Columbus's Second Voyage — Colonisation Begins
Columbus sailed again in September 1493 with seventeen ships and some 1,200 men, six months after returning from the first voyage. The expedition was a colonising venture rather than a reconnaissance, and its scale reflects how completely the crown believed him. It carried horses, cattle, pigs, sugar cane, wheat, seeds and vines, and priests, soldiers and gentlemen adventurers — but very few farmers and no women. He found the fort at La Navidad burned and all thirty-nine men dead, killed after seizing Taíno women and gold. He founded La Isabela on a bad site, and it failed within four years. The colony's problem was that it had no export. Gold existed in small quantities and not in the quantities promised, and Columbus's response was to impose a tribute system requiring every Taíno over fourteen to deliver a set measure of gold dust every three months, with mutilation for those who did not. When the gold could not be found he shipped people instead. Some 500 Taíno were sent to Spain to be sold in 1495; Isabella ordered them freed and returned. He also explored Cuba's southern coast and made his crews swear an oath that it was a mainland, with penalties for anyone who later said otherwise. Disease, forced labour and famine reduced the Taíno of Hispaniola catastrophically within a decade. Antonio de Torres carried back reports of his administration that began the complaints leading to his eventual arrest. Bartolomé de las Casas, who arrived as a settler in 1502, spent the rest of his life documenting what had been done. The livestock and the crops carried on this voyage began the biological exchange that reshaped both hemispheres.
- Year: 1493 CE
- Category: Political
