"They have no iron or steel weapons, nor are they capable of using them... They would make fine servants."

"I have seen serpents, but they are not as they are painted."

"It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel His hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculi…"

"I believe that in these lands there are many things which are not known, and which are not seen, and which are not heard, and which are not known, and which are not seen, and which are not heard."

"As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force."