Cannibalism in the Americas

A scene depicting ritualistic Aztec cannibalism being practiced in the Codex Magliabechiano, f. 73r

Cannibalism in the Americas has been practiced in many places throughout much of the history of North America and South America. The modern term "cannibal" is derived from the name of the Island Caribs (Kalinago), who were encountered by Christopher Columbus in The Bahamas. While numerous cultures in the Americas were reported by European explorers and colonizers to have engaged in cannibalism, some of these claims may be unreliable since the Spanish Empire used them to justify conquest.

Quotes

15th century

North America and Caribbean

  • On that island we seized twelve beautiful and very fat females, aged between fifteen and sixteen, with two boys of the same age whose genital members had been cut away clean to the belly. We figured that they had done it to keep them from mixing with their women or perhaps to fatten them up and eat them later. These boys and girls had been captured by the Cannibals; we sent them to Spain as an exhibit for the king.
  • The Cannibals, when they capture some Indians, eat them like we eat young goats, and they say that the flesh of a boy is much better than that of a female.
    • From a letter by Michele da Cuneo, who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage, on what they found and heard when visiting Guadeloupe in late 1493
    • Cited in Geoffrey Symcox and Luciano Formisano (eds.), Italian Reports on America, 1493–1522: Accounts by Contemporary Observers (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 51, 57
  • Peter Margarita, a Spaniard whose word cannot be impugned, went out to the Orient with the Admiral, attracted by the prospect of visiting the new lands. He says that with his own eyes he saw here a large number of Indians fixed on spits and roasted over hot coals to tickle the debauched palates of these people, while many bodies lay in heaps, minus head and limbs. The cannibals do not deny this but openly affirm that they eat human flesh.
  • The Caribs ... sail to the neighboring islands, making their way by paddling to people who differ greatly in manners and character. Sometimes they go greater distances, even as far as thousand miles, in search of plunder. They customarily castrate their infant captives and boy slaves and fatten them like capons. The thin and the emaciated are carefully nurtured, like wethers. Soon, when plump and fat, they are devoured all the more avidly. They hand over the female captives as slaves to their womenfolk, or make use of them to satisfy their lust. Children borne by the captured women are eaten like the captives.
    • From a letter by Nicolò Syllacio, who translated or summarized information he received from participants in Columbus's second voyage (1493–1496)
    • Cited in Samuel Eliot Morison (ed.), Journals and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (New York: Heritage Press, 1963), pp. 235–236

16th and 17th centuries

North America and Caribbean

  • The inhabitants of Hispaniola, who are a mild people, complained that they were exposed to frequent attacks from the cannibals who landed amongst them and pursued them through the forests like hunters chasing wild beasts. The cannibals captured children, whom they castrated, just as we do chickens and pigs we wish to fatten for the table, and when they were grown and become fat they ate them. Older persons, who fell into their power, were killed and cut into pieces for food; they also ate the intestines and the extremities, which they salted, just as we do hams. They did not eat women, as this would be considered a crime and an infamy. If they captured any women, they kept them and cared for them, in order that they might produce children; just as we do with hens, sheep, mares, and other animals. Old women, when captured, were made slaves.
  • Birds were boiling in their pots, also geese mixed with bits of human flesh, while other parts of human bodies were fixed on spits, ready for roasting. Upon searching another house the Spaniards found arm and leg bones, which the cannibals carefully preserve for pointing their arrows; for they have no iron. All other bones, after the flesh is eaten, they throw aside.
  • Most ferocious are those new anthropophagi, who live on human flesh, Caribs or cannibals as they are called.
    • Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, De Orbe Novo, The Third Decade, book 3
He himself would preside over the slaughter and grilling of children and ... grown men were butchered for the sake of their hands and feet
  • Since he never fed the ten or twenty thousand impressed natives in his army, he gave them leave to eat the prisoners they took, thus setting the royal seal of approval on the establishment, in his camp, of a human abattoir where he himself would preside over the slaughter and grilling of children and where grown men were butchered for the sake of their hands and feet which were generally held to be the best cuts.
  • Nay, so great was our famine, that a Salvage we slew and buried, the poorer sort tooke him up againe and eat him, and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbes; and one amongst the rest did kill his wife, and powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was knowne, for which hee was executed, as hee well deserved: now, whether she was better roasted, boyled, or carbonado'd, I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of.
  • And now famine beginning to look ghastly and pale in every face (so) that nothing was spared to maintain life, and to do those things which seem incredible, as to dig up dead corpses out of graves and eat them. And some have licked up the blood which hath fallen from their weak fellows.
    And, amongst the rest, this was most lamentable, that one of our Colony murdered his wife, ripped the child out of her womb, and threw it into the river; and after chopped the mother in pieces, and salted her for his food; the same not being discovered before he had eaten part thereof. For the which cruel and inhuman fact I adjudged him to be executed, the acknowledgment of the deed being enforced from him by torture, having hung by the thumbs, with weights at his feet, a quarter of an hour before he would confess the same.

South America

  • As to the children, either boys or girls, they will live according to their fancy. If they are pleasant of countenance, they may expect a hard domestic service, yet they stay alive, but if they captured many children, a few are killed to be cooked for eating.
    • Dutch traveller Adriaan van Berkel on the treatment of war captives among the Arawak in today's Guyana (1695)
    • Adriaan van Berkel, The Voyages of Adriaan van Berkel to Guiana: Amerindian-Dutch Relationships in 17th-Century Guyana, edited by Martijn van den Bel, Lodewijk Hulsman, and Lodewijk Wagenaar (Leiden: Sidestone, 2014), p. 106
  • (after seeing how a prisoner was killed and dismembered) The cut-off flesh, once boiled, is put into the pepperpot and eaten as good food. I have spoken to two Christians who had tried it and declared it tasted very nice.
    • Adriaan van Berkel, The Voyages of Adriaan van Berkel to Guiana, p. 107

19th century

North America

  • Many's the poor devil I've killed, at one time or another – and the time has been that I've been obliged to feed on some of 'em.

20th century

North America

  • In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco for Hong Kong China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone.
    At that time there was famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1 to $3 a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak – chops – or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girls behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price.
    John staid [sic] there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh.
  • First I stripped her naked. How she did kick – bite and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms. Cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me nine days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her though I could of [sic] had I wished. She died a virgin.
  • I came home with my meat. I had the front of his body I liked best. His monkey and pee wees and a nice little fat behind to roast in the oven and eat. I made a stew out of his ears, nose – pieces of his face and belly. I put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt and pepper. It was good.
    Then I split the cheeks of his behind open, cut off his monkey and pee wees and washed them first. I put strips of bacon on each cheek of his behind and put them in the oven. Then I picked four onions and when the meat had roasted about 1/4 hour, I poured about a pint of water over it for gravy and put in the onions. At frequent intervals I basted his behind with a wooden spoon. So the meat would be nice and juicy.
    In about two hours, it was nice and brown, cooked through. I never ate any roast turkey that tasted half as good as his sweet fat little behind did. I ate every bit of the meat in about four days. His little monkey was a sweet as a nut, but his pee-wees I could not chew. Threw them in the toilet.

South America

See also

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