any passing anthropological interest he had in them was second always to his cynical eye for ways in which he and future Spanish expeditions might exploit their resources and labor. And when he came back to Spain, he exaggerated his achievements and the potential of his discoveries, claiming Hispaniola was bigger than the entire Iberian Peninsula, already replete with beautiful harbors and rich gold mines (it was not), and that Cuba was “larger than England and Scotland put together.”
