Christopher Columbus first spotted land in the New World on October 12, 1492. The subsequent report of his findings that he wrote to the Spanish Crown, in today's historical records, is titled "Letter to Luis Sant'Angel". While it's details might be objective at face value, the Genoese explorer might not might have written as reliable a report as he tries to make it come off as.
First, it’s worth mentioning that King Ferrando and Queen Ysabel afforded him the attention, funds, and resources to make such a risky voyage. And like all investments, their royal highnesses would expect a return on Columbus’s expedition. It seems Columbus is fully aware of this. Seeing some potential of the Caribbean as a place of economic gain and religious conversion, Columbus would want to make sure his royal benefactors would still be fully on board for further exploration and colonial development.
Keeping this in mind, Columbus reports that the islands he had encountered are a paradise, making many an allusion to Genesis. The Taíno people, whom he describes as innocent, weak and generous, he hints as practically begging for royal guidance by the Crown and spiritual salvation from God. Of course, to the Catholic Monarchs, that would be exactly what they’d want to hear. Meanwhile, the people group Columbus refers to as the "Caribes" living on the island of “Quaris”*, he depicts as barbaric savages-violent and unruly sea raiders. In other words, Columbus is pointing the monarchs toward a people that Europeans would see as ‘in need of divine punishment’, knowing that these monarchs in particular would be eager to, in their eyes, serve as His instrument.
Meanwhile, the land itself is painted as wondrous. Hispaniola is said to be lush like Eden, with warm weather all year round, fertile soil, plenty of flora and fauna, home to “mines of metal” in its interior, and lined with geographically sound harbors lining the coast. While this is a relatively accurate description of the island, helped by calm weather throughout the 1492 hurricane season, it’s important to note how it is in Columbus’s best interest to report this. The island of Cuba (which Columbus named “Juana'' after the King and Queen's daughter, Joanna 'the Mad') is relatively small in land area; Hispaniola is in fact smaller, but not by much (despite Columbus saying it’s bigger than Cuba). Columbus though claims Cuba is larger than the island of Great Britain, and Hispaniola larger than all of Spain. Of course, this was only Columbus's first voyage; at the time he wrote this in1493, his fleet only sailed along the Atlantic coasts of the islands and didn't chart their entire coastlines. However, portraying them as massive landmasses, overflowing with resources and economic opportunity serves to promise the Crown wealth beyond their wildest dreams, almost like a new Roman Empire (which people in Europe were really fond of at the time).
This would benefit Columbus, as he would continue to get royal funding for more potential voyages, perhaps be a governor of the islands, and maybe even put himself in a position to skim some of this new found wealth off the top before sending it to Toledo. We cannot say what exactly he was thinking during his first voyage, but this was the result after two decades of further exploring and settling the Caribbean.
References
Columbus, Christopher. “Letter to Luis Sant'Angel.” Written 1493. Last modified August 5, 2016.
*Columbus states that the island of "Quaris" is home to the "ferocious" Caribes. However, "Quaris" doesn't exist as Columbus claims in the "Letter". Columbus didn't fully map out the Caribbean on his first voyage, and he learns of these people second-hand from the Taíno. We suspect their might've been some conflict, maybe a period of increased raiding on Hispaniola, though I don't know about anything we might think of as an 'organized war'. Although he captured some Taíno men and was able to form some kind of Spanish-Taíno translation, I'm sure that communication between Columbus's expedition and the Taíno was rough as well. With biases on the part of the Taíno cacique, the language barrier, and the Europeans' own biases, "Quaris" was a mistranslation of some island(s) east of Hispaniola. These might be the islands the Kalinago/Kalipua people lived on, from Guadeloupe down to Trinidad. It could also be an island on which there was some sort of forward camp set up by raiders-either Kalinago/Kalipua or from a rival Taíno cacicazgo.
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