“So tractable, so peaceable, are these people,” Columbus wrote to the King and Queen of Spain, “that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile; and though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.”

-Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

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     The natives first presented the foreigners with gifts and then Columbus sent back word to the king of Spain of their peaceful nature and generosity.  One can only guess whether he wrote this knowing that the king would take this news as a sign of weakness and heathenism, or not.  What he wrote was the one of the first causes of the travel of several million Europeans and their descendants that undertook a life to enforce their ways upon the people of the New World.