- Historic Sites Columbus And Genocide The discoverer of the New
World was responsible for the annihilation of the peaceful
Arawak Indians October 1975 | Volume 26, Issue 6 This was all
Columbus needed to establish a steady supply of slaves. He no
longer would have to maintain the fiction that they were
cannibals. Despite the fact, even acknowledged by Ferdinand,
that the slain Spaniards had justly earned their mortal hatred,
Columbus led an expedition against the defenseless Indians that
was incredibly savage in its slaughter of the naked islanders
and destruction of their villages. The heavily armed Europeans
were accompanied by ferocious greyhounds each of which, Las
Casas wrote, “in an hour … could tear 100 Indians to pieces
because all the people of this island had the custom of going …
nude from head to foot.” Many people were taken alive, and five
hundred were sent as slaves to be sold in Castile. They were
carried in four ships that Antonio de Torres had brought, and
they left for Castile on February