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This question refers to the following information.
The pair of excerpts below is written by explorer Christopher Columbus and the Dominican Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, Bartholomew de las Casas.
Source 1
Indians would give whatever the seller required. . . . Thus they bartered, like idiots, cotton and gold for fragments of bows, glasses, bottles, and jars; which I forbad as being unjust, and myself gave them many beautiful and acceptable articles which I had brought with me, taking nothing from them in return; I did this in order that I might the more easily conciliate them, that they might be led to become Christians, and be inclined to entertain a regard for the King and Queen, our Princes and all Spaniards, and that I might induce them to take an interest in seeking out, and collecting and delivering to us such things as they possessed in abundance, but which we greatly needed.
—Christopher Columbus: letter to Raphael Sanchez, 1493
Source 2
It was upon these gentle lambs . . . that from the very first day they clapped eyes on them the Spanish fell like ravening wolves upon the fold, or like tigers and savage lions who have not eaten meat for days. The pattern established at the outset has remained unchanged to this day, and the Spaniards still do nothing save tear the natives to shreds, murder them and inflict upon them untold misery, suffering and distress, tormenting, harrying and persecuting them mercilessly. We shall in due course describe some of the many ingenious methods of torture they have invented and refined for this purpose, but one can get some idea of the effectiveness of their methods from the figures alone. When the Spanish first journeyed there, the indigenous population of the island of Hispaniola stood at some three million; today only two hundred survive. Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate disproportionate to their merits.
—Bartholomew de las Casas: A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, 1542
Which of the following would best account for the differences between the interactions of the Spaniards and the natives as described in the two accounts?

choices

  1. De las Casas was exaggerating to support the start of African slavery.
  2. Columbus was biased in favor of himself in his writings.
  3. Columbus's men were nicer to the natives than were later expeditions.
  4. De las Casas wanted the Spanish to leave the Americas.

subject

high_school_european_history

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