Testimonios sobre canibalismo en la carta del doctor Chanca al cabildo de Sevilla

Abstract

Doctor Chanca, a physician who accompanied Columbus during the second
voyage (1493-1496), wrote a letter to the Council of Seville, the very first
description about the caribbean Indians. The document is a portrayal of those
men and women, includes not only information provided by savages that
Columbus previously qualified as good people, but also a very pessimistic
vision about the bad savage to be civilized by Europe. His references to
cannibals, that terrified Taino people because of their ferocity, served as a
counterweight of the image of the “Noble Savage”, and lead us to a reflection
about how it promoted the colonization of America and the vigilant eye of
ethnographers.