Lately I have been seeing a lot of debate over Christopher Columbus, and while most seem to agree he was a cruel man he does have quite a few defenders. A debate I have seen pop up a few times is in regards to a letter he wrote.
People on one side take this line as proof he was a sex trafficker: “There are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand, and for all ages a good price must be paid.”
While people on the other side assert the very next line to show that he actually condemned sex trafficking: “I assert that the violence of the calumny of turbulent persons has injured me more than my services have profited me; which is a bad example for the present and for the future. I take my oath that a number of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water in the sight of God and of the world.”
It appears some are asserting that the people “who did not deserve water in the sight of god and the world” are the sex traffickers, while others are asserting that those are the turbulent persons spreading calumny about Columbus.
I am curious to hear what some Historians have to say about this.
I happen to have a full volume of Columbus' letters, including this letter to Juana de Torres who had been a nurse to prince John. I will translate a whole section of it, with its adequate context, and make a few necessary comments on the matter:
[Bobadilla] had indignated them against me, saying that I wanted to take from them what Their Highnesses had given them, and worked to throw them all against me, and so he did, and that they should write to Their Highnesses that I should be no longer in office, and for that I myself pray so far as there is no more people, and with his inquiry he maligned me very much, inquiring on so evil things that not even in Hell had such things ever been heard of.
There you have Our Lord, who helped Daniel escape, and the three boys, with as much wisdom and strength as he had, and with so much industry as he pleased.
I wish I could remedy all this, and the other things that has been said, and that has happened after I am here in the Indies, if will would allow me to procure for my own good, and that would be honest towards me. But upholding justice and the enlargement or Their Highnesses' realm has me completely sunk. Today, that so much gold is found, there is division on where is there more to gain, in theft or in toiling the mines. For a woman, a hundred castellanos are paid, as much as for a good farmstead, and it is very much in fashion, and there are many merchants who are looking for girls: of ages nine or ten are now appreciated, but a good merchant should have of every age. [...]
I assert that the ill speaking of the turbulent people has caused me more damage than my services have profitted me: bad example is this for the present or for the future.
I swear that a number of people have gone to the Indies that did not deserve water before the eyes of God or the world, and now they are going back there [to whence they came].
This assertion of not deserving water is a broad generalisation, not referring specifically to the slave merchants, but to a wide number of people, and he was not wrong in saying that, and I would argue that he would be amongst them. One of the people he blames the most is Francisco de Bobadilla, the pesquisidor (attorney) sent by the Crown to investigate Columbus' management of the territory, and the claims of corruption, tyranny, and mismanagement. Columbus, in this letter to Juana de Torres, complains bitterly that Bobadilla has turned the whole island against him, when such a thing is not true: Bobadilla was a consequence, not a cause. Francisco de Bobadilla was sent to investigate what many people had reported previously to the Crown, he did not make the accusations out of thin air.
About the alleged sex slavery, it is not really clear from that letter, but I would rule that meaning out. Sexual abuse of young girls not only is considered criminal now, but so was it back then. If we consider the fact that Columbus mentions the sell of girls being rather in vogue, one can only think of the regular kind of slavery, or in this case having women and girls as domestic servants. This I am not pulling out of thin air, it was very much a given that women would do domestic chores, and it was even later compiled in the Laws of Burgos-Valladolid of 1512-13 that pregnant women and young girls would be limited to domestic work, as a contrast with the males ploughing the fields or toiling the mines.