Editing Christopher Columbus

{{Infobox person|name=Christopher Columbus|native_name=Cristoffa Corombo<br>Cristóbal Colón|birth_place=Genoa, [[Republic of Genoa]]|death_date=20 May 1506|death_place=Valladolid, [[Crown of Castile (1230–1715)|Castile]]|birth_date=1451|known=Beginning the invasion of the Americas|image=Christopher Columbus image.jpg|caption=Portrait of Columbus from after his death}}

'''Christopher Columbus''' was a Genoese sailor who began the European colonization of the [[Americas]] and [[genocide]] of its indigenous peoples.

== Genocide of indigenous peoples ==
Columbus sailed from Spain to what is now the [[Commonwealth of The Bahamas|Bahamas]] in 1492 with support from the Spanish monarchy. He enslaved the Arawak people in the Bahamas and Hispaniola (now [[Republic of Haiti|Haiti]] and the [[Dominican Republic]]) and forced them to mine gold. If they could not find enough gold, he cut their hands off. Columbus sent about 5,000 enslaved Arawaks to Europe. When the gold supply ran out, the Spanish began a system of plantation [[slavery]]. From 1492 to 1516, the Arawak population dropped from eight million to 12,000. The Spanish had completely wiped out the Arawaks in Hispaniola by 1555.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[Liberation School]]|title=The real legacy of Christopher Columbus: slavery and genocide|date=2014-07-03|url=https://www.liberationschool.org/the-legacy-of-christopher-columbus/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220525183525/https://www.liberationschool.org/the-legacy-of-christopher-columbus/|archive-date=2022-05-25|retrieved=2022-08-28}}</ref>

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Genocide perpetrators]]