Editing Amerindian Genocide (section)

===Genocide in the Caribbean===

==== Depopulation of the Taíno ====
When [[Christopher Columbus]] first landed in Mesoamerica in 1494, he took several members of the Arawak tribe captive in the hope that they could lead him to gold. Upon writing to King Ferdinand of Spain of his discovery, Columbus was granted permission to enslave the native population and use them to find gold. Columbus's troops immediately set about raping, killing and [[Torture|torturing]] in an attempt to force the natives to tell them where the gold was. Columbus organized several groups of armed men to search for the non-existent gold, leading to the deaths of thousands of sick and unarmed natives. Captives were used for sword practice, with Columbus's soldiers attempting to decapitate them or cut them in half with one blow. The situation was so extreme that about 50,000 Taíno natives chose to commit suicide rather than live under Spanish rule.

Columbus enslaved the population of Hispaniola and set up a system wherein all natives over 14 were responsible for gathering a certain amount of gold each month, awarding them with a copper token to hang around their neck if they succeeded. If a native was caught without a token they would have their hands cut off and be allowed to bleed to death. Natives who attempted to flee slavery were mauled to death by attack dogs. Sexual slavery was also widespread, with Columbus forcibly marrying native women to his men. During this period the native population of Hispaniola plummeted rapidly until it was practically wiped out, partly due to being killed and partly due to smallpox introduced by the Spanish which the natives lacked any immunity to. Columbus was eventually arrested by agents of the Spanish Crown for his atrocities, but the charges against him were dropped.  

After approximately three million natives were killed, the Spanish colonial authorities reformed their approach, adopting the [[Encomienda|''encomienda'']] system; a system of slavery wherein certain grant holders were awarded a monopoly on the labor of certain groups. Natives were allocated to certain ''encomiendero'' and put to work mining for gold. This ended up being deadlier than traditional slavery because there was no incentive to keep the native slaves alive as they could be replaced for free, resulting in the Spanish abusing and killing the native slaves regularly. The ''encomienda'' system has been described by modern historians as explicitly genocidal, because it resulted in the intentional deaths of millions and the eradication of potentially thousands of native cultures. 

====Conflict with the Kalinago====
The Caribbean island of Saint Kitts was colonized by British, French and Irish settlers in 1623, upsetting the native Kalinago tribe. The Kalinago chief [[Tegremond]] began plotting to kill the settlers in 1626 out of fear they would [[Kalinago Genocide|massacre]] his people. However, the settlers were informed and decided to take pre-emptive action against the natives. Tegremond and his tribe were invited to a feast, where the settlers got them drunk before allowing them to return to their village. The settlers then attacked the village and killed 120 Kalinago, including Tegremond, while they were in a drunken stupor. The following day, 4,000 Kalinago were rounded up and forced up to what is now known as Bloody Point. The Kalinago fought back, leading to the killings of half of the captives. The other 2,000 managed to escape into the mountains, where they were hunted down and either enslaved or forcibly removed to Dominica. 

During the colonization of the Leeward Islands, the Kalinago engaged in conflicts against the British and French settlers and destroyed their plantations in an attempt to expel them from the islands. In 1660, the British and French signed the Saint Charles treaty to expel the Kalinago to Dominica and Saint Vincent, which served as reserves for the native Caribs. On Saint Vincent, a series of wars took place between the Kalinago and the British until the resistance was finally crushed in 1797 and the natives were deported to the island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras.