[Source: 1911 EB, vol. 3, p. 209, col. 1,"Bahamas"]
[It should be noted that Columbus had nothing to do with this particular crime, or any other that I know of; the person responsible was Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, governor of Hispaniola, starting in 1509:]

"Columbus passed through the islands, and in one of his letters
to Ferdinand and Isabella he said, 'This country excels all others
as far as the day surpasses the night in splendour; the natives
love their neighbours as themselves; their conversation is the
sweetest imaginable; their faces always smiling; and so gentle
and so affectionate are they, that I swear to your highness there
is not a better people in the world.' But the natives, innocent
as they appeared, were doomed to utter destruction. Ovando,
the governor of Hispaniola (Haiti), who had exhausted the labour
of that island, turned his thoughts to the Bahamas, and in 1509
Ferdinand authorized him to procure labourers from these islands.
It is said that reverence and love for their departed relatives
was a marked feature in the character of the aborigines, and that
the Spaniards made use of this as a bait to trap the unhappy
natives. They promised to convey the ignorant savages in their
ships to the 'heavenly shores' where their departed friends now
dwelt, and about 40,000 were transported to Hispaniola to perish
miserably in the mines..."

Note: the Spanish name for the tribe was "los lucayanos"
-- the Lucayans.
R.I.P.

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