The crimes of Christopher Columbus

You will never celebrate Columbus day again after reading this. This is terrible. Christopher Columbus was an absolute monster. I cannot even believe this info has been kept a secret for this long. This is not for the squeamish.

Read at your own risk. Very graphic descriptions of man’s inhumanity to man in the era of Columbus.

"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells," Christopher Columbus wrote in his logbook in 1495. "They willingly traded everything they owned.... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

And it goes on to say,

“This systematic violence was aimed at preventing "Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings. (The Spaniards) thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write."


www.globalresearch.ca...

reply to post by useless eaters


I, too, cry about conquerors. But unfortunately, these things happened when men were brave enough to discover the rest of the world.

A lot of men discovered a lot of the world, and unfortunately they were not nice.


I have realized that the word 'nice' will never equal anything much.

The Pacific Islands were infected, New Zealand slaughtered the Moriori, who were here first, and mankind is basically horrible and killing.

Originally posted by spellbound
reply to post by useless eaters

 

I, too, cry about conquerors. But unfortunately, these things happened when men were brave enough to discover the rest of the world.

A lot of men discovered a lot of the world, and unfortunately they were not nice.


I have realized that the word 'nice' will never equal anything much.

The Pacific Islands were infected, New Zealand slaughtered the Moriori, who were here first, and mankind is basically horrible and killing.

I know, I know, but why does it have to be this way? It's understood there will be some bloodshed in any conquest. But what was done here is inexcusable.

Hiding behind the skirts of mere conquest is not going to cut it. You cannot even call these invaders "animals" cuz animals don't do this sort of thing.

reply to post by useless eaters


I would like to know why as well.

But mankind is programmed to be inhumane.

I am coming around to the idea that it is an experiment, a cosmic and stupid game.

And I am tired of it and it is time to find out. Which, I think, may be quite soon.

I myself, wa never big of columbus day..but well over a decade ago, looking at a history channel special about columbus i was in loss of words. He chopped the hands off adolescent males, landing in dominican republic, NOT america, like were lied to, i mean taught in school. My ex ex g/f is dominican, and she showed me pictures of columbus's fort thats a tourist thing today, on the southwestern shore thier. Women were raped, and he tool thier gold. What bothers me the most, is to this day, it is taught he disccovered america, when in fact, HE landed in dominica...he rpaed, plundered, and enslaved the people...and america still has this sick holiday on the calendar..sounds like something adolph hitler or stalin would do...it shuold be strikin from american holidays.

Columbus was a typical European thug/conqueror/rapist: read his diaries, he brags of beatings, rapes(including girls as young as ten) and child murders. People like to excuse this crap with the line about judging them in context of their times, to which I answer: they were Christians, and as far as I can tell, their Bible specifically condemned that brutality then as now. So why not judge them according to what they claimed to believe with all their being, repeatedly?

Why not?

Because that leads to acknowledging the longest active genocide in recorded history: 1492-1898. And the passive genocide continues to this day.

Bah!

I have a button I wear on Columbus Day that reads:

"I might have believed it was an accident, except that you changed clips twice."

Originally posted by apacheman
Columbus was a typical European thug/conqueror/rapist: read his diaries, he brags of beatings, rapes(including girls as young as ten) and child murders.

Where might one gain access to said diaries?

Columbus was no criminal. He was a product of his time - which was a brutal, horrific era altogether. He was no worse than anyone else, nothing special.

Also, Columbus and his victims have been dead for 500 years now. It's time to let go and move on already. The same things Columbus did 500 years ago, when they were the norm, are being done now, when we supposedly know better. I would much rather worry about crimes happening now, than tragedies that took place centuries ago.

reply to post by slimpickens93


Any decent bookstore can order you copies of his dairies, especially from the 2nd and 3rd voyages

reply to post by chiron613


If we fail to see the past for what it was, and how horrific it was, we never learn from it, because of our naivety and ignorance. We have to look at the darkness from the past for what it was, and not a fairytale, concocted by academia and the conquers, but a pure unbiased account. Just my two cents on your comment. Yes, there are a lot of crimes in the world today to keep us busy, though.






[edit on 19-10-2009 by Jakes51]

Yes, the conquistadors were quite savage to the Native American populations of the Americas, but so were all European powers who set foot on these shores. What we see is that it is human nature to subjugate those that can't defend themselves. Anything that is perceived different or odd to the general status quo, it is eradicated as to not disrupt the balance of things. Some call it a clash of civilizations. This has been the Modus Operandi for mankind since they decided to come out of the caves.

What Columbus and others of his ilk did is no different that what is being done today. Just look at Africa and other third world nations, but this time subjugation is performed through oppressive economic policy and raping countries of their rightful resources to be sold in foreign markets were the proceeds are kept in the foreign economy. Then a few shady thugs running the host countries get monetary allowances and their fancy Presidential mansions and luxury cars from the financial elite, while their people live in squalor. When a crusading leader rises up to end the subjugation and do right by their people they are dismembered by covert or overt action by the foreign powers. It's been 500 years since Columbus sailed the ocean blue but the same problems of his day go on today, but through different techniques. Basic human dignity is something that has taken a backseat to conquest and greed. I see history like a revolving door.

You won't find a Columbus fan in me!

Guy was an a-hole, and wasn't even the first to discover America. Wasn't even the first European to!

columbus was quite a vibrant character wasnt he. he is truly the few and the proud.

reply to post by ziggy1706


I hear you, I hate being lied to like that. What he is/was is the complete opposite of what I was taught in school and I resent it. What else have these so called authorities of history lied about? As if they actually possessed the integrity to be truthful about anything.

We tend to judge historical figures against contemporary contexts. Under these conditions, we could find fault with nearly every person who has ever lived.

Had it not been for those in history who, by our own smug standards are so imperfect, we would have never had the opportunity to learn from their mistakes to become the perfect, all knowing and all loving society we are today.

Learn from history, don't attack it.

reply to post by apacheman

Like any good "Christian", they used the Bible to justify their crimes:

Religious persecution or not, they immediately turned to their religion to rationalize their persecution of others. They appealed to the Bible, Psalms 2:8: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." To justify their use of force to take the land, they cited Romans 13:2: "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."

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I don't celebrate Columbus Day nor do I celebrate Thanksgiving - yet another blood-tainted holiday. First, the natives fed the colonists, in the next few years the colonists would slaughter these very same native. Are they suppose to give thanks as well?

Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game) took the "what if Columbus never set out to discover the New World..." line of speculation and developed it into a really good historical sci-fi novel. Not to spoil it for you if you choose to read it, but the short version is that all of history is a battle between evils and sometimes what you think is the greater turns out to the be lesser of the evils. Besides being a good alternative time line kind of sci-fi story and an interesting book, it also forces you to question whether this "inhuman" "absolute monster" who was driven by blind devotion and a touch of hubris didn't actually end up saving millions of lives.

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus