1492
Columbus’s first voyage and seizure of Indigenous captives
Bahamas and Caribbean; Taíno and other Indigenous islanders
In October 1492, Columbus reached inhabited Caribbean islands and claimed them for the Spanish monarchs. The surviving journal account records his seizure of Indigenous islanders and his plans to take people to Spain. These acts joined royal territorial claims to captivity and Christian conversion.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
This entry concerns the first voyage, not the larger colonizing fleet of 1493 or the slave shipment of 1495. The journal survives through Las Casas’s later transcription and summary, not Columbus’s original manuscript. A European claim to possession did not extinguish Indigenous sovereignty.
Sources
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014), chapter 2
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 1, pp. 1–3; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Columbus journal, entries for 12 and 14 October 1492, transmitted through Las Casas; Fordham transcription ↗
- Library of Congress — The Christopher Columbus Papers ↗