He also understood that, far away, there were men with one eye, and others with dogs’ noses who were cannibals, and that when they captured an enemy they beheaded him and drank his blood…
This sentence makes me wonder what things would be like had Columbus met these Natives first instead of the ones he first encountered.
They brought skeins of cotton thread, parrots, darts, and other small things, which it would be tedious to recount, and they give all in exchange for anything that may be given to them.
I feel that it is easy to see the first interactions between the Europeans and the Natives to be easy going. They simply shared items amongst each other. Though it's obvious that the Europeans had underlying intentions and the Natives simply intrigued by the new people and their goods.
that we might form great friendship, for I knew that they were a people who could be more easily freed and converted to our holy faith by love than by force, gave to some of them red caps, and glass beads to put round their necks, and many other things of little value, which gave them great pleasure, and made them so much our friends that it was a marvel to see.
I found this sentence from the excerpt to be quite informative on how Columbus saw the natives of americas. He talked about wanting to be "great friends". But in my mind he means that they are simply easily people to use in his idea of furthering European powers. It also seems that the tone of force and love may cause different forms of his ideas to be on display. That being how he deals with them what happens to those who conform to christianity and those who do not want to. It's easy to see that Columbus saw the natives as less than because they didn't know the value of them items he shared with them. I think this statement was the start of furthering the notion of those who are not from Europe to be less than and in capable of being on the same level as Europeans. Simply because the natives put higher value in other things than the Europeans do.