# Christopher Columbus really was scum wasn't he? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 14, 2014, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271 "2014-10-14T04:50:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/61 "2014-10-14T19:51:30Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Of course he was scum…as was Andrew Jackson, General Sherman, General Sheridan. But good luck getting Jackson removed from the $20. There are LOTS of famous and successful people who have great PR but are total and complete scum and no you don’t have to go back hundreds of years to find them. Recent history and current events are Full of pretty faces that are as shallow and superficial as the Raquel Welch poster in ‘Shawshank Redemption’ (…and they’re just as hollow, jagged, and empty on the inside too). Get them off the $20? You’re lucky if you can ever get them off the dial, off of the marquee, or off of the ballot. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/62 "2014-10-14T20:01:51Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > And imagine his surprise when he got there and found a city with the same name as him! And if you want further proof of his scumhood just look at the wretched hive of scum and ignorance that’s called a university in that city. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/63 "2014-10-14T21:24:29Z")
Well, in Columbus’ defense he did pave the way to make Montezuma stop eating so many of his neighbors. And not only that, there appears to be a marked broad preference for the cultures that were subsequently established, based on people clawing their way in versus bolting for the door of Europeanized nations… Plus HVAC and the Internet, which the natives never would have gotten around to inventing. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/64 "2014-10-14T21:31:00Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > Recent history and current events are Full of pretty faces that are as shallow and superficial as the Raquel Welch poster in ‘Shawshank Redemption’ Sorry, and I know this is completely off topic, but here goes. [nitpick] Rita Hayworth. [/nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![Recusant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@Recusant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recusant)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/65 "2014-10-14T21:36:49Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Sorry, and I know this is completely off topic, but here goes. > > [nitpick] Rita Hayworth. [/nitpick] Oh, come on. If you’re going to nitpick, do ti right. It was Linda Ronstadt. ---
**Author:** ![Toucanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/66 "2014-10-14T21:44:19Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Yesterday, several people on Facebook shared The Oatmeal’s take: [Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not)](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day). Umm, got real dusty in this room just now. Pardon me while I… oh, hell, {{sob}} Thanks for linking to that. ---
**Author:** ![jimbuff314](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c57346/32.png) [@jimbuff314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimbuff314)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/67 "2014-10-14T22:09:24Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Sorry, and I know this is completely off topic, but here goes. > > [nitpick] Rita Hayworth. [/nitpick] Being Native American, I just gotta weigh in here and say : > [@](#): > > Warden Samuel Norton: [after Andy escapes] […] And that cupcake on the wall! Let’s ask her, maybe she knows. > Warden Samuel Norton: [to poster] What say you there, fuzzy-britches? Feel like talking? Aw, guess not. Why should she be any different? Referring to the poster of Raquel Welch on the wall, covering Andy’s completed escape tunnel, done over the course of less than 20 years and probably several posters, starting with Rita Hayworth. “Fuzzy britches” refers to Raquel’s fur bikini from _One Million Years B.C._ ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/68 "2014-10-14T23:07:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > On the other hand, is changing the name of the holiday from Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day _that_ big of a sacrifice? Yeah, but, eventually they’d find out Indigenous People did bad stuff too, and then have to change it to International Hedgehog Day or something. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Well, yeah, but nobody has a public holiday celebrating Vasco de Gama or James Cook (and the latter seems to have been a pretty nice guy, though maybe just because he didn’t find any natives to massacre.) In Soviet Australasia, Natives Massacre _You_. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/69 "2014-10-14T23:35:46Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > The [Vallolidad Debate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valladolid_debate) pitted Bartolome de las Casas against a less famous “Humanist” scholar who claimed the Indians deserved to be “punished” by slavery or serfdom. De las Casas even said that conversion should be voluntary. What’s the quotes for? And if anything, las Casas was less famous that Sepulvada, who was pretty justly famous for his translations of Aristotle, his anti-Lutheran works, his polemic against Henry VIII, his appointment as official historian and chaplain to Charles V and tutor to Phillip II, his sometimes contentious correspondence with Erasmus, etc. If anybody deserves the title of “humanist scholar”, it’s Sepulvada. Even his arguments in the Valloilidad debates were humanist arguments. A lot of his pro-Indian slavery arguments were Aristotelian and logical. If anything, las Casas’s arguments were less humanist and more explicitly Christian, and las Casas rejected the classical tradition, in the arguments, linking Alexander the Great and the Romans to the Turks, condemning them as tyrants and pagans, and not the model of a Christian king. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/70 "2014-10-15T04:51:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Why celebrate Columbus? Because his voyage started the European expansion that led to all of us living here today. He’s significant historically, despite being a horrible person. Granted, I think all the focus on the man is stupid. It’s the voyage that is important. But making it “Indigenous People’s Day” misses the point. I’m not saying such a day shouldn’t exist, and perhaps become a national holiday instead of Columbus Day, but it does not make sense as a rename of the holiday. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/71 "2014-10-15T05:46:24Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > The Aztecs were worse than the Europeans, but the Inca were much better. Though I recently read that the Inca were brutally homophobic. The Inca society was brutally regimented. It was caste oriented, very rigidly hierarchical, and had zero room for upward mobility. If you were born a farmer, you were a farmer for life, and so were your kids. There were far fewer freedoms than even in ancient Egypt. Rome was a hotbed of liberty in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/72 "2014-10-15T06:46:40Z")
I’d be ok with celebrating the first English North American colony - Jamestown - though John Smith was a tough cookie. John Cabot, who explored North America in 1497, might be another candidate. Or heck, why not have a Gutenberg day? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/73 "2014-10-15T07:00:03Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I’ll leave it to someone else to assess his navigation (quite good, I understand) and ability to keep his crew in line during the first voyage. Columbus certainly wasn’t much of a scientist. **Maybe we should celebrate [Amerigo Vespucci’s](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/951/why-was-america-named-after-amerigo-vespucci) birthday instead.** Resource conquest isn’t something to be emulated, never mind incompetent resource conquest. Maybe we should even rename our continent and country after Vespucci. Oh, wait a minute . . . ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/74 "2014-10-15T11:57:01Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Settling up a little Viking shanty town and doing nothing else doesn’t win you any statues. [I beg to differ](https://www.google.com/search?q=leif+ericson+statue&num=30&safe=off&client=ubuntu&hs=Mgj&channel=fs&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=tmA-VLSxLLDe7AbJhoDIBw&ved=0CCEQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=563)… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/75 "2014-10-15T12:14:32Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Yeah, but, eventually they’d find out Indigenous People did bad stuff too, and then have to change it to International Hedgehog Day or something. Sure, like Spiny Norman is all innocent… Columbus _was_ scum, and I’m all in favour of not celebrating any holidays in his honour. I’d be a bit aghast of South Africa still celebrated [Van Riebeeck Day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founders_Day_%28South_Africa%29), or [Kruger Day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes%27_Day_%28South_Africa%29) or [We Killed A Bunch Of Zulus Because Jesus Totally Loves Whites Best Day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Vow) (That … may not be the actual name of the holiday) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/76 "2014-10-15T12:20:38Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I’d be ok with celebrating the first English North American colony - Jamestown - though John Smith was a tough cookie. John Cabot, who explored North America in 1497, might be another candidate. Or heck, why not have a Gutenberg day? If we do, I’m going to insist that we spell his name right – _Giovanni Caboto or Zuan Chabotto_. The guy was Italian, after all. His son, the explorer Sebastian, was really _Caboto_, too. Even taking care of Buffy and Jody with that British accent couldn’t disguise that fact. Speaking of which, why do we insist on “Columbus” instead of “Colon”? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/77 "2014-10-15T12:30:30Z")
Well, I would not be surprised if any number of countries _did_ have a thinly disguised or not _“we killed a bunch of [others] because [our god] totally loves [us] best”_ day… humans are kind of like that from what I’ve observed. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/78 "2014-10-15T12:49:48Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Well, I would not be surprised if any number of countries _did_ have a thinly disguised or not _“we killed a bunch of [others] because [our god] totally loves [us] best”_ day… humans are kind of like that from what I’ve observed. Well, sure … doesn’t make it right or appropriate in this day and age. And as the South African examples show, it’s not impossible to get rid of that shit. You just need complete regime change 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/79 "2014-10-15T12:51:18Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Speaking of which, why do we insist on “Columbus” instead of “Colon”? Actually, using that variant would probably get across the OP’s thesis quite handily. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271/80 "2014-10-15T13:22:12Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Speaking of which, why do we insist on “Columbus” instead of “Colon”? The fashion back then was to Latinate names…so Columbus rather than Columbo, Calvinus rather than the French Cauvin, Copenicus rather than the Polish Kopernik, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-columbus-really-was-scum-wasnt-he/701271.md?page=5)