Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Saturday, October 10, 2009

THE REAL COLUMBUS DAY





“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
--Milan Kundera


“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode.” --The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


UPDATE:  The Wall Street Journal examines the holiday honoring Columbus in a piece titled:  "Is Columbus Day Sailing Off the Calendar?"(Click in this text to read it.)


Columbus Day weekend is upon us, and here in Boston’s North End, where many Italian-Americans live and own businesses, the celebration will begin with a parade on Sunday, October 11th, at 1 pm, which will start at City Hall plaza, proceed around the North End’s Hanover and Endicott Streets, ending at the Waterfront’s Christopher Columbus Park. Columbus Day is a big event for the Italians of New York as well, ususally featuring a well-known Italian celebrity to lead their parade.

For me, it means a three-day weekend of relaxation and maybe some leaf-peeping. For other Americans with an Italian heritage, it is a day of pride and a chance to remind all Americans of the unique contribution by the navigator, Cristoforo Columbo, from Genoa, discoverer of America.



In his book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen, examines 12 current text books that deal with our American history, starting with the voyage of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and Columbus’s landing on Hispaniola, which he mistook for India. We all know the stories [myths] that we were taught in grade school. Loewen reports the facts, taken from Columbus’s own logs, and the diaries of Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish Dominican priest and writer.

Here is Loewen describing Columbus’ arrival in the New World:

“They [the text books] have the lookout cry ‘Tierra!’ or ‘Land!’ Most of them tell us that Columbus’s first act after going ashore was for ”thanking God for leading them safely across the sea’—even though the surviving summary of Columbus’s own journal states only that ‘before them all, he took possession of the island, as in fact he did, for the King and Queen, his Sovereigns.’ Many of the textbooks tell of Columbus’s three later voyages to the Americas, but most do not find space to tell us how Columbus treated the lands and the people he ‘discovered.’”


“Christopher Columbus introduced two phenomena that revolutionized race relations and transformed the modern world: the taking of land, wealth, and labor from indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere leading to their near extermination, and the transatlantic slave trade, which created a racial underclass.”


“Columbus’s initial impression of the Arawaks, who inhabited most of the islands in the Caribbean, was quite favorable. He wrote in his journal on October 13, 1492: ‘At daybreak great multitudes of men came to the shore, all young and of fine shapes and very handsome…They are not black, but the color of the inhabitants of the Canaries.’ Columbus went on to describe the Arawaks’ canoes, ‘some large enough to contain 40 or 45 men.’ Finally, he got down to business “I was very attentive to them, and strove to learn if they had any gold. Seeing some of them with little bits of metal hanging at their noses, I gathered from them by signs that by going southward or steering round the island in that direction, there would be found a king who possess great cups full of gold.’

On his return voyage to Spain, Columbus kidnapped some ten to twenty-five ‘Indians,’ only 7 survived alive. Loewen: “When Columbus and his men returned to Hispanola in 1493, they demanded food, gold, spun cotton—whatever the Natives had that they wanted, including sex with their women. To ensure cooperation, Columbus used punishment by example When an Indian committed even a minor offense, the Spanish cut off his ears or nose. Disfigured, the person was sent back to his village as living evidence of the brutality the Spaniards were capable of."

Of course, the Natives resisted, with the Arawaks fighting back, but their sticks and stones were useless against the armed and clothed Spanish. Naturally, the Spanish prevailed.

But after finding no gold, “Columbus had to return some dividend to Spain. Thus began the slave raid—he took 1,500 back to Spain and another 500 were given to the Spaniards who remained on the island to use as slaves.”

Those who could fled the into the interior of the island. “Columbus was excited, writing: ‘In the name of the Holy Trinity, we can send from here all the slaves and brazil-wood which could be sold,’…’In Castile, Portugal, Aragon…and the Canary Islands they need many slaves, and I do not think they get enough from Guinea.’”

All of these gruesome facts are available in primary-source material—letters by Columbus and by other members of his expeditions, including the work of Las Casas, the first great historian of the Americas, who relied on primary materials and helped preserve them.


Loewen: “…Columbus installed the encomienda system, in which he granted or ‘commended’ entire Indian villages to individual colonists or groups of colonists…Spain made the encomienda system official policy on Haiti in 1502; other conquistadors subsequently introduced it to Mexico, Peru, and Florida.


“The tribute and encomienda systems caused incredible depopulation. On Haiti, the colonists made the Arawaks mine gold for them, raise Spanish food, carry them everywhere they went. Pedro de Cordoba wrote in a letter to King Ferdinand in 1517, ‘As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide.”

“Columbus not only sent the first slaves across the Atlantic, he probably sent more slaves—about 5,000—than any other individual…A particularly repellent aspect of the slave trade was sexual. As soon as the 1493 expedition got to the Caribbean, before it even reached Haiti, Columbus was rewarding his lieutenants with native women to rape…Columbus wrote a friend in 1500 ‘A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.’”

Have a nice Columbus Day.

65 comments:

Gordon Scott said...

Having spent a good part of my life in the Native American community, I'm well aware of the history of Colombus. It's not a pretty story.

I'm also aware of the bloody violence between tribes which was routine in much of the western hemisphere before and after 1492. One does not excuse another, but it was not the agrarian paradise that some have claimed.

Ruth said...

My ex's family was descended from 'original' settlers in Costa Rica, who were quite insistent that there had been no native population to wipe out, that there had been a great plague before Europeans arrived that left them a land all their own. That was how they coped with their guilt, and implied that a deity had intended them to have that beautiful country..

Shaw Kenawe said...

According the Loewen's book:

"Native nations had engaged in conflict before Europeans came, of course. Tribes rarely fought to the finish, however. Some tribes did not want to take over the lands belonging to other nations, partly because each had its own sacred sites. For a nation to exterminate its neighbors was difficult anyway, since all enjoyed roughly the same level of military technology. With the Europeans giving guns to the Nations they were friendly with, that changed. European powers deliberately increased the level of warfare by playing one Native nation off another."

Arthurstone said...

Thanks for the post Shaw.

I think it's extremely important to consider, on this day in particular, the ramifications of Europe's 'discovery of the New World'.

The millions of people already living on both American continents and the Caribbean Islands were the unlucky victims of that 'discovery'. They paid a heavy price indeed. The entire aboriginal population of the Caribbean (the Arawaks) was destroyed and replaced by African slaves and their French, Spanish, English & Danish master.

http://www.raceandhistory.com/Taino/

And we need to consider the effect the extermination of aboriginal populations and the introduction of slavery and the plantation system (industrialized farming the Capitalist way) had on our current privileged lifestyle. Western Europe & England thrived in large part because of their colonies and the United States did as well through the introduction of slavery.

So if I go out for an Italian meal on Columbus Day does that make me a genocidal killer?

Nope. Nor does peacefully espousing radical left politics make those who do mass murderers.

Shaw Kenawe said...

So if I go out for an Italian meal on Columbus Day does that make me a genocidal killer?

Stay away from pasta swimming in three cheese alfredo cream sauce. That is an artery killer.

There were many honorable Europeans who understood spoke out against the dishonorable treatment of our Native Peoples.

It was interesting to read that the Europeans who ran off to join Native American tribes never wanted to return to their European brethern's way of life in the "civilized" colonies. And the African slaves who managed to escape to Native Nations had no problem living and intermarrying with them.

Arthurstone said...

Thanks for the dining tip Shaw.

There is some new thinking about who 'discovered' America.

http://www.1421.tv/

In honor of Columbus Day I'm headed to Szechuan Noodle bowl for chicken noodle soup & green onion pancake. The best handmade noodles in Seattle.

Chief Joseph said...

Thank you for posting this.

dmarks said...

Great post. I've long been opposed to honoring Columbus, who was an extremely bad man whose crimes get rather personal and specific, even including such things as participating in and arranging child rape.

Please visit Newspaper Rock for some more blog discussion. Rob usually has some interesting Columbus Day posts every year.

On this last point alone, honoring Columbus is like honoring Roman Polanski.

Gordon said: "it was not the agrarian paradise that some have claimed"

Actually, the Taino that Columbus had wiped out did have a society that was like an "agrarian paradise". Who said this? Some revisionist modern left wing historian? No. Columbus himself said this. In his own words: "They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will..they took great delight in pleasing us..They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal….Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people ..They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing."

The "1491" population of Hispaniola is estimated to have been close to a million. By 1531, after 40 years of administration by Columbus and his colleagues, this population was down to 600. A genocide rate that Pol Pot would have been envious of.

An aside to Arthur who said: "Nope. Nor does peacefully espousing radical left politics make those who do mass murderers."

Peacefully expousing the violent policies and horrific ideas of the "radical" fringe (left or right, there's not much difference) is not the same as carrying out these policies, but it is very bad and shows poor judgement. And that the person who has such poor antisocial judgement is not worthy of any position of power or influence. Whether it is David Duke or Van Jones.

Van Jones is not a mass murderer, but his poor judgement makes him fit for a job cleaning toilets in abandoned warehouses. Not any position of power over the people he'd like to see a large percentage of killed. Same with David Duke.

People who push for "radical" policies, whether it is imposing Maoist style rule in the US denying African-Americans any human rights at all have no place in government or the public policy debate. Whether or not they are "peaceful". Their politics of hate is nothing but damaging.

Arthurstone said...

'Maoist-style rule' denying African Americans their rights?

File this under 'everything but the kitchen sink'.

dmarks said...

Arthur: One applies to Van Jones, and the other applies to David Duke. Both "radicals", despite being peaceful. Neither view is defensible, and neither view belongs in civilized society.

Kitchen sink, yes, but there's a wide variety of nutty extremes found on the "far" and "radical" fringes of both left and right.

Anonymous said...

I for one, being of German and Scottish descent to hereby by state that there is nothing in this world I enjoy more than pasta swimming in three cheese alfredo sauce....

I will also acknowledge that I might be the sole cause for rising healthcare costs in the United States...

Wait a minute, I haven't been to a doctor in over a year.....

rockync said...

Well researched and very informative as usual Shaw. Thank you for a bit of "real" history.

Gordon Scott said...

The Arawaks may have been peaceful, but it's a big hemisphere, and many tribes practiced genocide against their neighbors. Slavery was common, and slaves were abused every bit as badly as some Europeans abused theirs (and as some Africans still do today).

New world gold and silver financed the counterreformation, the 30 years war, and kept central Europe economically depressed for at least a century. Millions died as a result, and feudalism triumphed, instead of fading as it should have as Europe grew richer through natural self-development.

vinvegas said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
rockync said...

vinvegas- ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!

dmarks said...

Arthur: Actual red-baiting is alive and well, unfortunately, as shown by tbe comment two comments above.

Rocky: I did wonder if it was a satire!

Now, it is only 98 days until the Martin Luther King's birthday holiday of 2010. I look forward to it this time, as before.

Shaw Kenawe said...

I don't know how vinvegasm got in here, but I shooed it out.

If anyone wonders why rockync is laughing so hard, let me put it this way: vinvegas wrote some incomprehensible nonsense that put it in the same league as Beckerhead.

Shaw Kenawe said...

The Arawaks may have been peaceful, but it's a big hemisphere, and many tribes practiced genocide against their neighbors. Slavery was common, and slaves were abused every bit as badly as some Europeans abused theirs (and as some Africans still do today).--Gordon

I understand. I also understand how the English treated the Irish. The English and the Irish shared a common religion--Christianity--and race, Caucasian. And yet the English believed they were a supremely civilized people, even as they tried to decimate the Irish for being Irish.

From 1608, British settlers, known as planters, were given land confiscated from the native Irish in the Plantation of Ulster. Coupled with Protestant immigration to "unplanted" areas of Ulster, particularly Antrim and Down, this resulted in conflict between the native Catholics and the "planters". This led to two bloody ethno-religious conflicts in 1641–1653 and 1689–1691, each of which resulted in Protestant victories.

British Protestant political dominance in Ireland was ensured by the passage of the penal laws, which curtailed the religious, legal and political rights of anyone (including both Catholics and (Protestant) Dissenters, such as Presbyterians) who did not conform to the state church—the Anglican Church of Ireland.
--Wiki


Or the Spanish who wiped out the Native Peoples of the Canary Islands while piously claiming it in the name of their Savior and Prince of Peace:


The invasion of the Canary Islands was fiercely resisted by the natives, it happened regularly during fourteenth century. It took Europe almost 1000 years after the Roman Empire fell to remember the Canaries, until a Mediterranean ship rediscovered it. From then on Portuguese, Italians and Catalans sent their ships to the island to bring back slaves and furs to their countries.

Finally during the beginning of the fifteenth century the conquest began with the Spanish invasion ending with the Guanches [Native Peoples] either being killed or committing suicide rather than surrender to the Spanish. Those who did survive were forced into being slaves and to convert to Christianity. They eventually died out.


Source.

England and Spain considered themselves "civilized" cultures.

It makes one wonder how certain white Europeans came to the conclusion that the Native Peoples of the Americas and Africa were "savages" but didn't recognize the savagery they themselves regularly visited upon their own kind as well as others in their own neighborhoods.

Gordon Scott said...

Well, that's it for this thread.

Arthurstone said...

Good idea Gordon.

The British Empire and subsequent un-paralleled wealth of England as an example of 'self-development'.

Discuss.

Arthurstone said...

Make that 'natural self development'.

Anonymous said...

The Red Sox Were Swept! Pure and simple the Red Sox Sucked!

Shaw Kenawe said...

The Red Sox won the World Series TWICE in 4 years.

As of July 15, 2008 [Because this baseball season isn't over yet, I post last year's stats on popularity of MLB teams:

As Major League Baseball heads into the All-Star Game, this year's [2008]host team, the New York Yankees, find themselves on top as the favorite baseball team among those who follow Major League Baseball for the sixth year in a row. The Atlanta Braves remain at No. 2 while the Boston Red Sox are in third place on the list. Rounding out the top five are the Chicago Cubs at No. 4 and the Los Angeles Dodgers moving up six spots to No. 5.
Though I should point out that not even this highly scientific poll can really be considered accurate. They only polled 2,454 people, which is hardly a large enough sample size to take very seriously. There were still some interesting things in the poll though.

While the Yankees are more popular over all and among Gen-Xers, fans between the ages of 18-31 (that's me!) generally skew towards the Red Sox (that's not me!). Those between 44-62 love the Braves for some reason, while everyone over 62 loves the Cubs. Also, Republicans love the Braves while Democrats root for the Yankees.

And since I know you're wondering, the least popular team in the poll was the Toronto Blue Jays, but I'm not sure how many Canadians were polled. What is somewhat surprising is that the least popular American team is the Los Angeles Angels.



Awwww!

Source.

Anonymous said...

Shaw,

How can one entice you to become a Packers fan?

Shaw Kenawe said...

TAO,

Two words:

Vince Lombardi.

I've always admired that team.

Jim said...

Before you get too teary eyed on the loss of paradise, consider this:

"The Arawak/Taino themselves were quite peaceful people, but they did have to defend themselves from the Caribs who were cannibals. The Caribs of this area were centered at what is today Puerto Rico, but some did live in northeast Hispaniola, an area that today is the Dominican Republic. The Caribs were war-like cannibals. They often raided the more peaceful Arawak/Tainos, killing off the men, stealing and holding the women for breeding, and fattening the children to eat."- http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/100.html

There is much in history to lament. We humans have been at each others throats since Cain and Able. Slavery is not new nor is it an idle enterprise today (I am particularly thinking of the sex trade business).

Genocide, however, seems to be a loathsome advent of the new age.

One other thing, historians will tell you it is not useful to use present morals in judging past cultures. Nor is it particularly helpful to compare one culture against another. Being cruel is not an exclusive European trait. As an example, the indigenous people's of the America's were quite violent and warlike tribes that practiced very unique forms of cruelty against one another. I recommend reading Allan W. Eckert's book on Tecumseh for starters.

Not that any of this should be viewed as exonerating Columbus and others for cruel acts. It is only intended to point out that men are men, warts and all. Columbus did much to advance the science and geography of his time. It took a great deal of courage to sail beyond the sight of land and into the unknown. And that is what one should cherish on his day.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Jim,

You bring up good points. And those are the points that are in James Loewen's book. The fact that most of our history books presented Columbus as some sort of hero and founder of the New World.

The facts show that yes, he was a great navigator, and yes, he was typical of the mentality of his day in believing that anyone who wasn't a Christian European was a savage, even though those same Europeans practiced savagery on non-Christians.

We demean what Columbus did when we ignore the whole man.

We don't need to make unreasonable heroes out of men who made contributions to history. We need to view them as humans, like many historical figures, who are flawed, but who at the same time achieved much.

dmarks said...

Shaw said:

"The facts show that yes, he was a great navigator, and yes, he was typical of the mentality of his day in believing that anyone who wasn't a Christian European was a savage, even though those same Europeans practiced savagery on non-Christians."

He did kick the savagery up a level, and brought it to the New World.

If you want to look for a great navigator/explorer of that era, look no further than Magellan. Columbus is a bumbler compared to him.

Jim said...

dmarks: If you want to look for a great navigator/explorer of that era, look no further than Magellan. Columbus is a bumbler compared to him.

History is not on your side here. Magellan (1480-1521) built on the discovery of Columbus. And like the big C, he had his troubles with indigenous peoples as well. They killed him.

Jim said...

Is there to be a world without heroes then? Really?

Must MLK's holiday be abolished? After all he had his warts.

Should we forget about President's day as well? Slave holders. Incompetents. Graft. No end to the abuse of power.

Then there's Memorial Day and Labor Day. No heroes to be found amongst military atrocities and labor thuggery is there.

Must we tear down the statues and remove the portraits from the schools too?

Is there nothing to celebrate in our country? Nothing?

Jim said...

He did kick the savagery up a level, and brought it to the New World.- dmarks

I haven't a clue as to what new level of savagery you could mean. Please expound on your careless point.

Jim said...

For a great read on cultures clashing, read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Jim,

I'm re-reading Guns, Germs, and Steel.

And we can still have heroes. We just need to understand that they have their warts, too, and we mustn't cover them over--as though that diminishes their accomplishments.

One of my favorite poets is T.S. Eliot.

And T.S. Eliot was an anti-semite.

Woodrow Wilson was a racist.

The mystery of being human.

Arthurstone said...

Jim typed:

'Genocide, however, seems to be a loathsome advent of the new age.'

Certainly the 20th century 'improved' the ability of despots to participate in ever more lethal forms of mass murder but the history of exterminated populations is as long as humankind itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history

In fact Mao wasn't even the first Chinese Emperor to engage in mass re-locations and starvation of the peasantry.

dmarks said...

Jim said: "And like the big C, he had his troubles with indigenous peoples as well. They killed him."

True. But these troubles were only at the end of Magellan's career. I knew about this already.

"I haven't a clue as to what new level of savagery you could mean. Please expound on your careless point."

It wasn't careless. The depth of the depravity of the mass slaughter of the Taino (a million down to 600 in just 40 years) was a lot worse than what was going on in the south and western Europe that Columbus came from. I sort of doubt he was going around raping children back in Spain, too.

Jim said...

Raping of children and abusive captivity does not fully explain the sudden demise of so many individuals in so short a span. I wonder what it could have been.

When two cultures collide more than just semen is passed between them. The American peoples gave two things to the Europeans that to this day is having the most profound effect; venereal diseases and tobacco. Care to guess how many have died from that discovery?

I must say that the level of savagery you mention does not come close to the evils of the Aztecs. Or is human sacrifice not on your radar screen?

Again, I am not in the least making an argument for the beatification of Columbus. But he must be viewed in the context of his world, not ours.

Arthurstone is so true. Ancient genocides can be depicted in the Bible as well. Click here for a better source than wikipedia. What I'm having a hard time finding is good data for New World genocides prior to the Vikings.

Jim said...

Found an article for dmarks to read. It even has the killing of babies!. And Columbus is still 200 years in the future!

dmarks said...

Some of these "Great men" and "heroes" had a lot of great ideas, and did a lot of great things. And they had some warts, sure. Think of Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln, and Dr. King.

Some, like Columbus, are more wart than otherwise.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

Let us not forget that Red Sox center fielder Jacoby Elsbury is part Native American.


Ozzie refuses to take my phone calls or respond to my emails Shaw.

J.T. said...

TRUTH 101 said...

Let us not forget that Red Sox center fielder Jacoby Elsbury is part Native American.
Ozzie refuses to take my phone calls or respond to my emails Shaw.

And lets not forget that Derek Jeter's Mother is white!

Jim said...

Hey Truth101 don't forget this guy, Jim Thorpe. The greatest athlete of the 20th Century and founder of what became the NFL and:

In 1919 he played his final season in major league baseball, ending on the Boston Braves team. Source

dmarks said...

Alas, the Braves are in Atlanta now, and Boston is not longer the home of the Brave.

Rob said...

Yes, Indian tribes warred against other. No, they didn't commit genocide against each other. Genocide requires an intent to wipe out the people, not merely an intent to conquer.

If anyone disagrees, please cite the alleged cases of Indian-on-Indian genocide. I'd love to hear about them.

Actually, the Indian practice of slavery was more humane than the European version. Moreover, the Indians didn't establish an intercontinental slave trade to profit on human misery. They captured slaves during local conflicts and eventually freed them.

For more on the subject, see Indians Owned Slaves.

Rob said...

I don't think there's any hard evidence of cannibalism among the Carib Indians. Today's views are based on little more than the first explorers' biased speculation. These Europeans were unreliable witnesses who sought to demonize the Indians so they'd have a proper excuse to kill them.

The descendants of the Carib noted this when the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out. Some quotes from the news reports of the time:

The Caribs--the warlike people who dominated much of the eastern Caribbean before the arrival of the Europeans--have long denied that their ancestors practised cannibalism.

Mr Williams added: "Our ancestors stood up against early European conquerors and because they stood up … we were labelled savages and cannibals up to today. This cannot be perpetuated in the movies," he said.

There are early references by Europeans to ritual cannibalism among the first encounters with the Caribs. But Brinsley Samaroo, head of the History department of the St. Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies, is among those who believe the claim is largely a European invention of "manufactured history."

In the historical record, one finds a letter from a Dr. Chanca, who accompanied Christopher Columbus during his second voyage to the Caribbean. Chanca speculated that some young men held prisoners by a Carib group were being fattened to the slaughter for feasting.

Rob said...

About the only things Van Jones did were support Mumia Abu-Jamal's cause and sign a 9/11 conspiracy petition. These aren't remotely comparable to the things David Duke has said and done. They have nothing whatsoever to do with "imposing Maoist style rule." DMarks is right about Columbus, but these claims are a ridiculous joke.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Rob,

Thanks for coming by and giving us more information on this subject.

I appreciate your taking the time to inform us of the facts and correcting the fictions concerning Native Peoples' history.

Thayer Nutz said...

It's interesting to read the part about Columbus's selling 10-year old Native girls to be raped by his men or any other interested party.

Was that a commonly held cultural attitude of the 15th and 16th century that we should not judge by the standards of the 21st century--y'know, like we do now, over the outrageous Polansky scandal?

Or was it that the good Christians, like Columbus and his men, did not perceive people of other cultures as creations of their benevolent God?

I agree with whoever wrote upthread that it IS remarkable how Columbus and his men saw the natives of the islands he "discovered" as savages, while he sold their little girls into sexual slavery.

History: The ones who win get to write nice stories about how they won.

James' Muse said...

Rob, you do have to remember the Aztecs. They were NOT humane to their slaves. Nor were the Zapotecs, and nor were the Mayans. All practiced human sacrifice. And the Incans of South America threw people into sinkholes to drown as human sacrifice. Most of these human sacrifices were slaves captured from conquered tribes.

Pasadena Closet Conservative said...

Columbus was not a one-dimensional monster as you're trying to portray him.

Anyone who thinks it through intelligently, instead of following the newest/latest/pop-culture revisionism, should ask themselves: Was he (1) a courageous and visionary explorer who persisted against all odds in opening up new trading routes and establishing a new world that 150 years later would lead to freedom for oppressed Europeans; or (2) a maniacal imperialist who slaughtered natives and single-handedly institutionalized the slave trade?

There's no question that tragedies happened as a result of Columbus's voyages of discovery. It's important to keep in mind that our 21st century moral sensibilities don't even come close to jiving with 15th century moral sensibilities. Slavery was a fact of life, unfortunately, and we can thank God that the practice ended (although it still exists in many parts of the third world).

Columbus was a genius and an imperfect person who was a product of his time. There is plenty of fact and plenty of myth associated with him. Somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

Bottom line for me: Celebrate the man's courage, genius and perseverance, but ditch the dedicated holiday. An act of Congress established the holiday, and it will take an act of Congress to reverse it. However, replacing it with something like Indigenous Peoples Day or Multi-Cultural Day (I've seen the proposals) would be an empty, silly gesture. It's time to just let it go.

It’s also time to tell school districts and colleges that it really is OK to give a well-rounded lesson plan on Columbus, in the context of his time, instead of re-inventing him as that one-dimensional monster.

Our children deserve that much.

Love thy neighbor said...

We interrupt this delusional scenario for a bit of geographical perspective.
But leftys just love to distinguish the United States for having taken this continent away from the “Indians” when that was actually the norm throughout all of recorded history.

Fair?
Not quite.
And incidentally……
Despite the shrieking from the PC crowd…”Indians” are not and never were: “Native Americans.”

No one can claim to be truly a native to North America. Indians were descended from Asians who, at some point in history, migrated to North America. Minor detail?

There are speculations that a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska may have even existed then.
But wait, how come to the Leftards “Indians” became “Native Americans,” but the Israelis never became: “Native Middle Easterners.”
Just askin.arrowthruhead9.gif

As far as inducing guilt and shame to all Americans ………

Hmmm…Do you ever hear Libs trying to make Turks feel guilty for having conquered Constantinople?
Or better yet, make Muzlims in South Asia feel culpable and at fault for having been imperialists and slaughtering the Hindus?

Naw. Only white Americans have ever been guilty of crimes and unfairness historically.
Some Indian tribes held a belief in eating the hands and feet of the enemies they had killed.
Ah yes.., the person’s strength and speed would then become their own.
Ritual cannibalism..well…amongst some…..it was a ritual.

“During this battle, a number of the Tipiniki Indians were captured and killed. On the way back to their settlement at Ubatúba, the Tupinambá camped near the mountains of Taquarussu. There they killed, cut up, roasted and ate some of their enemy. The chief offered some flesh to Staden who refused it, saying ‘even animals don’t eat their own kind’, to which the chief replied: ‘I am a jaguar, it tastes good’.”

Indian Cannibalism

Do we hear lefties condemning that barbarism?
Naw, it’s just another “ritual” we don’t understand and must…”repsect” eh.

Indian tribes relentlessly warred with one another, some wiping out other “peaceful” tribes. Disfiguring enemies and scalping were just some of the “rituals”. But what the Leftards don’t talk about and what is truly unique in the history of the world… is the way in which the losers of that war, those who were conquered, have been treated by the victors. Furthermore, American Indians actually did everything in their power to make sure that “America” as we know never even became a country. So why call them native Americans eh. They are more rightly native Anti-Americans.
If you insist on calling anyone a Native American, it should be those who created and actually built America, namely, those evil White Anglo/Saxon protestant Europeans.

But I have a suggestion for the whining, self hating America bashing Lefties:
Why dontcha all release all your property rights to your favorite “Native American” tribe , stop trespassing on this “stolen land” and get the blank out of my country.
For the rest of y’all:
HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY!

dmarks said...

Rob: Van Jones was a willing member of an explicitly Maoist group. This makes him comparable to David Duke.

Thanks for the additional Columbus information. The pro-Columbus comments have taken a turn for the worse.

Love thy neighbor said...

dmarks said...



Thanks for the additional Columbus information. The pro-Columbus comments have taken a turn for the worse"

Thanks to the Anti American Crowd!

Shaw Kenawe said...

To "Love Thy Neighbor:"

There is nothing "anti-American" about speaking the truth about what happened to the Native Peoples who lived in the western hemisphere and thrived before the white Europeans came and decimated them.

This is what happened: The Europeans came here, took their lands, infected them with their diseases, and with regard to the government of the USA, broke every single treaty the US Government made with them. (Please read the story of the Trail of Tears.)

The invaders behaved badly toward the Native Settlers who were already here and thriving, the Native Peoples were conquered; and the white Europeans prevailed.

Those are facts.

You may not like them. You may believe that this somehow diminishes how this country was founded--but in fact, it is a matter of simply telling the truth.

Jim said...

The situation of enslaved Indians varied among the tribes. In many cases, enslaved captives were adopted into the tribes to replace warriors killed during a raid. Enslaved warriors sometimes endured mutilation or torture that could end in death as part of a grief ritual for relatives slain in battle.Source

Hi Rob, thanks for joining the discussion. The above is the best I could do for now. The internet is very quiet on the subject of Native American enslavement of each other. It is a good start however.

You say that the form of slavery as practiced by the American Indian was less cruel or harsh as compared to the European variety. I can agree to a point. It most certainly depended on the tribe of Indian that captured you. Some cut off feet to prevent escape, though it eludes me as to what good you'd be with just one foot.

Using such logic one can also argue that the slavery of the American South was more benevolent than that practiced in the Caribbean, Latin America or even in Africa. I doubt you'd get much of a sympathetic ear to your argument.

Jim said...

It is so easy to blame the white European, is it not?

"If cannibalism did take place at Anasazi sites, it was associated with torture, murder and mutilation. That's the kind of thing that gives cannibalism a bad name," Conklin says. Source

A balanced article on the subject of cannibalism.

dmarks said...

Jim: You make a pretty good point there. It's really impossible to split hairs and divide slavery into "good slavery" and "bad slavery".

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This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
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