When Christopher Columbus sailed westward from Spain in 1492, he did not expect to find paradise. He was looking for a shortcut to Asia, a new route for spices and gold. Instead, he stumbled onto islands in the Caribbean, inhabited by the Taíno people. In his journals, he described the islands as beautiful, fertile, and abundant. As for the inhabitants:

“These people in the Caribbean … are very gentle and do not know what it is to be wicked, or to kill others, or to steal … and they are sure that we come from Heaven … So your Highnesses should resolve to make them Christians … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

From the very first encounters, Columbus’s writings reveal a disturbing contradiction: he saw beauty, innocence, and generosity, but hi

See Full Page