it should not be observed at all
read Gary Jennings books, Aztec
Viva El Frente/Verde

Mario; I have to agree with you.
Time and again, Colón is judged outside of the historical context in which he lived. He was no different than Europeans of other nationalities and ethnicities. To lay the blame for the atrocities committed against indigenous peoples squarely on his shoulders, without scourging all of the rest of the “explorers” is naïve.
And, while del las Casas was clearly an advocate for the indigenous people, I don’t think that Africans would award him a humanitarian prize, so to my thinking, defending one group by suggesting the enslavement of another smacks of bias that puts his statistics in a questionable light. Five million is a high number to count and access – I don’t doubt the veracity of the claim in the overall genocide of South and North América, over period of time that was beyond de las Casas’ lifetime, but if people accept his claims as truth, then they’re going to accept other suspect facts as truth too, and what that does is it puts much of history on its head.
So, point the finger, equally, at ALL of the lawless Europeans, or leave Colón alone. Allowing the Anglos and their allies to have Colón and other Latins to shoulder the blame, plays right into their agenda of divide and conquer. It should be our business as Latinos to work to repair the damage that genocide, racism, slavery, and exploitation has visited on all of us. Evo Morales said that his people aren’t about revenge; we can learn from that by looking into all of our communities; black, white, Asian, Arab, Jew, indigenous, and work on our common goals.
Our Latin-Italian brothers and sisters should let go of the notion that Colón was Genoese. Colón even had correspondence with his brother, Diego, in which he stated that he wasn’t the first admiral in the family, by mentioning their uncle who had been a Catalán naval officer – something that was important to withhold from the Catholic Kings.