Final answer:
Columbus's need to deliver profits to the Spanish monarchs directly contributed to the exploitation and suffering of Native Americans. Their situation was exacerbated by systems like Encomienda and the consequential spread of diseases and warfare.
Step-by-step explanation:
The importance of Columbus "paying back the dividends" refers to the expectations of the Spanish monarchs who financed his voyages. They aimed to gain wealth and expand their empire, an endeavor that required Columbus to find resources and riches to justify their investment.
This expectation to deliver profits led Columbus and subsequent European explorers to exploit the continents they "discovered," which had severe implications for the Native Americans.
This exploitation included forcibly extracting labor from the Indigenous population and subjecting them to systems such as the Encomienda, which worsened their situation through enslavement, disease, and cultural disruption.
Columbus's perspective on the Native Americans was initially of a group that was "timid and full of fear," which did not prevent him from capturing some of them to demonstrate their existence to the Spanish crown. Columbus's and Las Casas's differing accounts highlight the complex nature of the early contact between Europeans and Native Americans.
While Las Casas eventually advocated for better treatment of the natives, his earlier involvement in the Encomienda system solidified the brutal treatment of Indigenous peoples in the Spanish colonies.
The settlers' and colonizers’ relentless drive for profit led to catastrophic repercussions, such as The Great Dying, due to diseases and the intensification of Native American warfare through the introduction of guns.
The settlers' desire for wealth even led them to establish the heinous Triangular Trade system, which institutionalized the transatlantic slave trade and resulted in the suffering of millions of people.