How Did Columbus Identify The Native Population Of Latin America

Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand sent Christopher Columbus on an expedition to seek new trade routes to China and the Indies in an ever growing competition to secure wealth amongst the European nations. Under the sponsorship of Spain’s crown, Columbus attempted to sail westward and establish a new trade route but was manipulated off course by a severe storm and found himself in lands unknown. We now know the region to be the Americas and the maritime explorer deemed it the New World. Columbus, still unaware that he was not in the Indies, deemed the native population as “Indians”. These indigenous populations varied as greatly as the Europeans relationship with them. With pressure to produce revenue for the homeland and convert all non-Christians,
Sedentary populations most closely followed a European structured settlement. The most sedentary populations were found in central Mexico and the central Andes.1
These populations were characterized by heavy reliance on agriculture, permanent shelters, and nucleus-type “cities”.
Some well known examples of this are the Incan and Mayan empires. The most prominently produced crops were corn and potatoes which Columbus later took back to Europe. These city type villages were structured by outlying farms that produced different goods and traded them within the central market or were used as tribute which were essentially taxes. The members were diverse and skilled so rotary labor could be used to maintain different public works projects. 2
There were distinctions between some Indians who closely resembled nobleman in that they wore quality clothes and participated little in manual labor. The hamlets and provinces were mostly operated by entire families and up to 50 farms were regulated by a provincial leader who answered to a king figure. The king figure was replaced by male