The Caribs and Arawaks, were literally driven to extinction by  
slavery, particularly the early sex slavery practiced by the Spanish.  
The Arawak population in the West Indies was estimated to be about 2  
to 3 million at first contact, and had been reduced  to a few  
thousand by the early 16th century. By time that century had ended  
the island Arawak were extinct. This catastrophic mortality resulted  
from the introduction of European diseases,disruption of their system  
of sustainable agriculture and, equally, from Spanish brutality and  
attempts to enslave them. There were mass suicides amongst the  
Caribbean tribes, especially the Arawaks when it became clear to some  
tribal groups that slavery was their only option. Amongst some  
archaeologists, who specialize in the opening of the New World, the  
reason Columbus' diaries have never been released by the family is  
that they reveal that much of his fortune came from selling pubescent  
girls, and boys, to grandees in the Old World.  The Arawaks girls  
were, by contemporaneous reports, very lovely.

-- S


On 14 Jun 2007, at 21:04, Anne Pemberton wrote:

> Actually, according to the Jamestown Narratives, and what I am  
> reading on the Pennsylvania Colony and its relationship to the  
> Indians, "saving" the Indians had little to do with the goals of  
> the colonies.
>
> Jamestown came to seek riches. When they discovered the riches in  
> tobacco, they wanted land. The Pennsylvania colonists came  
> specifically for land. Land, was the most desired commodity. The  
> Natives were on the land, so the notion of calling them savages,  
> marginalizing them, making them slaves in accordance with the Old  
> Testament commands, and feebly trying to Christianize them (then  
> totally ignoring those who converted when removal was the goal),  
> were the initiatives involved. I'm not as knowledgeable on the  
> Massachusetts colony, but again, the goal seems to have been to  
> secure land, with a feeble intent to Christianize the Indians,  
> again with the colonists ignoring the Christians among the Indians  
> when removal became the goal.
>
> As soon as the Indians posed any resistance to the colonists  
> intents, the saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" spread  
> throughout the colony, whichever one it was.
>
> There seems to be little distinction among the Puritan colonists in  
> Massachusetts, the Quaker colonists in Pennsylvania, and the  
> Corporate colonists in Virginia. They all seemed to follow the same  
> agenda. The Indians as slaves had one advantage over the African  
> slaves - they knew the lay of the land better than their owners and  
> could escape almost at will. The Africans did not know their way  
> around and were stuck in place.
>
> Anne
> Anne Pemberton
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.erols.com/apembert
> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org