After reading the journal of Christopher Columbus documenting his accounts of his discovery of what know today as Latin America, my personal opinion of him has stayed the same in not diminished in the solid proof that he was the gateway for the colonisation that ensued after his death. Growing up, I was not educated formally about Christopher Columbus, with my knowledge of his travels and his links to colonisation at a bare minimum. My general assumption about him was that he travelled very far around the world and found land that was different to his own and afterwards his country invaded these lands and took what they felt was worth their while.
Guaman Poma’s account of the two worlds ‘meeting’ each other read much more like a collision of sorts. Being able to read his account of the story of Columbus supposedly founding new land offer deep insight into a side of the story in history that often isn’t told. Poma is depicting the side of history that is often swept under the rug, in order to make the ‘victors’ in this case the colonisers, look like the heroes. He recounts the hurt that the indigenous people of the land suffered under the hands of the invaders. He also repeatedly stresses the invaders interest in gold and silver which is validated in Columbus’ journal when he too accounts for the the gold he is seeking on the land to take back to the Spanish Royals.
In Columbus’ journal he writes, “I am very much taken with the attractions of this land and the possibilities it offers for colonisation”. He intentionally uses the word, ‘colonisation’, in an effort to convince the Spanish Royalty that this land is valuable and should be exploited as such. In my opinion even if Columbus did not physically invade and colonise the land he travelled to, his intention was to inform someone else to do it instead. These actions on his behalf do not make him an innocent bystander, most consequently they make him the instigator in the colonisation that was to follow after his discoveries.
In my view both Columbus’ and Poma’s personal accounts of the early formations of Latin America prove that Columbus was the catalyst for colonisation in the area and that the cover up term of ‘explorer’ does not exempt one from this.
An introduction in Latin American Studies 