Columbus and the Myth of Severed Hands

It’s no secret that the indigenous people of the Americas suffered a catastrophic collapse in the 16th century, driven by disease and the genocidal practices of European colonizers. Every year, fierce debates rage over the legitimacy of Columbus Day, with detractors pointing to Christopher Columbus’s mistreatment of native people. One of the most barbaric, gut-wrenching, yet captivating claims is the punishment for failing to comply with the tribute system. The Admiral, in his pursuit of gold, implemented a system which required every native of at least 14 years old to provide a hawk’s bell full of gold dust. Those who failed to deliver enough gold would have their hands chopped off, sometimes to be hung around their neck as a warning to others.

Many sources espousing this atrocity exist. It’s been stated by historians such as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, David Stannard (American Holocaust), and Howard Zinn (A People’s History of the United States); college professors, such as Manning Marable of Columbia University, Mark Freeland of UW-Milwaukee, and Chris Mato Nunpa of Southwest Minnesota State University; Wikipedia articles about Columbus and his voyages; sociologist James Loewen, both in his best-selling book Lies My Teachers Told Me and in an article published by the National Education Association; numerous educational materials, textbooks, and lesson plans; and countless others. Activists have gone so far as to hang fake hands on Columbus’s statue in protest. In addition, there exists an illustration in the historical record purportedly showing Columbus’s soldiers severing the hands of Arawak Indians.

However, contrary to journalist Fiza Pirani’s statement that the “historical record shows” Columbus committed this atrocity, there actually exists no direct evidence from contemporary sources that he or the soldiers under his leadership did. The reason “Columbus’s son neglected to mention how the Spanish [under Columbus] … cut off their hands” (per Loewen) is because it seems to be more myth than fact.

TLDR Summary

• A common charge against Columbus is that he had the hands of natives cut off for not paying a gold tribute.
• The historical record does not back up this claim. It does say there was a tribute system, but does not mention the punishment.
• Numerous instances of Spanish colonizers cutting off natives’ hands exist in the works of Friar Bartolome de las Casas, an early humanitarian. But these are all cases that happened after Columbus’s time as governor and not under his leadership.
• An image that frequently accompanies this claim, drawn by engraver Theodore de Bry, is about events that occurred in South America in 1539-40.
• The claim originated in a 1976 of questionable reliability called Columbus: His Enterprise by Hans Koning, then popularized by Howard Zinn in A People’s History of the United States.
• One can make an argument that it’s possible the atrocity occurred under Columbus, but without new evidence, it can never be indisputable fact.
• This highlights the importance of information literacy and precisely citing sources as evidence for claims in this digital age where misinformation is frequently spread without a second thought.

What does the historical record say?

In order to fully grasp how to interpret the historical record, we need to understand a few base-level ideas about the discipline of history. History is a reconstruction of the past based on evidence from sources or traces left behind. For one to be reasonably confident something happened, we have to have evidence from the time the event occurred. In the case of the claim about Columbus cutting off natives’ hands for failing to bring enough gold, there actually exists no mention of it in the primary source record. In fact, there is no mention of it in any source prior to 1976. 

Everything we know about Columbus, his voyages, and the atrocities of early Spanish colonization comes from only a few primary sources: private letters, Columbus’s logs, the biography written by Columbus’s son based on his father’s documents, and the works of Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, an early activist for the rights of natives. When combined, these sources confirm the existence of a tribute system (1495), which Columbus implemented during his second voyage to suppress a revolt from a specific group of Tainos on the island of Hispaniola. Here’s Columbus’s son, Ferdinand:

“In the Cibao, where the gold mines were, every person of fourteen years of age or upward was to pay a large hawk’s bell of gold dust, all others were each to pay twenty-five pounds of cotton [sic] Whenever an Indian delivered his tribute, he was to receive a brass or copper token which he must wear about his necklaces proof that he had made his payment, any Indian found without such a token was to be punished [sic]” (The Life of the Admiral Columbus by His Son, pgs 149-150. This work will be referred to as The Life from here on.)

This is also described by Las Casas in History of the Indies.¹:

“The Admiral imposed on all the inhabitants of the province of Cibao, … that all males fourteen years and older should, every three months, bring a bell … filled with gold. … Whoever did not wear [the copper token of payment] was to be punished.”² (Chapter 105, p. 102-3)

Yet, despite the great naval historian and Columbus biographer Sameul Eliott Morison, historian Laurence Bergreen, and many others claiming the tribute was paid to avoid death, neither Las Casas nor Columbus’s son reveal the consequence; Las Casas did state that he heard it was “moderate.”³

However, the writings of Las Casas are littered with vivid and gruesome descriptions of the practice under different commanders who came later. The first references are found early in Book II of History of the Indies:

• “The Spaniards had a rule, … in the wars they waged against the Indians, to be always … strangely cruel, … Many of them whom they took, they cut their hands, both clean off and leaving them hanging by the skin, telling them ‘Go, take this message to your leaders,’ so they get the news.”⁴ (History of the Indies, Book II, Chapter 8, p. 46)
• “After the arbalest attack, Indians could only try to run back to their … villages, but … the Spaniards overcame them in no time. … After such devastation, they … had them place their hand on a board and slashed it off with the sword, and on to the other hand, which they butchered, sometimes leaving the skin dangling;” (History of the Indies, Book II, Ch. 15, p. 117-8, Andrée Collard translation)

These events occurred sometime in 1503 to 1504 (as stated at the end of Chapter 8: “at this time it was the year 1503”) during the rebellion of Higuey province on Hispaniola, under the leadership of governor Nicolás de Ovando, identified early in Chapter 8 as the “Commander of Lares.” The identity is confirmed by Ferdinand Columbus, who refers to Ovando as “The Knight Commander of Lares” throughout The Life. At the time of the revolt, Columbus, who had been deposed as governor of the Indies in 1500, was on his fourth voyage, and, depending on the exact timing, somewhere between Central America and being shipwrecked on Jamaica for a year. He did make two very brief stopovers (about a month long each) to the island of Hispaniola during the voyage, but was not involved in the suppression of the revolt. The first was in 1502 – likely prior to the revolt – and the second in August of 1504, likely after the rebellion had ended. Had it still been ongoing, given their year-long mishap on Jamaica, Columbus’s crew would’ve been too eager to get back to Spain to have the stomach for such exploits.

Las Casas’s other seminal work, A Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies, is much shorter and provides more readily available references to this atrocity. A number of passages from Devastation of the Indies have been erroneously attributed to Columbus and his men, though they all occurred after his time as governor. The first one is here:

“Some they chose to keep alive and simply cut their wrists, leaving their hands dangling, saying to them: ‘Take this letter’ – meaning that their sorry condition would act as a warning to those hiding in the hills.” (Devastation of the Indies, p. 15)

Freeland (p. 14), curriculum designer and avid left-wing social activist Bill Bigelow, and others have attributed this passage to actions carried out under the direction of Columbus, despite Las Casas not stating he nor his men were responsible.. The confusion likely arises from this section being the first substantive discussion of Hispaniola – where Columbus suppressed rebellions and implemented the tribute system – in Devastation of the Indies. But a few key details lead us to conclude that this was not Columbus’s soldiers. First, this appears to be based on the two aforementioned passages from History of the Indies, which not only did I establish were the first references to such an atrocity in the work, but also that they were after Columbus’s time as governor. Secondly, in the ensuing paragraph, Las Casas reports that he “saw all these things for [himself] and many others besides.” Since Las Casas came to the Americas for the first time in 1502 with Ovando, he not only couldn’t be describing something that happened in 1495 as Freeland erroneously claims, but it was also not under the leadership of Columbus.

On top of that, the claim that severed hands were hung around the necks of natives appears to originate with a mistranslation of the above passage in this version of Devastation of the Indies. The translator, Herma Briffault, translated the passage as follows:

“With still others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim’s neck, saying, ‘Go now, carry the message,’ meaning, Take the news to the Indians who have fled to the mountains.” (p. 34) 

But the original Spanish passage⁵ contains neither word for “neck” that Las Casas uses elsewhere in his works – “cuello” or “pescuezo.” Neither the passage above from the Penguin version (translated by Nigel Griffin) nor the translation used by Freeland say anything about hanging hands from victims’ necks, and this charge appears nowhere in Las Casas’s work. Thus, we must conclude that it likely did not happen.

Listed below are the rest of the instances of natives’ hands being severed described in Devastation of the Indies:

• Three references on pages 76, 77, 78. This section, which begins in the year 1525, is about Panuco and Jalisco in modern day Mexico.
• Page 117: “I affirm that with my own eyes I saw Spaniards cut off the nose, hands, and ears of Indians.” This was in a letter written by Friar Marcos de Niza, who was born in 1495 and arrived in the Americas in 1531.
• Four references between pages 122-125. This section is about the Spanish conquest of the Kingdom of New Granada in South America, beginning in 1539.

There are two passages that get close to indicting Columbus for this crime, but still do not provide direct evidence. Firstly, this in History of the Indies: 

“The Admiral’s men reported to the Kings about the rebellion and disobedience of Francisco Roldán, stating that those who followed him were criminal, vicious, robbers, violent, thieves, rapists of married women, corrupters of virgins, murderers, liars, perjurers, and traitors. … On the other hand, Roldán’s men made terrible accusations against the Admiral and his brothers, calling them tyrants, unjust, cruel, claiming they tortured Spaniards for trivial reasons, beheaded them, hanged them, whipped them, and cut off their hands, thirsting for Castilian blood like mortal enemies. … along with many other abominations they asserted against him to justify their rebellion.”⁶ (History of the Indies, Book I, Volume II, p. 380)

Some context is important. In 1497, during the interlude between Columbus’s second and third voyage, a number of Spaniards under the leadership of Francisco Roldán rebelled against Columbus’s brothers who were governing in the interim. This was mainly due to the fact that the colonizers were not getting the fast and easy wealth they had hoped for and, on top of that, they felt the rule of the Columbus brothers was too strict. Given that these complaints were used to justify rebellious, mutinous activities, they cannot be taken at face value and thus do not provide conclusive evidence. Furthermore, not only were the alleged atrocities committed against Spanish colonists and not the natives, it mentions the complaints were levied against Columbus and his brothers, making it impossible to delineate which allegations were associated with whom.

One final reference does actually involve some soldiers of Columbus’s crew cutting off the hands of natives, but, when placed in context, does not substantiate the charges against Columbus. During Columbus’s fourth voyage, while they were shipwrecked on Jamaica, a group of crewmen under the direction of Francisco de Porras mutineed against the Admiral because they wanted to go home. In the process, they took some canoes that were moored to the caravels in an attempt to reach the island of Hispaniola. Ferdinand Columbus describes something that happened in the process, which is echoed by Las Casas:

“But the winds being variable and the canoes overloaded, they made slow progress … when the wind turned contrary. … water began to come over the sides, and in order to lighten them they threw overboard everything except their arms and enough food … But the wind grew rough, and becoming more frightened, they decided to kill the Indians and throw them overboard. Some … leaped overboard and swam … and when they tried to rest by clinging to the [sides of the canoes], their hands were hacked off by the mutineers.”  (The Life, p. 271)

These actions were not taken by soldiers under the direction of Columbus since they were mutineering against him at the time. Moreover, while brutal and barbaric, this was not an action meted out as a punishment. Rather, these were actions taken by people fearful of capsizing in a storm. (Of course, this fact doesn’t mitigate the atrocity nor does it exonerate those who committed it of wrong-doing.) Finally, this incident occurred in 1504, almost nine years after the alleged punishments for not failing to pay tribute. This does, however, provide what is likely the most tantalizing evidence for those wishing to build an argument that Columbus did at some point mete out such punishments. Was this a random act of violence by frightened sailors in stormy seas or the product of something systemic? The historical record does not say.

What about the image alleged of Columbus’s soldiers cutting off the hands of Arawak Indians? This, too, is not actually associated with Columbus. According to the National Humanities Center and Magdalen College of Oxford University, this image was created by prolific 16th century engraver Theodore de Bry for his 1598 publication of Devastation of the Indies. Its appearance on pages 120-121 of the 1992 Penguin version puts it in the Kingdom of New Granada section (1539) near the following quote in the Briffault translation (p. 123):

“Another time, when some Indians would not surrender a casket full of gold, this tyrant [identified in endnote 54 as Sebastián de Belalcázar] sent troops to make war on them and in that war many souls perished. The survivors either had their hands and noses cut off or were thrown to the dogs, to be torn to pieces and devoured.”

This is also the passage the National Humanities Center has associated with the picture, and, since the illustration seems to accurately depict Las Casas’s words here, we can thus conclude that this is not at all associated with Columbus or his soldiers. **Note: the updated description in Wikimedia Commons correctly clarifying that the image is not of Columbus’s soldiers was added by me.** 

Visuals like this one further muddy the waters, as De Bry himself had ideological motive to portray the Spanish in a negative light — and understandably so. De Bry was born in 1528 in the Netherlands, and fled around 1570 due to Spanish persecution of Protestants. He made a career as a printer and illustrator, taking already published works and adding images. Given the chronology of de Bry’s life, it is doubtful he ever set foot in the Americas, and especially so as a preteen when the conquest of New Granada occurred. It is also unclear whether he ever actually corresponded with Las Casas. Therefore, the image above is not a primary source for the event. Instead, de Bry used Las Casas’s descriptions to make imaginative illustrations to spread anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic sentiment. In regards to another image in this work containing a Catholic priest next to a native being burned, Magdalen College argues that “de Bry is not only commenting on Spanish imperial policy in America, but suggesting to readers that this brutality could easily be transferred to Europe to punish Protestant rebellion in the Habsburg dominions.” Therefore, rather than being a reliable source of information about the Spanish conquest of the Americas, de Bry’s images reveal more about religious tensions in Europe following the Protestant Reformation.

In sum, while atrocities certainly occurred, none of the sources in the historical record directly tie the severing of natives’ hands to Columbus, and the imagery used has been misleadingly associated with his actions.

Where does this claim originate?

The first written claim attributing the punishment for failing to pay Columbus’s gold tribute to cutting off hands was made in a niche 1976 book titled Columbus: His Enterprise by Hans Koning:

”Copper tokens were manufactured, and when an Indian had brought his or her tribute to an armed post, he or she received such a token, stamped with the month, to be hung around the neck. … Whoever was caught without a token was killed by having his or her hands cut off. There are old Spanish prints … that show this being done: the Indians stumble away, staring with surprise at their arm stumps pulsing out blood.” (Columbus: His Enterprise, p. 86)

This book is also likely responsible for the connection between this alleged Columbus atrocity and the image commonly associated with it. On the page opposite the passage above, appears the image with accompanying caption. This may also provide a clue as to why Koning made the claim to begin with, since the passage in Las Casas states this occurred due to a chief failing to deliver a casket full of gold. Did Koning, seeing the mention of gold, mistakenly associate this with Columbus’s tribute system? Without access to his research notes, it’s impossible to know conclusively.

Furthermore, per the caption, Koning erroneously attributes this image to Las Casas instead of De Bry, whom he mentions elsewhere. The book he refers to as Spanish Cruelties is likely Den Spieghel vande Spaensche tyrannie, a 1609 Dutch translation of Devastation of the Indies. As established previously, the first known record of this image is from the 1598 De Bry publication of the book, 32 years after Las Casas passed away. Despite being the imaginative machinations of an ideologically motivated artist, Koning still provides a dramatic description of the image as if it mirrored reality. This demonstrates Koning’s propensity to put his own ideology above careful and accurate scholarship.

Hans Koning himself was a Dutch journalist, writer, and anti-war social activist, born to the daughter of a well-known Dutch socialist poet. Throughout his career, he wrote a motley myriad of works – fiction and non-fiction – from romance novels to travel guides. According to his New York Times obituary, “His stated goal was to reflect on injustice and the essential state of being human ‘in a hidden way.’ But his strongly leftist politics were seldom camouflaged.” Four of his books were made into movies – a testament to Koning’s storytelling and writing abilities, but perhaps none more indicative of his potential Marxist sympathies than The Revolutionary, about a college student who seeks a militant form of left-wing radicalism. While teaching writing at Boston University, he helped Noam Chomsky and other professors establish RESIST, an organization born out of the anti-war movement which funds left-wing activist causes. However, nothing from his unique experiences as a writer or social activist qualifies him as a historian, let alone someone with the qualifications to write authoritatively about Columbus. 

Koning’s book, which is more polemic than serious historical scholarship, is littered with numerous historical references that are either stretches, or faulty interpretations that demonstrate his own lack of historical understanding. Released against the backdrop of the conclusion of the Vietnam War, it seems that Koning, given his left-wing sympathies, aimed to use history as a medium for a scathing indictment of the United State’s conduct in Vietnam, as well as Western capitalism, imperialism, and racism in general. This is evidenced by three over-simplistic comparisons to the war in the book: 

• “The Columbus brothers now set out to extend their dominion over the entire island and to see to the ‘pacification’ of the Indians. This word has become familiar to us from our Vietnam War, and was already in use then with the same hidden meaning.” (p. 83) Here, Koning assumes that a word in a 450 year old book originally written in Spanish, originally published in Italian, then translated to English somehow has the same connotation as a modern English term. Furthermore, when comparing a passage in question from the 1959 English version to an 1892 Spanish version, we see that the word “pacify” is not used in one verifiable instance.⁷ While I would not expect Koning to have checked a Spanish version, few historians would consider it proper scholarship to make such a comparison across vast temporal and linguistic spaces.
• In reference to slaves arriving in Spain naked, but without embarrassment: “(When the first photographs of the victims of the Mylai massacre were published in the United States, there was much protest against the fact that you could see the bare behinds and the penises of the corpses.)” (p. 85) These two events have no parallel. The natives Columbus encountered often went naked as a habit of custom, culture, and comfort in accordance with a tropical climate.
• “[General William Westmoreland] used new and improved napalm, while the Spaniards in Hispaniola used green wood for burning the Indian caciques in order to make them suffer and scream longer.” (p. 121) This comparison is also invalid. Napalm was a military weapon developed in World War II, arguably out of necessity due to a steadfast opponent who chose to hide deep in honeycombed ridges. It was used in Vietnam against an equally steadfast enemy who hid in the jungles, often waiting to ambush unsuspecting soldiers.

Other historical examples with questionable validity exist throughout the book. In one case, he follows a Las Casas quote about Columbus being “at the beginning of the ill usage” of the Indians with “(But then, when we think of children pulling coal wagons in British mines — not in 1492 but in 1852 — even this ill usage becomes relative.)” (p. 71) Contextually, these two situations draw little parallel. Later, in his chapter criticizing Columbus Day (which certainly there are legitimate arguments against), he refers to World War II as “the great white-race civil war” after saying the Nazis “were different from the rest of us,” because “they extended that theory [of master race] to their fellow whites.” (p. 121) In both statements, Koning shows his historical naivete. First of all, World War II included belligerent nations of all races, not to mention that it was only the latest in a long line of European conflicts. What, then, was World War I, or the Franco-Prussian wars, or the Seven Years War, or the Napoleonic Wars? Second, in regards to the latter quote, Koning seems unaware of the fact that Jews were considered a separate race by the Nazis, as they adopted ideas that were well-known in Europe prior to Hitler’s birth. What becomes obvious is Koning’s desire to use any historical reference – no matter how invalid, devoid of context, or irrelevant – to further his ideology, even quoting Karl Marx. 

But why choose Columbus? This may be partly explained by the plethora of recently-published materials on the subject. In the bibliography, Koning mentions J.M. Cohen’s The Four Voyages of Columbus (1969), G.R. Crone’s The Discovery of America (1969), and a new translation of Devastation of the Indies (1974). Koning also quotes History of the Indies, which was partially translated into English in 1971. Perhaps the most noteworthy mention in the bibliography is My Master Columbus (1961), a fictional novel based on a document the author admits is considered a forgery by many. Also worth pointing out is that the author – English writer, actor, and journalist Cedric Belfrage – was a one-time member of the Communist Party of the United States and Soviet Spy. Of this book, Koning claims it “tells the story as experienced by one of its victims,” either unaware of or apathetic towards the fact that it’s a work of fiction based on a potentially forged document. All told, Koning’s explicit ideological bias coupled with his numerous historical fallacies makes Columbus: His Enterprise a highly questionable source that cannot be examined without a great degree of scrutiny and skepticism.

Yet many did, beginning with historian Howard Zinn, whose People’s History of the United States (1980) contains pages taken wholesale from Columbus: His Enterprise.⁸ While Koning’s book saw limited success in its lifetime, the opposite is true for Zinn’s, which sold over two million copies and garnered a spot on the New York Times best-seller list. On top of that, Zinn’s history has been integrated into a number of school curriculum materials, at both the K-12 and post-secondary levels. Whole organizations, such as Zinn Ed Project, have been created around teaching A People’s History. If Koning gets the credit for originating this claim, it was undoubtedly Zinn who established it as conventional wisdom in the American consciousness.

But Zinn’s book is equally ideologically motivated – something Zinn readily admits in the introduction – and has drawn criticism from many in academia due to its questionable methods of scholarship and conclusions about the past. Perhaps the most prominent of these critics is Sam Wineburg of Stanford University – founder of the organization formerly known as Stanford History Education Group – who criticized Zinn for his selective and unfair use of evidence in his narrative. The book was also voted by a History News Network poll as one of the least reliable history books in existence.

A decade later, the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s voyages provided renewed interest in the mariner, his legacy, and what it means for the country. A generation of budding historians who went to college during the Vietnam War and may have been inspired by the social activism prevalent on campuses at the time seized upon Zinn’s materials as part of their own works. Unfortunately, once something becomes conventional wisdom, it tends not to be questioned. Those who claim as fact that Columbus’s soldiers severed the hands of natives for not paying the gold tribute almost always cite Zinn as the source without questioning his validity. 

While Koning’s book likely originated the claim of Columbus severing hands as punishment for unpaid tribute, its acceptance into mainstream historical narratives – largely due to Zinn’s book – shows how ideology-driven histories often distort evidence to make their point.

A matter of debate

So does this mean that it’s a foregone conclusion that Columbus’s soldiers didn’t cut off the hands of natives for not paying the gold tribute, or as punishment for other offenses? Not necessarily. What it does mean is that absent the discovery of some hitherto unknown primary source from Columbus’s era, it cannot be stated as a definitive fact. But history is, after all, an argument about the past grounded in evidence from sources, and there is certainly a case to be made for both sides. I will attempt to lay out an evidence-based argument for both sides, yet this will be far from comprehensive. I am hopeful that historians and enthusiasts will take it from here.

No, Columbus didn’t punish natives by cutting off their hands

First and foremost, nowhere in the primary source record is mentioned that Spaniards, under the leadership and direction of Columbus, were severing the hands of natives, let alone as punishment. The first instance of this occurred in 1503 under Nicolás de Ovando. Regarding failure to pay the gold tribute, the only further information we have is provided by Las Casas, who states he heard the Indians were punished “though moderately.” If Las Casas did know that Columbus was chopping off hands of natives, he would’ve undoubtedly mentioned it. As an early advocate for natives’ rights, he was not shy about criticizing the Admiral’s actions towards them, calling his policies – and the tribute system itself – unjust and irrational. Yet he mixed his criticism with defense of Columbus’s accomplishments, holding him in high regard as a person and acknowledging that he treated the natives better than those who succeeded him.⁹

Would Ferdinand Columbus, whose information Las Casas relied heavily on, have deliberately omitted such a crime? It’s possible. But he didn’t shy away from praising brutal forms of punishment. In one instance, natives under the orders of cacique Guarionex stole images of God from a chapel, then proceeded to desecrate and jeer at them. Ferdinand writes, “As the viceroy’s lieutenant and governor of the islands, [Christopher’s brother Don Bartholomew Columbus] brought those wicked men to trial, and their crime having been established, he caused them to be publicly burned at the stake.” (The Life, p. 167) His word choice here makes his sentiments apparent. He also details an incident where some Indians had their ears cut off for stealing clothes from the Spaniards (The Life, p. 129). If these instances are mentioned, why would he omit the severing of hands if he thought it just?

Moreover, in the context of what was happening, it would not have made sense to mete out such a harsh punishment en masse. Columbus was attempting to maintain order at the time, and he did have a native chief named Guacanagarí as an ally. An extreme punishment for failing to pay the gold tribute may have angered the cacique and risk alienating him. This would make governing the island more difficult. In addition, this tribute was to be paid every three months – wouldn’t severing the hands needed to gather the gold or cotton be counter-productive for the following period?¹⁰

Finally, since the claim originated from a questionable source with an ideological motive, and did not precisely cite the historical record, it would seem that this is more than likely a baseless error. At least insofar as specifically being the punishment for failing to pay the gold tribute, it probably didn’t happen.

Yes, Columbus did punish natives by cutting off their hands

Though there are no direct statements in the historical record to confirm that this happened, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. There are a number of potential reasons for this absence. Since Las Casas didn’t arrive in the Americas until 1502, he had to rely on the works of Ferdinand Columbus and others for Book I of History of the Indies. Given the filial bond and Ferdinand’s aim to shape his father’s legacy, it’s plausible that he downplayed or omitted events that would have tarnished Columbus’s reputation, and thus would be unknown to Las Casas. Since he didn’t become a humanitarian until a decade later, he likely would not have thought to inquire about such details from those who had potentially witnessed them, by which time they may have been gone. 

The early instances of natives’ hands being cut off which Las Casas reports in History of the Indies were events he personally witnessed; they are numerous and begin shortly after his arrival. It could be that this is simply the actions of Ovando, or it could be that it was occurring before Las Casas’s arrival, unbeknownst to him. One tantalizing piece of evidence is that the first two instances occurred while a man named Juan de Esquivel was captain-general of the Spanish troops suppressing the Higuey rebellion. Esquivel accompanied Columbus over to the Americas on his second voyage and then settled in Hispaniola. Could he have learned this barbaric practice sometime while Columbus was still governor?

Finally, as previously mentioned, there were documented instances of harsh punishments being meted out to natives under Columbus and his brothers. Columbus even sentenced some natives to death for small theft, before acquiescing to the entreaties of a devastated cacique and setting them free. If they cut off ears and burned natives at the stake, why not cut off hands? It would not be far outside the norm of punishments during that brutal time period which coincided with the Spanish Inquisition and its unique, barbaric methods of torture. Nor was the practice without precedent. Las Casas mentions one instance of a king ordering the hands of a Genoese merchant cut off as punishment in 1453 – almost 40 years before Columbus’s first voyage. (History of the Indies, Volume I, Chapter 18, p. 150) And then there’s the previously mentioned cases of the mutineers cutting the hands off the 18 natives for hanging onto the sides of the canoes, and the allegations that Columbus and his brothers cut the hands off Spaniards for trivial things. Though these allegations needed to be taken with a grain of salt, if even remotely true, would such treatment not be extended to natives?

In the absence of direct primary source evidence, this debate remains unresolved, exemplifying the uncertain nature of historical interpretation. It serves as a reminder of the need for critical analysis and the careful handling of evidence when reconstructing the past. In reality, it’s unlikely we will ever be certain one way or the other if Columbus perpetrated this atrocity as punishment to the natives.

Conclusion and Implications

A few things are clear. First, unless a previously unknown source is discovered with clarifying evidence (which is highly unlikely at this point), no one can claim as an indisputable fact that Columbus’s soldiers cut the hands off of natives for not delivering gold tribute. I have demonstrated convincingly that not only is it absent from the historical record, but it originated from a source with questionable authority. At best, it must be presented as “may have” or “possibly.”

Beyond the question of Columbus’s actions, this issue highlights the importance of precisely citing sources and verifying claims by going to the origin of information – the building blocks of knowledge being primary sources in history and peer-reviewed studies in the sciences. The validity of historical claims rests on tracing the chain of information back to legitimate, foundational sources. In the case of whether Columbus cut off natives’ hands, the chain was broken with Koning’s book, so the focus shifts to his work. The reality of him being an unreliable, unauthoritative, and ideologically motivated source coupled with the absence of direct primary source evidence puts this whole claim in doubt.

However, had Koning precisely cited where this information came from in the historical record, rather than resorting to scattered references to Las Casas, it would’ve been easily verifiable, and may not have taken hold. If Zinn had paid as much attention to objective and accurate scholarship as he did his own ideological mission, he would have vetted the questionable Koning book before incorporating its information into A People’s History. Had someone questioned Zinn’s use – of which he made no secret – of the Koning book, the claim may have been debunked before it was popularized. And finally, had a historian gone through the pains to check this claim against the historical record – after all, that is their job – prior to it becoming conventional wisdom, it never would have. To be fair to the latter point, the internet with all of its limitless resources did not exist when Koning’s and Zinn’s books were written; I would not have been able to write this article without this luxury.

Yet the internet and the infinite stream of information it provides is a double-edged sword. Online claims are often as likely to be false as true, and social media platforms enable misinformation to spread unchecked and shape public perception. As teachers, instructing students about information literacy should take precedence. And not just how to verify if certain things are true, but the importance of doing so as well. Some may argue that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter whether Columbus cut the hands off of natives since he committed so many other crimes against them; why go through all this trouble to correct a claim that wouldn’t change the legacy of the Admiral in the minds of most people? Because a strong society is one based on truth, and even when misinformation appears insignificant in the broader narrative, it can distort our understanding and erode our ability to engage in informed discourse. We must strive to create a world where people will understand the building blocks of knowledge and will discuss claims based on evidence to prevent spreading false and misleading information. Our collective responsibility lies in building a society where claims are tested against evidence, and truth serves as the foundation of our understanding of the past and present.

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Footnotes:

1. History of the Indies was a five volume, three book work, written mostly in chronological order. Each book corresponded to a decade’s time period: book one was 1492-1500,book two was 1500-1509, and book three was 1510 on. In 1971, professor of literature Andrée M. Collard put together a piecemeal, partial translation of the work, but much of it still remains in Spanish.
   
2. While I am not fluent in Spanish, I am conversational and do know a lot. This, along with the help of digital translation tools (Google Translate, ChatGPT, etc) and cross referencing translated passages to the original Spanish, allowed me to make rough translations of important passages. I will provide the original Spanish for all of my translated passages in the footnotes. Here is the original Spanish of this passage: “Impuso el Almirante á todos los vecinos de la provincia de Cibao y á los de la Vega Real, y á todos los cercanos á las minas, todos los de catorce años arriba, de tres en tres meses un cascabel de los de Flandes, digo lo hueco de un cascabel, lleno de oro, … Ordenóse despues de hacer una cierta moneda de cobre ó de laton en la cual se hiciese una señal, y esta se mudase á cada tributo, para que cada indio de los tributarios la trajese al cuello, porque se cognosciese quién la habia pagado y quién no; por manera que, el que no la trajese habia de ser castigado, aunque, diz que, moderadamente, por no haber pagado el tributo.”
   
3. See last sentence in Spanish quote above in footnote two, particularly the word “moderadamente.”
   
4. Original Spanish: “Tenian por regla los españoles, como arriba queda dicho, en las guerras que hacian á los indios, ser siempre, no como quiera, sino muy mucho y extrañamente crueles, porque jamás osen los indios dejar de sufrir la aspereza y amargura de la infelice vida que con ellos tienen, y que ni si son hombres conozcan, ó en algun momento de tiempo piensen; muchos de los que tomaban cortaban las manos ambas, á cercen, ó, colgadas de un hollejo, decíanles: «anda, lleva á vuestros señores esas cartas;» conviene á saber, esas nuevas.”
   
5. “Otros y todos los que querían tomar a vida cortávanles ambas manos y dellas llevavan colgando, y dezíanles andad con cartas (conviene a saber) lleva las nuevas a las gentes que estavan huydas por los montes.” (Devastation of the Indies, p. 11)
   
6. Spanish: “Los del Almirante hacen relacion á los Reyes del levantamiento y desobediencia de Francisco Roldan, y de los que le siguieron ser hombres facinerosos, viciosos, robadores, violentos, ladrones, forzadores de mujeres casadas, corrompedores de vírgenes, homicidas, falsos, perjuros, fementidos; de los robos, muertes, daños grandes y escándalos que en toda esta isla habian hecho, y de los trabajos y peligros que, sobre esto, el Adelantado, y despues el Almirante, padecieron. Los de Roldan, por el contrario, dieron del Almirante y de sus hermanos terribles quejas, llamándolos tiranos, injustos, crueles, que por cosas fáciles atormentaban los españoles, los degollaban, ahorcaban, azotaban, cortaban manos, sediendo la sangre castellana como capitales enemigos, deservidores de los Reyes, y que no procuraban sino alzarse con el imperio destas Indias.”
   
7. English: “the Admiral in the space of a year … completely pacified the island without having to unsheath his sword again. He reduced the Indians to such obedience and tranquility that they all promised to pay tribute” (The Life, p. 149)
   
   Spanish: “anduvo el Almirante por la isla, y sin sacar más la espada, la puso -tan obediente y quieta, que todos prometieron pagar a los Reyes Católicos cada tres meses tributo.” Translated: “The Admiral traveled the island, and without drawing his sword again, made it so obedient and peaceful that all promised to pay the Catholic Royals three months’ tribute.” (Historia del Almirante, p. 273) The word “pacify” is not used in this passage. There are other instances of the word used later on in The Life that go beyond the bounds of this Spanish version, but there’s a likelihood those are also products of translation.
   
8. See the footnote seven in my previous article on Columbus for more about this. 
   
9. “[Bodadilla] would frequently tell [the Spaniards]: ‘Take as many advantages [upon the Indians] as you can since you don’t know how long this will last’; he cared even less for the hardships, afflictions and deaths of the Indians. The Spaniards loved and adored him in exchange for such favors, help and advice, because they knew how much freer they were [to run rampant and commit crimes against the natives] now than under Columbus.
   
   The admiral, it is true, was as blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians. However, if he did not report the harm that certain Spaniards caused them, and if he assigned a tribe of Indians to Francisco Roldán and a few others to do work for them or find gold, it seems the occasions were very, very rare, and he acted as if forced to it by his own men, on account of past rebellions. At least he did abominate the free and easy life of those sinners who called themselves Christians.” (History of the Indies, Book II, Ch. 1, p. 79, Collard translation)
   
10. Credit to a friend of mine for this. I was explaining my argument to her and she pointed out this argument.

Main image credit to the Baltimore Sun.