# The man who murdered Christopher Columbus **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 30, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954 "2014-10-30T01:27:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/21 "2014-10-30T14:39:51Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Experiments in heavier than air flight were taking place all over the world. A few were - but they weren’t achieving all that much. > [@](#): > > … someone else would have done it within a very short period of time. Probably something like 10-15 years. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/22 "2014-10-30T14:56:21Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > A few were - but they weren’t achieving all that much. > Probably something like 10-15 years. Or less, even negative numbers. There’s no way to tell, but the development of technology wouldn’t have focused on sea travel as much. The development of trains might have come sooner, and by the early 20th century automobiles could have been further along and lighter weight engines available. Given the situation with ships mysteriously disappearing at certain longitudes I think it’s likely the Americas would have been discovered with lighter than air flight before winged aircraft were developed and that would have spurred faster development of airplanes. Or it could have taken them another 100 years to develop long distance flight. No way of knowing the result of 400 years of technology moving in a different direction. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/23 "2014-10-30T15:21:07Z")
I suspect America today would be like a giant Tibet or Kazakhstan in terms of standards of living. With its own technological advances, but not much. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/24 "2014-10-30T15:30:52Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Okay, then, the hulls of their ships pick up nanobots as they sail east. When they arrive in the Old World, the nanobots drift free and see all those tasty Old World hulls and the American navy is suddenly the only fleet in the water. As the only culture capable of shipping, the Americans rule the seas and commerce in the Atlantic. Which seems like a pretty damn good allegory for conquest by pandemic. 🆒 ---
**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 30, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/25 "2014-10-30T15:47:37Z")
I have no idea what a native American high-tech civilization, unperturbed by European explorers, would look like, or even if it would exist. It’s not a given that it would, and that’s not meant to cast any aspersions on indigenous American people. There were large civilizations at several places in the Americas, and at several times. Most didn’t develop writing or other recording systems (like _quipu_, which still isn’t understood), and those that did don’t seem to have used them to record and transmit technical knowledge. We just don’t have any model or glimmerings of how a technological native American culture would start or develop. There are probably examples in SF literature, but the only one I recall is from L. Sprague de Camp’s story _Artistotle and the Gun_, where it sort of resembles medieval Europe, with scribes hand-copying books to preserve history, mainly. As Jared Diamond points out in his book _Guns, Germs, and Steel_, there aren’t many large domesticated animals in the Americas, let alone draft animals (There’s the Vicuna, as well as the llama, by the way). It’s not just which animals can help pull or carry your stuff – it’s which animals can you even Eat. Anthropologist Michael Harner is the one who suggested that Aztec (and other group) human sacrifice is, in part, due to using people as a source of meat. Aside from big birds and dogs, what else did most of the indigenous groups have as domesticated meat? (And, as anthropologist Marvin Harris observed, championing Harner’s thesis, dogs eat meat. If you have meat to feed the dog, you’re better off eating it yourself). Without domesticated animals it’s harder to have a fixed civilization with farming communities (Unless you’re very dedicated vegetarians, you have to hunt your meat, or eat your enemies). Without domesticated animals you have no ready source for diseases to use as storage places and vectors, so you don’t develop all those immunities. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/26 "2014-10-30T15:54:19Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Which seems like a pretty damn good allegory for conquest by pandemic. 🆒 But then the Americans start dropping like flies from smallpox and it’s War of the Worlds all over again… and the rare, few ships left over are treasured masterpieces, as they’re the only seaworthy ships in the Old World… until they cross the sea and things go very badly for the Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/27 "2014-10-30T17:19:33Z")
FYI, the Orson Scott Card book “Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus” touches on this IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/28 "2014-10-30T17:38:06Z")
No dogs in NA before the Europeans? I did not know that. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/29 "2014-10-30T17:54:35Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > No dogs in NA before the Europeans? I did not know that. There were dogs, and they were used as pack animals. I’m not sure but they may have been pulling sleds in the north before the European invasion. I recall some mention that they were used for hunting as well. ---
**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 30, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/30 "2014-10-30T17:58:32Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > No dogs in NA before the Europeans? I did not know that. Where did you get that idea? There certainly were dogs in the Americas before the Europeans. > [@](#): > > Emigrants from Siberia likely crossed the Bering Strait with dogs in their company, and some experts[29] suggest the use of sled dogs may have been critical to the success of the waves that entered North America roughly 12,000 years ago,[29] although the earliest archaeological evidence of dog-like canids in North America dates from about 9,400 years ago.[30][22]:104 Dogs were an important part of life for the Athabascan population in North America, and were their only domesticated animal. Dogs also carried much of the load in the migration of the Apache and Navajo tribes 1,400 years ago. Use of dogs as pack animals in these cultures often persisted after the introduction of the horse to North America.[31 > **[Dog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog)** > > The dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from an extinct population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. The dog was the first species to be domesticated by humans, over 14,000 years ago and before the development of agriculture. Experts estimate that due to their long association with humans, dogs have gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that woul... ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/31 "2014-10-30T18:21:19Z")
[quote=“CalMeacham, post:30, topic:702954”] Where did you get that idea? There certainly were dogs in the Americas before the Europeans. Post #3: “Horses, dogs, sheep, cattle and pigs were all introduced by Europeans.” Not that I took that as Gospel:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/32 "2014-10-30T18:52:19Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > A few were - but they weren’t achieving all that much. > Probably something like 10-15 years. _On 28 March 1910 Frenchman Henri Fabre successfully flew the first successful powered seaplane, the Gnome Omega-powered hydravion, a trimaran floatplane.[8] Fabre’s first successful take off and landing by a powered seaplane inspired other aviators and he designed floats for several other flyers. The first hydro-aeroplane competition was held in Monaco in March 1912, featuring aircraft using floats from Fabre, Curtiss, Tellier and Farman. This led to the first scheduled seaplane passenger services at Aix-les-Bains, using a five-seat Sanchez-Besa from 1 August 1912.[7] The French Navy ordered its first floatplane in 1912._ By my count that’s 7 years. The French had experiments going before the turn of the century. ---
**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 30, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/33 "2014-10-30T19:04:59Z")
[quote=“Son\_of\_a\_Rich, post:31, topic:702954”] > [@CalMeacham](#): > > Where did you get that idea? There certainly were dogs in the Americas before the Europeans. > Post #3: “Horses, dogs, sheep, cattle and pigs were all introduced by Europeans.” > > Not that I took that as Gospel:rolleyes: In post 32 I said that dogs were indigenous. The Europeans introduced some breeds of dogs, but there were other breeds already here. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/34 "2014-10-30T19:24:41Z")
Well, I’ve learned something then. I didn’t know there were indigenous dogs. Thanks for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/35 "2014-10-30T19:31:58Z")
The Italians, with no tomatoes with which to make pasta sauce, rely solely on olive oil and cheese based sauces and die out from heart disease. The Irish never develop a dependence on the potato as a primary food source, instead they diversify, increase in population and overthrow English rule. The Declaration of Independence is written by a guy named Patrick O’Leary ---
**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 30, 2014, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/36 "2014-10-30T19:38:46Z")
> [@](#): > > The Italians, with no tomatoes with which to make pasta sauce, rely solely on olive oil and cheese based sauces and die out from heart disease. If you haven’t seen it, look up the first sequel to the low-budget cult film _Attack of the Killer Tomatoes_. **Return of the Killer Tomatoes** is worth watching for several reason, besides starring a young pre-famous George Clooney. It has higher production values than its original, a great send-up of shilling for brands, and a wonderful bit of extrapolation – since tomatoes are banned after the first film (they’re Killers, after all), Italians take to making things like Boysenberry Pizza. But a lucrative black market in Real Tomatoes springs up. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/37 "2014-10-30T19:42:03Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > By my count that’s 7 years. The French had experiments going before the turn of the century. Yes, but those experiments produced little. They got a big boost when the Wrights showed up with 3-axis control. ---
**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 30, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/38 "2014-10-30T20:39:32Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > A few were - but they weren’t achieving all that much. > Probably something like 10-15 years. This is way off-topic, but the first heavier-than-air steam-powered flight actually took place in 1848, LONG before the Wright brothers. It was the work of John Stringfellow, who built a miniature steam engine to power his monoplane, twin-propeller-driven airplane. I wrote about it here: [http://www.teemings.net/series\_1/issue15/calmeacham.html](http://www.teemings.net/series_1/issue15/calmeacham.html) Stringfellow’s accomplishment, which he repeated numerous times, is as well-attested as anything from that period can be. There are newspaper reports from London and eyewitnesses. No photographs, of course – this was in the very infancy of photography, when still lifes were the norm because exposures were so long. There are photographs of his airplane, though, looking thoroughly out of place with its single wing and counter-rotating propellors. It looks more modern than the Wright’s first planes. and, _Flight of the Phoenix_ to the contrary notwithstanding, it wasn’t powered by a rubber band, and Henson had nothing to do with it, having split up with Stringfellow years before. There were heavier-than-air flights of model helicopters before this, but they WERE spring- or rubber-band-powered. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/39 "2014-10-31T16:49:00Z")
> [@August\_West](#): > > The Italians, with no tomatoes with which to make pasta sauce, rely solely on olive oil and cheese based sauces and die out from heart disease. > > The Irish never develop a dependence on the potato as a primary food source, instead they diversify, increase in population and overthrow English rule. The Declaration of Independence is written by a guy named Patrick O’Leary Without the potato as a food source, how would the German States have fared in the late eighteenth century? One of the reasons for the French Revolution was the climate had grown too cool for effective grain production, and people were starving. For that matter, without the leading example of the United States rejecting royalty, would the French Revolution have just installed another king? ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954/40 "2014-10-31T17:16:16Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Aside from big birds and dogs, what else did most of the indigenous groups have as domesticated meat? (And, as anthropologist Marvin Harris observed, championing Harner’s thesis, dogs eat meat. If you have meat to feed the dog, you’re better off eating it yourself). Without domesticated animals it’s harder to have a fixed civilization with farming communities (Unless you’re very dedicated vegetarians, you have to hunt your meat, or eat your enemies). Without domesticated animals you have no ready source for diseases to use as storage places and vectors, so you don’t develop all those immunities. The Incas had guinea pigs as well as poultry and llamas. And they did live next to one of the world’s richest fisheries. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-man-who-murdered-christopher-columbus/702954.md?page=3)