |first2=Mark |title=Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline |journal=Wíčazo Ša Review |date=2008 |volume=23 |issue=1 |doi=10.1353/wic.2008.0002 |url=https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/e/58600/files/2018/02/Tinker-Tink-Source-12j35s4.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/e/58600/files/2018/02/Tinker-Tink-Source-12j35s4.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live |quote=Colón was directly responsible for instituting this cycle of violence, murder, and slavery... This cycle of violence, intentionally created to maximize the extraction of wealth from the islands, in combination with the epidemic diseases that were running rampant through the Taino population, together promoted the genocide of the Taino people... Disease, only in combination with this cycle of brutal colonial violence, could produce the death toll that we see on the island of Española. Therefore, at best, the theory that disease did the business of killing and not the invaders can only be seen as a gratuitous colonizer apologetic designed to absolve the guilt of the continued occupation and exploitation of the indigenous people of this continent. However, the truth of the matter is much worse and should be called by its appropriate name: American holocaust denial. |page=37 |s2cid=159481939}}</ref> Historian [[Kris Lane]] disputes whether it is appropriate to use the term "genocide" when the atrocities were not Columbus's intent, but resulted from his decrees, family business goals, and negligence.<ref name=":0">{{cite news |last=Lane |first=Kris |date=8 October 2015 |title=Five myths about Christopher Columbus |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-christopher-columbus/2015/10/08/3e80f358-6d23-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html |access-date=4 August 2018 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref> Other scholars defend Columbus's actions or allege that the worst accusations against him are not based in fact while others claim that "he has been blamed for events far beyond his own reach or knowledge".<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Flint |first=Valerie I.J. |author-link=Valerie Flint |date=26 July 1999 |title=Legacy of Christopher Columbus |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-Columbus/Legacy |access-date=9 January 2022 |website=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]]}}</ref>

As a result of the [[George Floyd protests|protests and riots]] that followed the [[murder of George Floyd]] in 2020, many public [[List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests#Christopher Columbus|monuments of Christopher Columbus]] have been removed.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brito |first=Christopher |date=25 September 2020 |title=Dozens of Christopher Columbus statues have been removed since June |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christopher-columbus-statue-removed-cities/ |access-date=26 September 2020 |website=CBS News-US}}</ref>

==== Brutality ====
[[File:Pedestal base of Christopher Columbus statue 2.jpeg|thumb|The remains of the pedestal base of [[Statue of Christopher Columbus (Baltimore)|the Columbus statue]] in the Baltimore inner harbor area. The statue was thrown into the harbor on 4 July 2020, as part of the [[George Floyd protests]].]]

Some historians have criticized Columbus for initiating the widespread colonization of the Americas and for abusing its native population.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bigelow |first1=Bill |date=1992 |title=Once upon a Genocide: Christopher Columbus in Children's Literature |journal=[[Social Justice (journal)|Social Justice]] |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=106–121 |jstor=29766680}}.</ref><ref name="Zinn" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/Taino/docs/columbus.html |first=Jack |last=Weatherford |title=Examining the reputation of Christopher Columbus |website=Hartford-hwp.com |date=20 April 2001 |access-date=29 July 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/100.html |title=Pre-Columbian Hispaniola – Arawak/Taino Indians |website=Hartford-hwp.com |date=15 September 2001 |access-date=29 July 2009}}</ref> On [[St. Croix]], Columbus's friend Michele da Cuneo—according to his own account—kept an indigenous woman he captured, whom Columbus "gave to [him]", then brutally raped her.{{Sfn|Morison|1991|p=417}}{{efn|Cuneo wrote,
<blockquote>While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cohen |first=J.M. |title=The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus |year=1969 |publisher=Penguin |location=NY |isbn=978-0-14-044217-5 |page=139}}</ref></blockquote>}}{{efn|Author [[Tony Horwitz]] notes that this is the first recorded instance of sexuality between a European and Native American.{{sfn|Horwitz|2008|p=69}}}}

According to some historians, the punishment for an indigenous person, aged 14 and older, failing to pay a hawk's bell, or ''cascabela'',<ref name="DeaganCruxent2002">{{cite book |last1=Deagan |first1=Kathleen A. |last2=Cruxent |first2=José María |title=Archaeology at La Isabela: America's First European Town |year=2002 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-09041-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=twI0PjfqdGYC&pg=PA201 |page=201}}</ref> worth of gold dust every six months (based on [[Bartolomé de las Casas]]'s account) was cutting off the hands of those without tokens, often leaving them to bleed to death.<ref name="TinkerFreeland2008" /><ref name="Zinn" /><ref name="Koning">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Oxa-SjBh_cYC |title=Columbus |last=Koning |first=Hans |date=1976 |publisher=Monthly Review Press |isbn=978-0-85345-600-1 |page=86 |ref=Koning |access-date=1 May 2015}}</ref> Other historians dispute such accounts. For example, a study of [[National Archives of Spain|Spanish archival sources]] showed that the ''cascabela'' quotas were imposed by [[Guarionex]], not Columbus, and that there is no mention, in the primary sources, of punishment by cutting off hands for failing to pay.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lynch |first=Lawrence Dixson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B93gAAAAMAAJ |title=Discovery in the Archives of Spain and Portugal: Quincentenary Essays, 1492–1992 |date=1993 |publisher=Haworth Press |isbn=978-1-56024-643-5 |editor-last=McCrank |editor-first=Lawrence J. |page=265 |chapter=Columbus in Myth and History |series=Primary Sources & Original Works |volume=2 |issue=1–2 |doi=10.1300/J269v02n01_09 |chapter-url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J269v02n01_09}}</ref> Columbus had an economic interest in the enslavement of the Hispaniola natives and for that reason was not eager to baptize them, which attracted criticism from some churchmen.<ref name="varela">{{cite book |last1=Varela |first1=Consuelo |title=La caída de Cristóbal Colón: el juicio de Bobadilla |last2=Aguirre |first2=Isabel |date=2006 |publisher=Marcial Pons Historia |isbn=978-84-96467-28-6 |pages=111–118 |language=es |trans-title=The fall of Christopher Columbus: the Bobadilla trial |chapter=La venta de esclavos |trans-chapter=The sale of slaves |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SwtMUtesSDEC&pg=PA111}}</ref> Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian, stated that "Columbus's government was characterized by a form of tyranny. Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."<ref name="newspaper1">{{Cite news |first=Giles |last=Tremlett |author-link=Giles Tremlett |date=7 August 2006 |title=Lost document reveals Columbus as tyrant of the Caribbean |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/aug/07/books.spain |access-date=16 May 2013}}</ref> Other historians have argued that some of the accounts of the brutality of Columbus and his brothers have been exaggerated as part of the [[Black Legend]], a historical tendency towards anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic sentiment in historical sources dating as far back as the 16th century, which they speculate may continue to taint scholarship into the present day.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hanke |first1=Lewis |date=1 February 1971 |title=A Modest Proposal for a Moratorium on Grand Generalizations: Some Thoughts on the Black Legend |journal=[[Hispanic American Historical Review]] |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |location=Durham, North Carolina |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=112–127 |doi=10.1215/00182168-51.1.112 |jstor=2512616 |doi-access=free |author-link1=Lewis Hanke}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keen |first1=Benjamin |date=1 November 1969 |title=The Black Legend Revisited: Assumptions and Realities |journal=[[Hispanic American Historical Review]] |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |location=Durham, North Carolina |volume=49 |issue=4 |pages=703–719 |doi=10.1215/00182168-49.4.703 |jstor=2511162 |doi-access=free |author-link1=Benjamin Keen}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keen |first1=Benjamin |date=1 May 1971 |title=The White Legend Revisited: A Reply to Professor Hanke's 'Modest Proposal' |journal=[[Hispanic American Historical Review]] |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |location=Durham, North Carolina |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=336–355 |doi=10.1215/00182168-51.2.336 |jstor=2512479 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

According to historian Emily Berquist Soule, the immense Portuguese profits from the maritime trade in African slaves along the West African coast served as an inspiration for Columbus to create a counterpart of this apparatus in the New World using indigenous American slaves.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Soule |first1=Emily Berquist |date=23 April 2017 |title=From Africa to the Ocean Sea: Atlantic slavery in the origins of the Spanish Empire |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14788810.2017.1315514 |journal=Atlantic Studies |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=16–39 |doi=10.1080/14788810.2017.1315514 |s2cid=218620874 |access-date=29 March 2022}}</ref> Historian [[William J. Connell (historian)|William J. Connell]] has argued that while Columbus "brought the entrepreneurial form of slavery to the New World", this "was a phenomenon of the times", further arguing that "we have to be very careful about applying 20th-century understandings of morality to the morality of the 15th century."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Fusco |first=Mary Ann Castronovo |date=8 October 2000 |title=In Person; In Defense Of Columbus |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/08/nyregion/in-person-in-defense-of-columbus.html |access-date=9 August 2018}}</ref> In a less popular defense of colonization, Spanish ambassador {{Ill|María Jesús Figa|es}} has argued, "Normally we melded with the cultures in America, we stayed there, we spread our language and culture and religion."{{sfn|Horwitz|2008|p=84}}

British historian [[Basil Davidson]] has dubbed Columbus the "father of the [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trade]]",<ref>{{cite journal |first=Basil |last=Davidson |author-link=Basil Davidson |title=Columbus: the bones and blood of racism |journal=[[Race & Class]] |volume=33 |issue=3 |publisher=[[SAGE Publishers]] |location=Thousand Oaks, California |date=January 1992 |pages=17–25 |doi=10.1177/030639689203300303 |s2cid=145462012}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Bigelow |first=Bill |date=10 October 2015 |title=Columbus Day must be abolished |url=https://www.ottawaherald.com/article/20151010/OPINION/310109846 |access-date=16 July 2021 |newspaper=[[The Ottawa Herald]] |archive-date=24 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210524142025/https://www.ottawaherald.com/article/20151010/OPINION/310109846}}</ref> citing the fact that the first license to ship enslaved Africans to the Caribbean was issued by the Catholic Monarchs in 1501 to the first royal governor of Hispaniola, [[Nicolás de Ovando]].<ref name="Jennings2020">{{cite book |last1=Jennings |first1=Evelyn |title=Constructing the Spanish Empire in Havana: State Slavery in Defense and Development, 1762–1835 |date=2020 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=978-0-8071-7464-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kOHcDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA33}}</ref>

==== Depopulation ====
{{Further|Taino#Depopulation}}
{{See also|Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas}}
Around the turn of the 21st century, estimates for the {{nowrap|pre-Columbian}} population of Hispaniola ranged between 250,000 and two million,{{sfn|Dyson|1991|pp=183, 190}}{{Sfn|Zinn|2003|p=5}}<ref name=Keegan>Keegan, William F., "Destruction of the Taino" in ''Archaeology''. January/February 1992, pp. 51–56.</ref>{{efn|[[Bartolomé de las Casas]] estimated that there were three to four million Taínos in Hispaniola, and said 500,000 Lucayans were killed in the Bahamas. Most modern historians reject his figures.<ref name=Keegan />}} but [[genetic analysis]] published in late 2020 suggests that smaller figures are more likely, perhaps as low as 10,000–50,000 for Hispaniola and Puerto Rico combined.<ref name="Fernandes">{{cite journal |last1=Fernandes |first1=D. M. |last2=Sirak |first2=K. A. |last3=Ringbauer |first3=H. |date=23 December 2020 |display-authors=etal |title=A genetic history of the pre-contact Caribbean |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |volume=590 |issue=7844 |pages=103–110 |doi=10.1038/s41586-020-03053-2 |pmid=33361817 |pmc=7864882 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Dutchen |first=Stephanie |date=23 December 2020 |title=Ancient DNA shines light on Caribbean history, prehistory |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/12/ancient-dna-shines-light-on-caribbean-history-prehistory/ |url-status=live |access-date=27 May 2021 |website=[[Harvard Gazette]]-US |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201223163004/https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/12/ancient-dna-shines-light-on-caribbean-history-prehistory/ |archive-date=23 December 2020}}</ref> Based on the previous figures of a few hundred thousand, some have estimated that a third or more of the natives in Haiti were dead within the first two years of Columbus's governorship.<ref name="Zinn" />{{sfn|Dyson|1991|pp=183, 190}} Contributors to depopulation included disease, warfare, and harsh enslavement.{{sfn|Horwitz|2008|p=}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Alfred W. |last=Crosby |author-link=Arthur W. Crosby |title=The Columbian Exchange |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |location=Westport, Connecticut |date=1972 |isbn=978-0-8371-7228-6 |page=47}}</ref> Indirect evidence suggests that some serious illness may have arrived with the 1,500 colonists who accompanied Columbus' second expedition in 1493.{{sfn|Horwitz|2008|p=}} [[Charles C. Mann]] writes that "It was as if the suffering these diseases had caused in [[Eurasia]] over the past millennia were concentrated into the span of decades."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mann |first=Charles C. |title=1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created |publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf]] |date=2011 |location=New York |isbn=978-0-307-27824-1 |page=12}}</ref> A third of the natives forced to work in gold and silver mines died every six months.<ref name="Hickel">{{cite book |last=Hickel |first=Jason |title=The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions |date=2018 |publisher=Windmill Books |location=London, England |isbn=978-1-78609-003-4 |page=70 |author-link=Jason Hickel}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> Within three to six decades, the surviving Arawak population numbered only in the hundreds.<ref name="Hickel" />{{sfn|Dyson|1991|pp=183, 190}}<ref>Crosby (1972) p. 45.</ref> The indigenous population of the Americas overall is thought to have been reduced by about 90% in the century after Columbus's arrival.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Koch |first1=Alexander |last2=Brierley |first2=Chris |last3=Maslin |first3=Mark |last4=Lewis |first4=Simon |date=1 March 2019 |title=Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492 |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |volume=207 |pages=13–36 |bibcode=2019QSRv..207...13K |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.12.004 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Among indigenous peoples, Columbus is often viewed as a key agent of genocide.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schuman |first1=H. |last2=Schwartz |first2=B. |last3=D'Arcy |first3=H. |date=28 February 2005 |title=Elite Revisionists and Popular Beliefs: Christopher Columbus, Hero or Villain? |url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c45b/6dae70b6f92891b09a99a0337cbf0235eb97.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200226064041/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c45b/6dae70b6f92891b09a99a0337cbf0235eb97.pdf |archive-date=26 February 2020 |journal=Public Opinion Quarterly |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=2–29 |doi=10.1093/poq/nfi001 |s2cid=145447081}}</ref> [[Samuel Eliot Morison]], a [[Harvard University]] historian and author of a multivolume biography on Columbus, writes, "The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide."<ref name="Morison">{{cite book |last1=Morison |first1=Samuel Eliot |url=https://archive.org/details/christophercolum00mori |title=Christopher Columbus, Mariner |publisher=Little Brown & Co. |location=New York |year=1955 |isbn=978-0-316-58356-5 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

According to Noble David Cook, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact." He instead estimates that the death toll was caused by [[smallpox]],<ref name="Cook1998">{{cite book |last=Cook |first=Noble David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dvjNyZTFrS4C&pg=PA9 |title=Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 |year=1998 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge, England |isbn=978-0-521-62730-6 |pages=9–14}}</ref> which may have caused a pandemic only after the arrival of [[Hernán Cortés]] in 1519.<ref>{{cite book |title=Smallpox and its eradication |vauthors=Fenner F, Henderson DA, Arita I, Ježek Z, Ladnyi ID |date=1988 |publisher=World Health Organization |isbn=978-92-4-156110-5 |series=History of International Public Health |volume=6 |location=Geneva |page=236 |chapter=The History of Smallpox and its Spread Around the World |hdl=10665/39485 |access-date=29 April 2021 |chapter-url=https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/blaw/bt/smallpox/who/red-book/9241561106_chp5.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/blaw/bt/smallpox/who/red-book/9241561106_chp5.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Oliver |first1=José R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nkYAMSusYKkC&q=hispaniola+pandemic+1519&pg=PA192 |title=Caciques and Cemí idols: the web spun by Taíno rulers between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico |date=2009 |publisher=[[University of Alabama Press]] |isbn=978-0-8173-5515-9 |edition=[Online-Ausg.]. |location=Tuscaloosa |page=192 |access-date=25 December 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Deadly Diseases: Epidemics throughout history |website=CNN |url=https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/10/health/epidemics-through-history/ |access-date=25 December 2017}}</ref> According to some estimates, smallpox had an 80–90% fatality rate in Native American populations.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Arthur C. |last1=Aufderheide |first2=Conrado |last2=Rodríguez-Martín |first3=Odin |last3=Langsjoen |date=1998 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qubTdDk1H3IC&pg=PA205 |title=The Cambridge encyclopedia of human paleopathology |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge, England |page=205 |isbn=0-521-55203-6}}</ref> The natives had no [[acquired immunity]] to these new diseases and suffered high fatalities. There is also evidence that they had poor diets and were overworked.<ref name="Austin-Alchon2003" /><ref>Crosby (1972) pp. 39, 47</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Martin |first1=Debra L. |last2=Goodman |first2=Alan H. |date=2002 |title=Health conditions before Columbus: paleopathology of native North Americans |journal=[[Western Journal of Medicine]] |publisher=[[BMJ (company)|BMJ]] |location=London, England |volume=176 |issue=1 |pages=65–68 |doi=10.1136/ewjm.176.1.65 |pmc=1071659 |pmid=11788545}}</ref> Historian [[Andrés Reséndez]] of [[University of California, Davis]], says the available evidence suggests "slavery has emerged as major killer" of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean between 1492 and 1550 more so than diseases such as smallpox, influenza and malaria.<ref>{{cite book |last=Reséndez |first=Andrés |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z2gpCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 |title=The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America |date=2016 |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]] |isbn=978-0-547-64098-3 |page=17 |author-link=Andrés Reséndez}}</ref> He says that indigenous populations did not experience a rebound like European populations did following the [[Black Death]] because unlike the latter, a large portion of the former were subjected to deadly forced labor in the mines.<ref name=":4">{{cite news |last=Treuer |first=David |date=13 May 2016 |title=The new book 'The Other Slavery' will make you rethink American history |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |url=https://latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-native-american-slavery-20160505-snap-story.html |access-date=21 June 2019}}</ref>

The diseases that devastated the Native Americans came in multiple waves at different times, sometimes as much as centuries apart, which would mean that survivors of one disease may have been killed by others, preventing the population from recovering.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Koch |first1=Alexander |last2=Brierley |first2=Chris |last3=Maslin |first3=Mark |last4=Lewis |first4=Simon |title=Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492 |journal=[[Quaternary Science Reviews]] |publisher=[[Elsevier]] |location=Wollongong, New South Wales |date=1 March 2019 |volume=207 |pages=13–36 |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.12.004 |bibcode=2019QSRv..207...13K |quote=While most of the other epidemics in history however were confined to a single pathogen and typically lasted for less than a decade, the Americas differed in that multiple pathogens caused multiple waves of virgin soil epidemics over more than a century. Those who survived influenza, may later have succumbed to smallpox, while those who survived both, may then have caught a later wave of measles. Hence, there were documented disease outbreaks in the Americas that killed 30% of the remaining indigenous population over 50 years after initial contact, i.e. between 1568 CE and 1605 CE |doi-access=free}}</ref> Historian [[David Stannard]] describes the depopulation of the indigenous Americans as "neither inadvertent nor inevitable", saying it was the result of both disease and intentional genocide.<ref name="Stannard1993xii">{{cite book |last1=Stannard |first1=David E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RzFsODcGjfcC&pg=PR12 |title=American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-19-983898-1 |location=Oxford, England |page=xii |author-link=David Stannard}}</ref>

==== Navigational expertise ====
Biographers and historians have a wide range of opinions about Columbus's expertise and experience navigating and captaining ships. One scholar lists some European works ranging from the 1890s to 1980s that support Columbus's experience and skill as among the best in Genoa, while listing some American works over a similar timeframe that portray the explorer as an untrained entrepreneur, having only minor crew or passenger experience prior to his noted journeys.<ref name="Peck">{{cite journal |title=The Controversial Skill of Columbus as a Navigator: An Enduring Historical Enigma |first=Douglas T. |last=Peck |journal=The Journal of Navigation |volume=62 |year=2009 |issue=3 |pages=417–425 |doi=10.1017/S0373463309005359 |bibcode=2009JNav...62..417P |s2cid=59570444 |url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3bcb/6e3fb8c43f27099b9b0cbab75585ac12cdc5.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200705003711/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3bcb/6e3fb8c43f27099b9b0cbab75585ac12cdc5.pdf |archive-date=5 July 2020 |access-date=4 July 2020}}</ref> According to Morison, Columbus's success in utilizing the trade winds might owe significantly to luck.{{Sfn|Morison|1991|pp=59, 198–199}}