Much has been written about the violence perpetrated on the natives of the islands where Columbus landed in 1492 and during his subsequent landings from 1493 to 1504. According to these authors, Columbus is responsible for the torture and genocide of, what some claim, may be millions of natives and is also blamed for initiating slave trade and other atrocities.

Columbus is attacked for his treatment of the natives, but one underlying cause was the conflicts between the natives and the Spaniards. That started after Columbus returned to Spain when the natives killed all the men he left in a small fort built at Navidad, the first European settlement on the islands.