Zinn on Columbus; Equiano Revisited

Despite how terrible discrimination was for Africans like Equiano, it did happen to bring about an identity change.  This was a change that did, at least on a subconscious level, involve some degree of personal choice.  In the end, Equiano must decide who he wants to be.  Still, as the previous post discussed, this personal choice was influenced heavily by events far outside the realm of Equiano’s control.  After all, Equiano was involved in a trade that ultimately sealed the rift between two vastly different worlds, Old and New.  A similar amalgamation between choice and fate is seen in Columbus and the Spaniards’ interaction with native peoples.  Howard Zinn, in his account of these early encounters (A People’s History of the United States), pulls an interesting pair of quotes from two different sources.  The first of these is from Samuel Eliot Morison, who describes Columbus as possessing a “superb faith in God” and a “mission as the Christ-bearer to lands beyond the seas” (8).  While the accuracy of the first part of this quote is highly disputable, the latter half does describe the fact that the surface intentions of the king and queen of Spain were to spread religion.  Of course, this mission deviates wildly from the actual actions of Columbus and his men, which is expressed in Zinn’s quote of Bartolomé de las Casas: “our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy” (6).  While it is easy to attribute such works to religion, especially since some sailors claimed to perform these actions in the name of God, it is important that the fruits of human choice are separated from the roots of fate.  This brings about a certain question: was religion destined to spread, and if so, was the massacre of natives necessary for this to occur?