By Cave, Karen Carroll (NHC Education Digital Projects Coordinator, 2016–18)

First contact experiences on Hispaniola included brutal interactions between the Spanish and the Native Americans. Conquistadors subjugated populations primarily to garner personal economic wealth, and Natives little understood the nature of the conquest. As early as 1522 Bartolome de Las Casas worked to denounce these activities on political, economic, moral, and religious grounds by chronicling the actions of the conquistadors for the Spanish court.

Subjects

History / Education Studies / Taíno People / Indigenous Peoples of the Americas / Spanish Occupation of Latin America / Colonialism / Caribbean History / Spanish Empire /