Have you read Bartolomé de las Casas book A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Or, a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them.)? It’s on Gutenberg and elsewhere for free online as well as for sale on Amazon.
Once you read it and learn how many of the things he writes of are historically substantiated, you will not be much concerned that a minority of the horrifying atrocities of the Spanish invasion may be exaggerated.
The invaders were in large part unlanded younger sons of nobility who had been indoctrinated to believe that non-Christian savages had no souls, and that as long as they didn’t claim Jesus as their personal savior, any act committed upon them was permissible. This is exactly the same attitude that the Muslim invaders of India had towards the native populations there, and it’s the evil the word “dehumanizing” is usually meant to describe.
If de las Casas did exaggerate, he couldn’t have done it in a better cause.
Much as I respect Leif Erikson’s achievement, and much as the word “discovery” is problematic in this context, there’s a significant difference: after Columbus “discovered” America, It stayed discovered.
That’s actually kind of depressing, My public school covered as much of it as they could time permitting. In multiple “World History” and “American History” classes. In my experiences these sorts of things tend to be dependent on the curriculum used by a given state, and how a given region/district/county/teacher applies that curriculum. My area seemed to do pretty well with it, particularly in classes not tied to standardized testing.
There are dozens of claims about Pre-Columbian contact with the Americas by old world groups. Vikings in several different locations and at several different times. Chinese traders. Egyptian or Phoenician traders. Medieval Arab explorers. Biblical Era Hebrews fleeing the Middle East. Celtic kings from Wales. With one exception (Vikings in Greenland, L’Anse aux Meadows/Vinland) none are well establish or accepted. Most are based on hoaxed or otherwise dubious artifacts, or misreadings of documents. And many have ties to disturbing racial or religious theories. Its all a lot of fun to read up on though. Here’s some stuff:
“pedophile” – Not making excuses, but check the context before attaching that term to a historical figure. Even now there are some societies where pre-pubescent girls may be married off. to older boys – or men – with, presumably, sex ensuing as soon as their bodies are capable of it. I don’t know what typical age of first sex would have been in rural Spain; I don’t know what it would have been in the islands.
By today’s standards, no question. But nobody then was living by today’s standards, and they have to be judged by their own time.
The rest isn’t exactly news. Nor is the fact that Columbus turned out to be a particularly poor manager of these conquered peoples even by the standards of that time.
very interesting.
but did you say giving girls college scholarships is one of their problems because they tend to start BDSM clubs?
i don’t really see an issue with either of those things. but i’m not catholic nor a knight of columbus
I take this approach myself. There are many things in the past that we now find abhorrent, but at the time it was acceptable. Your example of slavery is a good one. Another would be human sacrifices practiced by some South American tribes or the death penalty for things that would now be considered misdemeanors. One has to look at the context of the times before one judges someone.
To be sure Columbus was a right ass, though I doubt many Europeans of the time would have done things many of the things differently. I think pinning the transatlantic slave trade on him is a bit of a stretch. I can see the Oatmeal’s point on the issue, but it’s hardly something he had a direct hand in.
Whether he deserves his own holiday, I would say no. But his “legend” has obviously been glossed over to the point that I could see how people would think he’s something special. You can see how many have honored him with things named after him, like Washington DC.
Since I am familiar with inaccuracies in de las Casas, it should be implicit that I am familiar with his book, having in fact read it in its original Castilian. The two examples presented are exactly two which happen to be controversial, but are most often quoted or depicted in film (see The Conquest of Paradise for more abysmal scholarship). It is no small coincidence that these examples keep reappearing in Reformation pamphlets, engravings, and other sources written with the obvious and transparent agenda of promulgating The Black Legend.
I have re-read my post and I don’t see where in any way I give Columbus, the subject of the article, a pass. However, I do disagree vehemently with your trivializing dismissal of the truth. If we follow that argument, for whatever reason, no matter how noble the cause, history ceases to be a social science and becomes propaganda to forward an agenda.
