Slavery During American Revolution - Essay Example

The Arawaks also provided food, gifts and water to Christopher Columbus and his crew upon arrival in the territories of America. All these humane care and concern as displayed by Arawaks to Columbus and his group were senseless in ensuring continued peace and freedom among the communities of the Arawaks. These events as faced by Arawaks marked the sad the beginning of the slavery and American Revolution. Derived from the meek nature of the Arawaks, Columbus and his group developed mechanisms and ideas of converting innocent and peasant community into their slaves (Zinn 1).

In the reports of Zinn (1), Columbus and his group were pleased with the good bodies of the Arawaks and the fact that they lacked dread weapons earned Columbus and his group much confidence to pursue and subdue the Arawaks in their own land. Zinn (1) connotes Columbus saying, “They have no iron. They got spears made of cane…they would make fine servants”. Columbus and his group had well wedged iron weapons, which they even witnessed, cut one of the Arawaks when he received the weapon from the Columbus by holding the sharp edge.

Columbus was also coined arguing that the ignorance of the Arawaks is the reason as to why the cut themselves with the iron. Columbus and his group on realizing that Baham island s were rich in precious gold, he resorted to engage forced slavery in the extraction process of the gold (Zinn 1). In order to enhance the power of his crew, Columbus travelled back to Italy with elements of gold to convince king to add him some other personalities to help him utilize the Arawaks in mining of the gold. Zinn (1) confirms that Columbus used his boosted force to compel the miserable Arawaks work in the mines and obtain him gold under slavery.

Much work with insufficient food led to suffocation of the Arawaks thus leading to their death in large numbers. According to Zinn (1), Columbus also seized and enslaved a population of Indians in the Caribbean Island after he recognized that they were equally non-brutal. The enslaved Indians worked in the gold rich mines to excavate gold that were later transported to Europe. Many Indian however faced death due to their stubbornness to the Europeans. Those who could not work as slaves harmed and killed. Zinn (1) also confirms that Columbus picked 500 strong men among the Indian and Arawak communities to load gold into the ships and journey to Europe.

Some of the slaves boarded on the ships in the reports of Zinn (1) died on the way to adverse cold weather in the ocean. Those who managed to reach Spain were sold as slaves to the rich households in Spain. Indians were forcibly compelled to gather gold in the depleted gold mines. Failure to collect sufficient amount called for mistreatment. Zinn (1) further reports that, the massive murder was directed to the Arawaks who tried to rebel against the Europeans. In addition, Indian and Arawaks under imprisonment faced merciless hanging by the Spaniard armies (Zinn 1).

In the views of Zinn (1), Pizarro one of the successors of Columbus conceded vehement killing of Indians whom he considered as scarifies to his gods. Indians would resist the domination of the Europeans to convert them into slaves. Indians’ resistance made Europeans to advance numerous attacks against the Indians, which included destruction of crops and death of people and animals. Zinn (2) reports that the white settlers in Virginia indulged in large