Christopher Columbus does an excellent job of proving that he manipulated the natives of the West Indies all throughout the excerpts of Letters to Columbus. In this series of letters, he explains his voyages to the West Indies in great detail. His first letter, was written to a friend of his, Luis de Santangel, during his original voyage to find America, in 1493. Columbus first landed on the island that he named Juana, but, after realizing his was on an island not the mainland, he saw another, much larger island. He went to see this island that he later named “Española” and described it saying “In it are marvelous pine groves; there are very wide and smiling plains, and there is honey; and there are birds of many kinds and fruits in great diversity. In the interior, there are mine of metals, and the population is without number. Española is a …show more content…
In this letter he writes to the King and Queen, not to tell them about what is happening in the West Indies, but to ask two requests of them. He describes how the island of Española has changed in the time between his first and fourth voyage saying “I believed that their example would have been to the profit of others; on the contrary, they are in a languid state although they are not dead; the infirmity is incurable or very extensive; let him who brought them to this state come now with the remedy if he can or if he knows it; in destructive, everyone is adept.” (Columbus 1). This clearly emphasizes how bad things have gotten since Columbus took over the West Indies. Columbus goes on to reveal to Ferdinand and Isabella that he had been kidnapped by pirates and “thrown into a ship, laden with fetters, stripped to the skin, very ill-treated, and without being tried or condemned.” (Columbus 4) which then prompts his first request of the King and