Some claim that, when Columbus first arrived on the Island of Guadeloupe, he observed Carib Native Americans with human body parts "being smoked on a barbecue"

Importance of the claim

The claim can be divided into two sections.  First, the claim means that, before Columbus, Native Americans cooked meat (in this case, human flesh) with the smoke and heat of wood coals.  This is the barbecue cooking method.  Second, the claim means that Columbus used the word barbecue in his journal.

If these two claims could be verified, then they would tie together the two threads of the barbecue method and barbecue word and establish that they were indigenous to Native Americans before the arrival of Columbus.

Accordingly, this would anchor with claim with unassailable primary sources that the American Barbecue Conjecture is correct as to these elements.   

Hale's statement of the claim

In The Great American Barbecue & Grilling Manual, C. Clark "Smoky" Hale tells the story of Columbus, Guadeloupe, Carib Native Americans and barbecue.  Smoky writes:

One of the earliest recorded European's use of the word "barbecue" comes from the journal of Columbus' third voyage back to Spain in 1496.  He stopped to re-provision at the island of Guadeloupe, which was occupied by the Caribe Indians, deadly of the Taino, and cannibals to boot.

In Conquest of Eden, citing prior sources, Rinaldo Caddo and Charles Verlander, author Michael Palewonsky, writes, "He reports that a human arm was seen being smoked on a barbecue."  Id at p. 10.

This description contains the two claims with (apparently with) authoritative citations.  Unfortunately, we know that the description cannot be accurate:

• Columbus did not visit Guadeloupe on his third voyage;
• Columbus's third voyage was not in 1496.

Both these errors may be explained if the "third voyage" was actually the second.

Pineapple Realty claim

The Pineapple Realty website makes a similar claim: