He wrote to his sovereigns in January, 1494, asking for the supplies needed; and he offered, pending the discovery of more precious things, to defray expenses by shipping to Spain some of the island natives, "who are a wild people fit for any work, well proportioned and very intelligent, and who when they have got rid of their cruel habits to which they have been accustomed will be better than any other kind of slaves."[9] Though this project was discouraged by the crown, Columbus actually took a cargo of Indians for sale in Spain on his return from his third voyage; but Isabella stopped the sale and ordered the captives taken home and liberated.

Columbus, like most of his generation, regarded the Indians as infidel foreigners to be exploited at will.

But Isabella, and to some extent her successors, considered them Spanish subjects whose helplessness called for special protection.

Between the benevolence of the distant monarchs and the rapacity of the present conquerors, however, the fate of the natives was in little doubt.

The crown's officials in the Indies were the very conquerors themselves, who bent their soft instructions to fit their own hard wills.