Editing Lucayan people (section)

=== Slavery and genocide ===
Columbus kidnapped several Lucayans on San Salvador and Santa María de la Concepción. Two fled, but Columbus took some Lucayans back to Spain at the end of his first voyage. Vespucci took 232 Lucayans to Spain as slaves in 1500. Spanish exploitation of the labor of the natives of Hispaniola rapidly reduced that population, leading the Governor of Hispaniola to complain to the Spanish crown. After Columbus's death, [[Ferdinand II of Aragon]] ordered in 1509 that Indians be imported from nearby islands to make up the population losses in Hispaniola, and the Spanish began capturing Lucayans in the Bahamas for use as laborers in Hispaniola.{{Sfn|Sauer|1966|p=160}}

At first the Lucayans sold for no more than four [[Doubloon|gold pesos]] in Hispaniola, but when it was realized that the Lucayans were practiced at diving for [[conch]]s, the price rose to 100 to 150 gold pesos and the Lucayans were sent to the Isle of [[Cubagua]] as [[Pearl diving|pearl divers]]. Within two years the southern Bahamas were largely depopulated. The Spanish may have carried away as many as 40,000 Lucayans by 1513.{{Sfn|Sauer|1966|p=160}}

[[Carl O. Sauer]] described [[Juan Ponce de León#First voyage to Florida|Ponce de León's 1513 expedition]] in which he encountered Florida as simply "an extension of slave hunting beyond the empty islands."{{Sfn|Sauer|1966|p=160}} When the Spanish decided to traffic the remaining Lucayans to Hispaniola in 1520, they could find only eleven in all of the Bahamas. Thereafter the Bahamas remained uninhabited for 130 years.{{Sfnm|Albury|1975|1pp=34–37|Craton|1986|2p=37–39|Keegan|1992|3pp=212–213, 220–223|Sauer|1966|4pp=159–160, 191}}