In honour of Columbus Day in the U.S., I posted a new essay on the website for my new book The Race to the New World on the links between Columbus, the "Indians" he encountered when he made landfall in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, and the simultaneous conquest of islands in the Canaries and enslavement of indigenous Guanches there by some of the same people backing Columbus. It's no accident Columbus thought the Indians would make good slaves and looked like Canary Islanders to him.
You can read it at
http://web.mac.com/dwh5/Site_3/Columb...
The Race to the New World: Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and a Lost History of Discovery