The case for Columbus.
Link to quote: Trump issues a Columbus Day proclamation to ‘reclaim’ the explorer’s legacy - OPB
The Picture above is of the tomb of Columbus at the Cathedral in Seville.
I think it's time to straighten out the revisionism of the left and their Marxist perspective on history. A good place to start is with Columbus. Columbus was an explorer who offered his services to governments interested in finding a more efficient trade route to India. If successful there would be enormous rewards. One of them would be getting a share of the profits on a successful trade route. He got his chance when he secured the backing of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.
His first voyage landed him in the Bahamas which he mistakenly thought was the East Indies. In total he made 4 voyages to different locations. He did a number of things there, which can at least be verified. He set up a settlement and returned with things he found there including precious metals such as gold. When the King and Queen received these extraordinary samples & finds, they changed their objective. It was no longer finding a trade route to India. Instead, it was the colonization of the newfound territories. The question is how did Columbus get the blame for that?
Enter Howard Zinn, the writer of what sadly became a US textbook: "A Peoples history of the United States." Zinn took the Marxist perspective of history to a new level. He not only presents history as the struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed, but he tells his history from the eyes of natives and slaves, and he does it without nuance. I still have that book on my shelf. His history of Columbus is based on the recollection of a single individual, and we aren't told much about these local tribes (who were raiding one another) during the age of exploration.
We know far too little about these encounters to look back and cast individuals as villains. Let us give credit where it is due. Columbus defied the odds and accomplished what he set out to do.
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President Trump has signed a proclamation declaring Monday to be Columbus Day, in an effort to “reclaim” what he called the famed explorer’s “extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue.”
Trump issues a Columbus Day proclamation to ‘reclaim’ the explorer’s legacy - OPB
It already is. It’s a federal holiday. There’s nothing to reclaim.
I will continue to call it Indigenous People's Day
According to the frequently recited copilot, 20 states were calling it Indigenous People's Day.
Because they were discovered?
I support an Indigenous Peoples Day. I just wish it wasn’t tied to Columbus.
And they still will. Nothing Trump does can change that. Every day on the calendar is some kind of “day.” Last week we had National Taco Day. Every day is actually multiple days. Only like 12 are actually federal holidays, and one of them is Columbus Day. It didn’t need Trump to save it.
Maybe we can have a fresh Cod Day. Cod fillets were present when I came upon the seafood department at the supermarket.
How did you feel about secession?
me, too. I wish they had their own day
Funny that I don't know (or care) if my state is one of those 20. It was and always will be Columbus day IMO. If they want to give indigenous people their own day I am all for it.
Live and let live? I'm ok with that. I wish certain people could agree.
The significance of Christopher Columbus is not that he discovered the New World but, rather, that he stayed in the New World. The European influence in North, Central, and South America is a direct consequence of Christopher Columbus proving that self sustaining colonies in the New World were feasible. (And profitable.)
Yes, much to the detriment of the indigenous people living there.
If we know far too little to cast some as villans then we know far too little to cast them as heros.
Columbus was what he was. If he didnt "discover" America someone else would have.
The only question is why is he glorified when his adventures led to so much suffering?
Columbus Day serves as a national celebration of Italian heritage. There are other Italians from history that could serve that purpose better.
That's pretty much true of most things. If Newton didn't discover the laws of motion, somebody else would have (eventually).
Indeed. There is Leonardo DaVinci or Galileo for example. Men of science and science in general should be honored.
Someone had already "discovered" the continental U.S - so Columbus wasn't the first.
Native Americans, with populations of between 80 and 120 million, had been on the continent for over 35,000 years. They had advanced societies, architectural wonders, and vast trading systems that were highly successful.
Lief Erickson is reported to have landed in Greenland 'bout 1000 and sent/established trade routes in Canada and northern U.S.
Saying he “found” gold is really polishing a turd. He enslaved the native population and forced them to mine gold for him.
Columbus is a historically important figure, no question. But I see no reason to have a specifically United States of America holiday for him. The closest he could be said to have come to ever setting foot in what became the USA is that he landed in Puerto Rico.
If you want to celebrate the European discovery of what became the United States, it would make more sense to focus on Jamestown or maybe St. Augustine (although Florida was not an original colony or state).
I do know where you are getting that. That would be the associate professor at Arizona State University Leo Killsbeck (Native American activist.) I'm not certain how he got his job, whether he earned it or was a DEI hire (see how that works.) His claim is based on his interpretation of the reconstructed Columbus Journal/diary, which is based on various recollections sine the original was lost. Can you show us where it is a proven fact that natives were "forced" with no compensation whatsoever to mine gold?
I also have one more question. I also read what leftist professors have to say. I use extreme caution and fact checking when I read or listen to their opinions. Can you tell me what makes their arguments so appealing to you?
If you’re really interested, this is the world’s easiest Google search.
Why Columbus Day Courts Controversy
That is what I need to see.
It's not hard to find if you do even a smidge of digging. Or will you not believe them unless you read the original documents in their untranslated form so you can build your own conclusion as to whether Columbus was a dick or not?
You can’t or won’t work Google, or follow the link I gave you. But you’re going to employ your expert analysis of historical documents and medieval Spanish, if only I will supply you with the original documents. Is that how it works?
This shit is getting weird. Trumpsters feel entitled to be ignorant.
What if he looks and looks and looks and looks but still can't find it...?
As Dulay used to say "I'd like to see them."
We aren't ignorant. We are asking the indoctrinated to show us the things they are holding up as facts.
Nobody ever had Americans talking about race like the POS you are using for an avatar. This is all part of the evil he created.
Not that I'm defending Columbus, but this is kind of misleading, using in the first sentence "people's", "women" and "them" all plural like as in multiple times this happened and then it was just "One man" and a "woman" and the report was written by a man that was commissioned to give a reason to oust Columbus by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.
I miss Dulay
Me too. Those were always classic debates.
Lost document reveals Columbus as tyrant of the Caribbean
The "defense" of Columbus, as it often is with this sort of thing is that he was merely a man of his times, and to be fair there is some truth to that. Replace Columbus with any of the other European explorers of the era and we likely would have seen the same result. The purpose of these explorations was to expand the influence and domain of the monarchies that funded them. Columbus was clearly looking for gold, and was more than willing to exploit the natives to get it. He had no objection at all to making the "inferior" natives into slaves and actually wrote a letter to his Spanish patrons telling them he would bring back as many slaves as they wanted.
Thomas Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves in his lifetime, and never freed them. He was also quite racist, explicitly writing about the shortcomings of the African race. These things are simply not in dispute. Yet Jefferson maintains a pretty good reputation in American history and Columbus has been somewhat downgraded. The difference is Jefferson wrote the Declaration Of Independence and was a true founding father, and Columbus was a European who never set foot in what later became the United States and has no specific connection to it. It has never really been clear why Columbus is supposed to be an American hero, other than the dubious fact that he represented the European conquering of what we now call the Caribbean and Central America.
What fucking nonsense.
What does "our" mean in these contexts? Trump says Columbus was an American hero, even though he died over 250 years prior to the founding of the United States, and died 100 years before the first English settlement of Jamestown.
Columbus is not an American hero , he is a European hero, and the "our" s in Trump's proclamation indicate who is being referred to, and its not indigenous or the Africans brought here as slaves.
Here is a fact Vic. Queen Isabella told Columbus not to abuse the indigenous people and that they were "free vassals of the crown" and that she forbade their enslavement. He ignored that totally.
Google that if you don't believe me.
I agree with you totally on this one.
John - are you serious???? How the frick can you throw your nemesis into this discussion?
Take it up with the author of the report - Consuelo Varela.
1st,
I have to defend John here. Trump is part of the original article; therefore, he is not throwing Trump into the discussion.
But even Columbus was arrested for the way he treated the natives.
That is a fact, but unfortunately it doesn't tell us what Columbus did or what the various tribes he came across did. All I ask for is verifiable evidence that we can all look at.
Here is another fact (via copilot): "When Columbus left Hispaniola in 1493, he left about 39 men in a fort settlement named La Navidad, which was in the northern part of present-day Haiti. On his return, Columbus found the fort destroyed and many of his men were dead. The Taino people had killed them."
We know little of the circumstances surrounding that massacre because there are no reports of what happened.
Do you know that even Columbus ethnicity is in dispute. The Portuguese claim that he was born in Portugal.
So, you don't have the document.
Really? It warms my heart to hear you say that. So much so I took a couple of hours out of my day to think and write some lines, to ask chatGPT just what it thought of the truthfulness and the factuality your reaction to my beautiful avatar.
It said, "That statement is not factually accurate and relies on emotionally charged opinion, not verifiable evidence," and, "The statement is false and non-verifiable," because, "Obama did not uniquely cause Americans to “talk about race.”...He did not “create evil.” ...Public discussion of race predates him by centuries, and the intensity during his presidency reflects deeper, preexisting racial tensions that his election surfaced rather than created."
Then I entered my lines, my thoughts and musings into chatGPT and we kicked it around until the following popped out. It is much better read aloud, in the cadence of Obama, but I had already spent far too much time on it, considering who it was for. And of course, I couldn't resist tweaking it, 'cause that is what I do.
To say that the electoral viability of the first black candidate that could actually win didnt make racist heads explode around the country is the silliest thing we could ever see here. Vic is trying to whitewash the subject.
Your main talent on this forum, by far, is trying to change the subject. Most transparent too.
Remember his grandmother was "a typical white person."
He never failed to comment on any local news story involving race. Trayvon Martin "could have been his son."
He invited BLM into the White House shortly before Dallas Police were ambushed.
It was Obama who enlarged the affirmative action program to become DEI. And the sole qualification for diversity was to be non-white. That created millions of problems that we are still dealing with now. Essentially what he did was to inflate what was once regarded as the minority population (12%) to include all non-whites, making it (30%). He used it to win elections and change the race relations that the country had achieved. It was all an effort to build a victimized class.
He set race relations back at least 100 years.
As the first non white president Obama had an absolute responsibility to try and create a public dialogue on race.
Obama took a lot of heat for saying something to the effect of Trayvon Martin could have been his son. Trayvon Martin was racially profiled and followed through a dark and rainy street by an unmarked car with its lights off. Zimmerman was not a cop, he was a busybody. Martin got spooked and evidently confronted Zimmerman which led to a fight, which led to Zimmerman losing the fight and felt to save his own life he had to shoot Martin.
Obama would have been derelict if he did not comment on it. Same with the "beer summit" thing.
It was presented as an example of what little we really know about that period.
As far as "subjects" go, you only seem to have one. You got defended here because Trump was in the article, but you invoke Trump even when he isn't.
That is another fact.
You are under the absolute delusion that Obama being elected means racism had disappeared , frankly, that is what simple minded people think and say. There are people alive today whose mothers and grandmothers marched to preserve segregated schools and lunch counters. Anyone who thinks racism would disappear, after 400 years, in two generations is badly mistaken.
He took the side of blacks in every racial incident. Remember when the Cambridge professor had trouble unlocking his own door and neighbors called the police thinking he was trying to break in?
Cambridge Police came and asked for proof he lived there, and Obama said the police acted "stupidly."
Let's face it John, Obama resented white people and the country.
Every time someone is destroying your points you try and sideways the discussion. I am way beyond you Vic, but keep plugging away big guy.
Not only had racism been just about eradicated, but people had to invent events and adjectives to pretend it was still around like Jussie Smollett and silly words like systemic racism. It could no longer be seen so the left had to present it as if it was in the air.
If you say so.
I don't know who is the more self-aggrandizing: you or Trump.
That would be you.
Why would Obama resent white people? He was raised by white people, when he was a teenager he hung out with white people, his college room mate was white. He worked at a law firm that I'm sure was almost all white.
Stop reading all that far right crap.
Single-handedly? Please. The bigots and modern-day Klansmen who crawled out from under their rocks after his presidency deserve their share of the credit, and they should tip their hats to the man who gave them permission: Donald Trump and his “We don’t give a fuck about your feelings” brigade.
But we do know now. Read this article:
And yes, I did know that the Portuguese claim that he was born in Portugal. Here is one you might not have heard of. He was probably also a converso, meaning that he converted from Judaism. On the corner of the pages of his journals were the letters "bet hei", meaning "Blessed is God." That being said, I don't think the Jews want him, since I have seen no effort to claim him.
Come on Vic. That is like saying, "So you don't have those pyramids". Those documents are known to historians and governments.
Stop trolling. I’m not in possession of the Declaration of Independence, either.
From your linked article:
"The document was written by a member of an order of religious knights, the Order of Calatrava, who had been asked to investigate the allegations against Columbus by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, who ruled Spain together at the time.
The report, by Francisco de Bobadilla, lay undiscovered in a state archive in the Spanish city of Valladolid until last year. Bobadilla had already been named governor of the Indies, replacing Columbus, at the time of the report."
Lost document reveals Columbus as tyrant of the Caribbean | World news | The Guardian
Just so we all understand it: this is the exact same document that Tacos refers to, the same document that Leo Killsbeck refers to and that Howard Zinn famously pinned his chapter on Columbus to. One man Francisco de Bobadilla is the source of the document which is not posted on the internet anywhere. Well Perrie, critical thinking requires questioning sources and we are left with only one.
Although the article says that the report was recently discovered, it was noted that the article was written decades ago and that is when those I mentioned ran with it. I'm not saying that the single report isn't true, because it may be, but my article was not about what Columbus did as Governor of a Spanish Colony. I pointed out that Columbus simply wanted a share of a trade route that he believed he could find by sailing through uncharted waters to the west. His discoveries were a world-shaking achievement at the time and should be celebrated even to this day.
Thank you for submitting the source. I was looking for supporting evidence.
I also want to thank Tacos and Thomas and of course JR for playing white man bad, indigenous people good. Unfortunately, they could never get by the fact that 39 men were slaughtered by those wonderful natives.
For our readers, I simply want to wish them a happy Columbus Day.
It is one report. It may be true. I merely seek supporting evidence.
So that's all you got out of our combined responses? Is the world of shading and nuance totally lost? As a nation and a world we need to think more about how we are alike, how to fix the problems that our peoples face, how to be better people.
Nobody made the overgeneralized statement that you attempt to paint us with. If you have confirmed data, bring them to the table. If you are simply going to paint one side of the argument good while denying the other, that is simply blindly confirming your biases and does not advance your argument at all.
We can’t fix anything while we’re busy defending caricatures like a modern-day Don Quixote, tilting at enemies that exist only in our own imagination.
I am perfectly willing to say Columbus was a "man of his times" and that can somewhat explain his mistreatment of the natives, who he assumed were inferior heathens.
I am not willing to say there should be statues to him in 2025.
As for Columbus day, it survives as a holiday that recognizes Italian -Americans.
Duty calls, so I'm off again.
I want to join all the people of the middle east in thanking the President for bringing peace to the region and I want to wish everyone a HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY!
In conclusion:
This little montage puts it all into proper perspective: