anywhere but near Cathay, the southeast coast of China. His actual location was the Bahamas (William Howarth). Columbus has a story that some would like to keep quiet, a story that “makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent” (quote from a Native American demonstrator [M. E. Marty]). As wagon wheels churned dustily west, Columbus was a heroic, progressive Discoverer. In today's sullen postcolonial world he is Euro-Plague, spreading the genocide and ecocide that ruined a pristine Eden (William Howarth). Columbus stands accused for much of the tragic and horrible event that plagued the native Americans in the years and even centuries that followed his coming. "[Based] on statistical analyses of Indian deaths, [the Spanish conquest was] the greatest demographic catastrophe in recorded history;" Peter Winn (M.E. Marty). By 1892 the Europeans had prevailed, destroying most of the natives through disease, warfare, and displacement (William Howarth). Serious studies put the eventual extermination of natives by the Europeans at about 90 percent of the population from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the present (P. J. Riga).There are many examples of the mistreatment and slaughter of indigenous people, one of which is of Hatuey, a Caribbean Indian chief, was burned at the stake. A Franciscan friar gave him one last chance to convert to Christianity, explaining the torments that awaited Hatuey in hell if he did not. "Do Christians go to heaven?" Hatuey asked. "Yes," replied the friar. Hatuey said, "Then l don't wish to go there, but rather to hell so as not to be where Spaniards are, nor to see such cruel people" (T. S. Giles). Thousands of, so-called, Missionaries came to the New World attempting to convert the Indians to Christianity. An enterprising European official sailed to the Central American mainland in 1514. He hoped to settle large numbers of Spaniards there, to find gold, and to convert natives. He and his men ...
