When I say "cannibals," the image that comes to your mind probably isn't a group of white European settlers.

Maybe it's because most images feature groups of darker-skinned natives deep in the wilderness, and, if you've watched too many cartoons, they're probably dancing around a guy inside of a boiling pot.

But what you might not expect is the the myth of the "savage cannibal" played a crucial role in the colonization of the Americas and was repeated for centuries as justification for genocide and slavery.

And who started this fear of rampant cannibalism?

Christopher Columbus.

[intro music] Now, I just laid out a pretty big claim that the myth of cannibals had a major impact on the colonization of the New World.

But is that actually true?

Well, the first and most obvious part of this question seems to be: Does cannibalism actually exist as a practice?

Here's a quick review-- In his book, "Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History," Bill Schutt notes that there are secondhand and anecdotal accounts from scholars that report instances of cannibalism around the world as part of various rituals and customs, like funerals.

And archaeologists think that prehistoric humans were eating people to meet protein demands and to kill off their enemies.

But as a source of nutrition, cannibalism just isn't that efficient.

Researchers estimate that while animals such as beavers and boars average 1800 calories per pound of muscle, humans only carry about 650.

Think of it as the difference between eating a double bacon cheeseburger with fries and a drink versus just getting the burger in a sad lettuce wrap.

On top of that, humans are pretty tricky to catch, making us difficult to hunt unless we're already weak or sick.

So while humans may be one of the original components of the Paleo Diet, it just isn't that filling.

And like most of the Paleo food I see on Instagram, diseased human meat sounds gross.

Okay, so we've established that instances of people eating people are comparatively rare as a dietary measure, which indicates that cannibalism is probably more myth than day-to-day reality.

But what does Christopher Columbus have to do with any of this?

When he first accidentally landed in the Caribbean in 1492, Columbus arrived and met the friendly Arawaks.

They probably said that their enemies, the Caribs, were "man-eaters."

Now, this was the first reported meeting of these two groups, so the accuracy of the translation is pretty important to keep in mind.

He writes in his journal that he was told "A long distance from here, there are men with one eye, and others with dog snouts who eat men."

Later, on November 23, 1492, Columbus first wrote the word "cannibals" as another term for the supposedly dog-snouted Carib people.

And this is the first instance where the term "cannibal" is linked explicitly to a group of people who eat people meat.

Now, based on what he wrote in his journals, at first Columbus wasn't sure if he should believe the Arawaks or not.

However, he eventually became convinced because he met what he described as "a really scary, unattractive Carib" whose tribesmen attacked his sailors over a trading argument.

He then decided, "Without a doubt, "the people here are evil.

They are from the island of Carib, and they eat men."

All without seeing them, you know, eat men.

Oh, and he thought they were hoarding lots of precious metals-- important note.

On his way back to Spain in 1493, he wrote a letter which was the status update of its day.

He said, "Thus I have found no monsters, "nor had a report of any, except in an island, Carib, which is inhabited by people who eat human flesh."

This letter was published across Europe and was basically the 15th century equivalent of a viral meme--short on facts and big on flash.

In 1494, Columbus went back to the Caribbean, and this time, he was cannibal crazy.

In his journals, he claims the most populated islands were filled with cannibals.

So he decided that, for the good of the souls of said cannibals, the greater number that are sent to Spain, the better.

And by "sending over to Spain," he means enslaving them and selling them... for money.

So he did that.

Convenient because he wasn't finding much gold and he needed to recoup a lot of money for his investors, especially since, for his second voyage, they gave him 17 ships.

He took 500 native people back to Europe to sell as slaves; 200 died on the ride over.

But Spanish Queen Isabella wasn't super keen on slaves and sent some of the natives back.

Unlike Columbus, Isabella found stealing people and selling them as slaves a bit... unchristian.

But within ten years, she changed her tune all thanks to-- you guessed it-- cannibals.

In 1503, she decreed that all native inhabitants of the newly colonized territories should be "protected from capture or injury, "except for a certain people who are called Cannibals.

They may be captured and be sold..." for money.

A few years later, Pope Innocent IV got in on the cannibal craze and supported Isabella's decree, stating that "Christians were able to punish cannibalism through brute force," which is a little ironic considering the Catholic Church believed in transubstantiation at the time, which is the idea that people were literally eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood during communion.

So, what do we get when we add this all up?

Well, it looks like cannibals are real, but, in this case, European explorers may have invented them to serve their own purposes.

Colonial adventurers were grappling with how to deal with native populations.

Their base instincts were to dehumanize them to justify forced labor, enslavement, or slaughter.

But their professed Christian values of how all humans should be treated denied a clear moral justification for atrocity.

So, it doesn't really look like a coincidence that shortly after Columbus called indigenous Americans "cannibals," Queen Isabella and the Pope came up with the equation that cannibals weren't human, and therefore could be enslaved...for money.

That's up for discussion, but not much discussion.

While no historical argument is ever 100%, it seems like cannibalism may have been a pretty convenient justification so everyone could keep making money from slavery, especially when you consider modern archaeological evidence has found little to nothing to support claims of cannibalism in the Caribbean.

Now, there's a certain amount of irony here.

Remember at the very beginning of the episode when we said, "When you think of cannibals, it's probably not white European settlers"?

Well, turns out a lot of colonists got pretty desperate.

Recent evidence has surfaced that the Jamestown colonists in Virginia resorted to cannibalism in 1609.

In 1838, crew members of the whaling ship Essex that sailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, murdered other crew members for food.

Additionally, the Donner Party resorted to eating each other during their ill-fated trip to settle the western portion of what is now the United States.

So, although cannibalism was often cited as the reason for the need to civilize and colonize other populations, colonization itself often led to real, verified instances of cannibalism.

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