4 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and Enslavementthem] would not stand before three of our men... they are
good to be ordered about, to work and sow, and do all that
may be necessary, and to build towns, and they should be
taught to go about clothed and to adopt our customs.”^18 In
fact, Columbus did have experience with slavery and the
slave trade as practiced on Africa’s Atlantic islands. Colum-
bus’s fi nal port of call before embarking on his transatlantic
voyage was not in Spain, under whose fl ag he traveled, but
the Canary Islands.^19
Within months of Columbus’s initial return, Pope Al-
exander VI issued a papal bull in 1493 that established the
earth as the rightful property of the Church to be divided
into two regions, the one half belonging to Spain and the
other to Portugal. European expansion in this era consti-
tuted a particular combination of religious and political
aims that is well articulated in the language of the 1493
pronouncement:Among other works well pleasing to the Divine Majesty and
cherished of our heart, this assuredly ranks highest, that in
our times especially the Catholic faith and the Christian reli-
gion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that
the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be
overthrown and brought to the faith itself.^20Not wavered by the papal pronouncement, European
navigators, not only Spanish and Portuguese, but also Dutch,
French, and English, began to develop maps and engage in
their own treks across the Atlantic. Indeed, overseas expan-
sion became crucial components of a burgeoning national
zeal that swept much of Western Europe during the 15th
and 16th centuries. Th e Atlantic Rim operated as a crucial
interfaith and intercultural space where European national
identities were constructed. Notably, the early development
of plantation societies in the Atlantic shift ed the Western
European gaze away from the spices of the East toward the
plantations of the Americas. As a result, the Atlantic Rim,
including Europe, America, and Africa, became a complex
swirl of race, commerce, and religion.^21
Atlantic Africans played a critical role in the develop-
ment of the early Atlantic, serving variously as merchants,
sailors, slaves, traders, and clerics. In recent years, scholars
have devoted signifi cant attention to the lives and experi-
ences of these Atlantic Africans, noting that during the 17th
century, New World colonial societies, especially British
North America, developed varied systems of forced labor,
of which slavery was simply one among many. Th at is to say,economic and commercial profi t for the mother country.
Aft er having won a military victory over the Moors, Span-
ish authorities quickly passed legislation that called for the
expulsion of Jews from the country. Spanish political and
religious leaders regarded the expulsion of Muslims and
Jews as one aspect of a critical religious war. But if religious
confl ict characterized late-15th-century Spain, the same
may not be said for the entire period of Moorish rule in the
Iberian Peninsula. Indeed, the remarkable religious toler-
ance between Christians, Jews, and Muslims that marked
the period was highlighted by signifi cant cultural and reli-
gious interaction. Th e period during which Abd al- Rahman
III ruled in Cordoba (912–61), for example, was a time of
great opulence in which intellectual circles of Muslims,
Jews, and Christians contributed to a fl ourishing of the arts,
literature, astronomy, and medicine.^16 Muslims governing
in Spain did not mandate conversion to Islam and in allow-
ing Christians and Jews to observe their faith exhibited tol-
erance for a people whom they regarded, based on Qur’anic
readings, as “People of the Book.” Th is is not to understate
the religious and ethnic tensions that most certainly ac-
companied the Muslim presence in the region, especially
aft er the 13th-century rise to power of the Almoravids. In
the end, Arab architecture, language, and culture played a
signifi cant role in the region and its legacy is still evident
not only in European architecture, but also in the realm of
language including such commonly used words as alcohol,
almanac, zero, and elixir.^17
While the Portuguese searched for an eastward route
to Asia by establishing trading posts along the coastal areas
of Africa, India, and Indonesia, the Spanish gambled on a
westward route. Spain sponsored the voyage of an Italian-
born navigator, Christopher Columbus, who set sail in 1492
across the Atlantic in search of Asia and the lucrative spice
trade. But Columbus knew full well the profi ts to be had
from plantation-style slavery as developed by the Portu-
guese, and so sought not only a route to the spices of the
east, but also desired access to slave labor on the order of
the Portuguese example. Th is intense desire for labor is il-
lustrated in the personal diary of Christopher Columbus
who, upon initially coming across native Arawaks in the
Bahamas in 1492, noted in his journal, “they should be good
servants and intelligent... I will take at the time of my de-
parture six natives for Your Highness.” He later made simi-
lar observations: “with fi ft y men they can all be subjugated
and made to do what is required of them... a thousand [of