Columbus Day

[Agnapostate]

I just remarked that "[t]oday, we celebrate the legacy of a man who was the inventor of Amerindian subjugation under European conquistadores in various interactions that ultimately left hundreds of thousands to millions dead through violence and many millions more dead through the spread of epidemic disease, which was occasionally used as a means of biological warfare, and ended his career with a cruel and tyrannical governorship over Hispaniola."

I was also just reading a story about teachers attempting to instruct their pupils with a more balanced perspective about Columbus, mentioning his ethical failings along with his skill as a navigator and initiation of widespread interaction between Europeans and Americans. Many of the comments on the story were incoherent screeches about "PC bullshit" and the "anti-Americanism" of this approach...though I fail to see how accurate depiction of an Italian commissioned by the Spanish monarchy and his treatment of the existing inhabitants of America constitutes "anti-Americanism."

While we're aware that Columbus was not the first European to reach America (Leif Ericson preceded him by several centuries), that the roundness of the Earth was known prior to his voyages, and that he still believed that he had reached the coast of India at his death, less examined is the audacity of describing a person who encountered a land inhabited by a race that constituted about a fifth of the human population at the time and was organized in numerous societies as the "discoverer" of this land or the unethical nature of his legacy in general. He remarked upon his encounters with the Taino that "they would make fine servants...with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." The priest Bartolomé de las Casas later stated that "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it." While these figures may perhaps be excessively high, it remains indisputable that Columbus's expeditions and later governorship were characterized by brutal and decidedly unethical treatment of the indigenous population.

With that in mind, is Columbus an appropriate historical figure to honor with a holiday?

[glockmail]

No doubt you've adopted Howard Zinn's version of history. :lame2:

[Nukeman]

Regardless of revisionist history, Columbus is credited for discovering the "new world". Should he be honored for his accomplishments or should he be vilified for what EVERY OTHER explorer at the time in history did???

YOU have to ask yourself, you will always look for the bad, for if you do How will others remember YOU in 600 years...???:poke:

[Agnapostate]

No doubt you've adopted Howard Zinn's version of history. :lame2:

No doubt you've failed to even pretend to rebut any of my commentary this time. Looks like you've dropped a level there, sparky. :salute:


Regardless of revisionist history, Columbus is credited for discovering the "new world".

Which...he didn't do. He wasn't even the first European to reach "the New World."

[Nukeman]

Did he or did he not sail to the western hemisphere for trade and possible new routes to the orient???

Did he or did he not land in the Caribbean???

Is he or is he not noted as the first to ESTABLISH that the "new world" exists for other Europeans..

Please refer to the following I believe it sums up nicely...





It was Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), a Genoese navigator, who convinced the Spanish to underwrite a western expedition to the eastern countries. Contrary to what you might have heard, educated Europeans knew that the world was round and had known this for millenia. Then as now, people who thought the world was flat were regarded as crackpots. Europeans also had a good idea as to the circumference of the earth; this circumference, in fact, had been accurately calculated in the second century BC. The general view, then, was that a western voyage to India would be a disaster, for the ship would have to travel thousands of miles over open ocean. The ship's crew would starve or die of dehydration long before the journey was complete.

But Columbus believed that the world was considerably smaller than was imagined in the general view and he managed to convince Isabella, the Queen of Spain, that a western expedition would be but a short trip. He was, of course, completely mistaken and had not the Americas gotten in his way, he and his men would have starved or died of dehydration just as everyone knew they would. But fortunately for Columbus, America did get in the way.

The Europeans immediately believed that a new continent had been "discovered" and they called it the "New World." As for Columbus, he never acknowledged or believed that the Americas were anything other than Asia&emdash;he was pretty much the only European who subscribed to this view. He went to his grave absolutely convinced of this idea, and sent several of his crew to their grave for daring to suggest otherwise.

The "New World" is a problematic term for many reasons. First, it was not a "New World," for the inhabitants of America had known of its existence for at least twenty thousand years. No European had "discovered" America since Native Americans had, in essence, discovered the continent some twenty millenia earlier. Second, the Americas were not isolated continents, even from Europe. Icelanders had landed on and settled along the coastline of Canada in the thirteenth century, and accounts of this settlement spread throughout Iceland and the Scandinavian countries. However, even before the Norse settlements in Canada, there seems to have been some kind of sporadic trade with the Americas dating all the way back to ancient Egypt. There is disputed physical evidence of American products in the Mediterranean and Europe including the discovery of nicotine in Egyptian mummies (nicotine only comes from tobacco, which grows only in the Americas). The circumstances and nature of this trade has been lost to us; suffice it to say that if this trade occurred, it was extremely rare, circuitous, and certainly not an ongoing phenomenon.

A few Europeans, then, had a slight knowledge of the Americas. Columbus's discovery, however, catapulted these continents to the forefront of the European imagination. Soon after Columbus's discovery, every country in Europe jumped on the Americas bandwagon. Henry VII of England sent John Cabot to explore the coast of New England. In 1500, Pedro Cabral, a Portuguese captain, discovered South America. Florence sent Amerigo Vespucci, who travelled several times to the new continent in order to catalog the geography; because of this, the continents would eventually bear his name.

It was the Spanish, however, that dominated the settlement and exploitation of the Americas. In 1494, Spain signed a treaty with Portugal, the Treaty of Tordesillas, that divided the entire world between the two countries (imagine that). All the trade routes east of the Cape of Good Hope belonged to Portugal while all the routes west across the Atlantic belonged to Spain.


http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/NEWWORLD.HTM

[glockmail]

No doubt you've failed to even pretend to rebut any of my commentary this time. Looks like you've dropped a level there, sparky. :salute:

... I've read Howard Zinn's version, which you obviously subscribe to. It's so wrong, so fraught with baseless conclusions, that there's no place to start a discussion about it. Nice to see that you brainlessly accepted it though.

[Agnapostate]

Did he or did he not sail to the western hemisphere for trade and possible new routes to the orient???

Did he or did he not land in the Caribbean???

Is he or is he not noted as the first to ESTABLISH that the "new world" exists for other Europeans..

Please refer to the following I believe it sums up nicely...

Aside from the fact that he was not the first European to reach America, that he continued to fallaciously believe that he had reached the coast of India until his death, that European colonization of America would have inevitably occurred anyway if the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria had all capsized and their inhabitants drowned, this seems to be decidedly ignorant of the most important reality that a brutal enslavement and slaughter of an indigenous population occurred under his governorship.


I've read Howard Zinn's version, which you obviously subscribe to. It's so wrong, so fraught with baseless conclusions, that there's no place to start a discussion about it. Nice to see that you brainlessly accepted it though.

Actually, I'm afraid I've not encountered Howard Zinn's work on the topic. That said, since you're apparently content to stick with your usual ignorance instead of advance actual arguments, there's nothing more to say to your babbling anyway. But really, just what the fuck is the matter with people that they can't condemn a brutal dictator responsible for the enslavement and deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands to over a million people? :lame2:

[Kathianne]

No doubt you've failed to even pretend to rebut any of my commentary this time. Looks like you've dropped a level there, sparky. :salute:



Which...he didn't do. He wasn't even the first European to reach "the New World."

Yet it was his voyages that led to the populating of the "New World" by Europeans, then others. It was his voyages that led to trade of significance between East and West, that is what made it a turning point.

[red states rule]

and of course school kids are being "taught" how evil Columbus was


Columbus' darker side emerges in classrooms
Many school districts don't observe explorer's namesake holiday on Monday

TAMPA, Fla. - Jeffrey Kolowith's kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer's picture on a timeline through history.

Kolowith's students learn about the explorer's significance — though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend.

"I talk about the situation where he didn't even realize where he was," Kolowith said. "And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy."

Columbus' stature in U.S. classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe his namesake holiday on Monday. Although lessons vary, many teachers are trying to present a more balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations.

"The whole terminology has changed," said James Kracht, executive associate dean for academic affairs in the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development. "You don't hear people using the world 'discovery' anymore like they used to. 'Columbus discovers America.' Because how could he discover America if there were already people living here?"

‘Columbian Exchange’
In Texas, students start learning in the fifth grade about the "Columbian Exchange" — which consisted not only of gold, crops and goods shipped back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, but diseases carried by settlers that decimated native populations.

In McDonald, Pa., 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, fourth-grade students at Fort Cherry Elementary put Columbus on trial this year — charging him with misrepresenting the Spanish crown and thievery. They found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.

"In their own verbiage, he was a bad guy," teacher Laurie Crawford said.

Of course, the perspective given varies across classrooms and grades. Donna Sabis-Burns, a team leader with the U.S. Department of Education's School Support and Technology Program, surveyed teachers nationwide about the Columbus reading materials they used in class for her University of Florida dissertation. She examined 62 picture books, and found the majority were outdated and contained inaccurate — and sometimes outright demeaning — depictions of the native Taino population.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33266425/ns/us_news-education/?GT1=43001

[Nukeman]

Aside from the fact that he was not the first European to reach America, that he continued to fallaciously believe that he had reached the coast of India until his death, that European colonization of America would have inevitably occurred anyway if the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria had all capsized and their inhabitants drowned, this seems to be decidedly ignorant of the most important reality that a brutal enslavement and slaughter of an indigenous population occurred under his governorship.
:lame2:


Have you ever been to the Dominican Republic? You know that little country where columbus ruled as governor!!! THEY (the Dominicans) still have a place in their hearts for him and honor his memory, and unlike here in the US they also display the turbulent times of slavery. Instead of "pretending" things didn't happen they actually accept what happened in the past and move on but refuse to forget. Unlike here where we have revisionist history every other year....

I think kathianne summed up nicely what YOU are failing to understand or are you just arguing for aguments sake....????

[CSM]

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty! Also, to judge historical figures by today's standards is just plain wrong. Judge them by the standards which existed during the times they lived.

Of course, then those historical figures won't be as compelling an argument for a particular cause if you do that.

[glockmail]

...
Actually, I'm afraid I've not encountered Howard Zinn's work on the topic. That said, since you're apparently content to stick with your usual ignorance instead of advance actual arguments, there's nothing more to say to your babbling anyway. But really, just what the fuck is the matter with people that they can't condemn a brutal dictator responsible for the enslavement and deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands to over a million people? :lame2: Bullshit. His book was written in 1980 and has become the most popular history book in American academics and cited by many others as a source.

[Agnapostate]

Yet it was his voyages that led to the populating of the "New World" by Europeans, then others. It was his voyages that led to trade of significance between East and West, that is what made it a turning point.

And as I noted, that would have occurred within a decade or two anyway, even putting the myth of his "discovery" and the myth of his being the first European "discoverer" aside. More significant, however, were the ethical improprieties


and of course school kids are being "taught" how evil Columbus was

I believe that's what I just said. His governorship can be condemned by any legitimate ethical standards, and his Spanish servants regarded as among the most unethical of the European invaders, contrary to the relatively peaceable settlements of the French and Dutch and more peaceable settlements of the English during the early years, at least. Have you any defense against that? You've not made any argument here.


Have you ever been to the Dominican Republic? You know that little country where columbus ruled as governor!!! THEY (the Dominicans) still have a place in their hearts for him and honor his memory, and unlike here in the US they also display the turbulent times of slavery. Instead of "pretending" things didn't happen they actually accept what happened in the past and move on but refuse to forget. Unlike here where we have revisionist history every other year....

I think kathianne summed up nicely what YOU are failing to understand or are you just arguing for aguments sake....????

What, are you joking? You're the one who prefers revisionist history, whereas I've accurately noted the nature of his governorship of Hispaniola (which currently includes the Dominican Republic and Haiti, though they were of course not founded yet).


Hindsight is always twenty-twenty! Also, to judge historical figures by today's standards is just plain wrong. Judge them by the standards which existed during the times they lived.

Of course, then those historical figures won't be as compelling an argument for a particular cause if you do that.

I'm doing just that. And while Washington's slave ownership and Lincoln's racism would be causes for judging them as unethical in this modern period, they were more ethical than their contemporaries in their own historical context. Columbus, however, was not, as driven home by the priest's comment that "Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it." There exist no sound reasons for honoring him with a holiday, as far as I've seen.


Bullshit. His book was written in 1980 and has become the most popular history book in American academics and cited by many others as a source.

I'm not an "American academic," so I don't especially care. I'm used to people blubbering about me being indoctrinated by Chomsky and Zinn due to my anarchism, but I've read little of them...I've stuck with Bakunin and Kropotkin. What is this idiocy anyway? Is this about people "blaming America (i.e. the U.S.)?" O NOEZ! It's the lib commie propagandists! :lame2:

Settle down. As noted by your fellow rightist, David Horowitz, the enslavement and slaughter of the Arawak "was an act committed by agents of the Spanish empire more than a century before the English settled North America and nearly three centuries before the creation of the United States, which is also geographically well removed from the scene of the crime."

[Agnapostate]

Oh, so sorry I forgot to bump. So, new users still interested in defense of the Butcher of Hispaniola? ;)

[Noir]

You're at it again with you're Avatars, calling Columbus an illegal when you yourself do not believe there should be such a thing >,>

[Agnapostate]

You're at it again with you're Avatars, calling Columbus an illegal when you yourself do not believe there should be such a thing >,>

This is about the last time I'm going to explain this to you. The fact that Columbus and European settlers in America are "illegal aliens" is pointed out to demonstrate the irony of their descendants' claims against Mesoamerican Indians. It is a reductio ad absurdum argument that demonstrates the consequences of consistently applying their draconian sentiments.

As for Columbus specifically, however, certainly America would have been better off without his arrival or that of any other European expedition, at least for a few centuries prior to the development of vaccination, and the advancement of liberal mores that frowned on colonialism, imperialism, and genocide.

[Pagan]

This is about the last time I'm going to explain this to you. The fact that Columbus and European settlers in America are "illegal aliens" is pointed out to demonstrate the irony of their descendants' claims against Mesoamerican Indians. It is a reductio ad absurdum argument that demonstrates the consequences of consistently applying their draconian sentiments.

As for Columbus specifically, however, certainly America would have been better off without his arrival or that of any other European expedition, at least for a few centuries prior to the development of vaccination, and the advancement of liberal mores that frowned on colonialism, imperialism, and genocide.


Showing your complete lack of any intelligence what so ever you ignorant fuck.

But then again pretty much everyone knows you to be the fool.

So how does it feel being the village idiot? :laugh2:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2007/10/071025160653-large.jpg

[Agnapostate]

Showing your complete lack of any intelligence what so ever you ignorant fuck.

But then again pretty much everyone knows you to be the fool.

So how does it feel being the village idiot? :laugh2:

Well, if it ain't Shittin' Bull, proud Sioux war chief! :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Abbey Marie]

I guess it's hard to swallow when an infinitely more advanced culture arrives and has its way with you. :poke:

http://www.bestscalemodels.com/santamaria.jpg

[Agnapostate]

I guess it's hard to swallow when an infinitely more advanced culture arrives and has its way with you. :poke:

http://www.bestscalemodels.com/santamaria.jpg

I guess that's a true point, Eichmann.

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/Spaniards4.jpg

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/Spaniards5.jpg

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/Dolgoff/Spaniards6.jpg

If you're a social Darwinist, why object to robbery, rape, and murder, in any instance? :dunno:

[Noir]

This is about the last time I'm going to explain this to you. The fact that Columbus and European settlers in America are "illegal aliens" is pointed out to demonstrate the irony of their descendants' claims against Mesoamerican Indians. It is a reductio ad absurdum argument that demonstrates the consequences of consistently applying their draconian sentiments.

As for Columbus specifically, however, certainly America would have been better off without his arrival or that of any other European expedition, at least for a few centuries prior to the development of vaccination, and the advancement of liberal mores that frowned on colonialism, imperialism, and genocide.

Exactly, you do not believe he was an ilegal alien, and that he as all his European buddies had every right to migrate onto America Indian land at will.

[Agnapostate]

Exactly, you do not believe he was an ilegal alien, and that he as all his European buddies had every right to migrate onto America Indian land at will.

Actually, no, as a libertarian, I'm a fan of non-aggression. So I tend to take a negative attitude towards genocide.

[Noir]

Actually, no, as a libertarian, I'm a fan of non-aggression. So I tend to take a negative attitude towards genocide.

So when I said 'migrate onto amiercan Indian land' you read 'commit genocide upon the America indians'?

I mentioned nothing about genocide, merely that you think that all Europeans from Columbus down have every right to live on what was once American Indian land.

[Agnapostate]

So when I said 'migrate onto amiercan Indian land' you read 'commit genocide upon the America indians'?

I mentioned nothing about genocide, merely that you think that all Europeans from Columbus down have every right to live on what was once American Indian land.

How's that? What happened to "national sovereignty" and "defending the borders"? Does the forum membership only adhere to those values when convenient? :laugh:

[Noir]

How's that? What happened to "national sovereignty" and "defending the borders"? Does the forum membership only adhere to those values when convenient? :laugh:

I'm not talking about other board members, I'm talking about you. You think Columbus and his mates had the right to move from Europe to America,

[Pagan]

How's that? What happened to "national sovereignty" and "defending the borders"? Does the forum membership only adhere to those values when convenient? :laugh:

So tribal warfare was non existent and all tribes lived together in peace and harmony. No warfare over land, no raiding parties into opposing tribes, no raiding for slaves and for human sacrifice to the gods. They all lived in peace, harmony and just smoked their "peace pipes". http://www.rejecttheherd.net/sites/rejecttheherd.net/files/smileys/rasta.gifhttp://www.rejecttheherd.net/sites/rejecttheherd.net/files/smileys/leaf.gif

You are absolutely one of the most ignorant fools I've ever seen on the net, but then again most all racist bigots are. http://www.rejecttheherd.net/sites/rejecttheherd.net/files/smileys/sheep.gif

[Agnapostate]

I'm not talking about other board members, I'm talking about you. You think Columbus and his mates had the right to move from Europe to America,

Nope. Illegal immigration all in all, you know. America certainly would have been better off if European colonialism had been delayed by at least a few centuries, if not perpetually.


So tribal warfare was non existent and all tribes lived together in peace and harmony. No warfare over land, no raiding parties into opposing tribes, no raiding for slaves and for human sacrifice to the gods. They all lived in peace, harmony and just smoked their "peace pipes". http://www.rejecttheherd.net/sites/rejecttheherd.net/files/smileys/rasta.gifhttp://www.rejecttheherd.net/sites/rejecttheherd.net/files/smileys/leaf.gif

You are absolutely one of the most ignorant fools I've ever seen on the net, but then again most all racist bigots are. http://www.rejecttheherd.net/sites/rejecttheherd.net/files/smileys/sheep.gif

What are you, on fucking crack, you dumb sack of shit? Who the fuck said that? Where would you get such an idiotic strawman, Shitting Bull? Have you been baking your head in the microwave again? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[Pagan]

Nope. Illegal immigration all in all, you know. America certainly would have been better off if European colonialism had been delayed by at least a few centuries, if not perpetually.



What are you, on fucking crack, you dumb sack of shit? Who the fuck said that? Where would you get such an idiotic strawman, Shitting Bull? Have you been baking your head in the microwave again? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Yep, can't discuss any facts.

You show yourself to be the moronic, idiot, racist bigoted scum that you are.

So tell us again you ignorant fuck how not only Anarchy is purely Socialist but the Inca Empire was Socialist.

Fuck your ignorance knows no bounds. :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

[darin]

Moved to the cage...

[NightTrain]

What are you, on fucking crack, you dumb sack of shit? Who the fuck said that? Where would you get such an idiotic strawman, Shitting Bull? Have you been baking your head in the microwave again? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Whoa, looks like a certain chickie is having a bad hair day.