Wow, what a horribly written column. Whether Columbus was a swell guy or a monster, if you write a column where you follow up reports of killing slaves with:
…and NOT mention that this was 90% due to (unintentional) disease, you pretty much have zero credibility. I see he does the same for his report of the Arawaks, leaving the reader to assume that half the tribe population died within two years solely due to direct mistreatment.
Yes, it’s indisputable that disease wiped out a lot of Native Americans. Did I say otherwise? The article includes a lot more than that, though.
Did I mention you? I said that the column was absolutely horribly written. It is. It’s misleading and presents a false impression of what Columbus did in order to advance the agenda of the author (getting rid of Columbus Day). It also links to “sources” that then can’t cite their own sources. From Danielpaul.com:
He quotes Lies My Teacher Told Me in multiple places, each time linking to a different website, all just copying the same work making it look as though he’s using multiple sources. Really, almost all of his cites are tertiary sources, usually websites cribbing from text books.
It has nothing to do with you – I just commented on it because I was surprised at how poorly written the column was.
Anyway, on the topic of Columbus’s actions versus his peers of the day, when Columbus hit the New World, Spain was deep in the process of doing the same things in the Canary Islands than would take place in the Caribbean.
Mass murderer, tyrant, rapist, enslaver, torturer… Even as homicidal racists generally go, this guy was pretty fucking horrible. The fact that he is celebrated annually as a hero is… unpalatable. I gave him one point higher than Hitler because reasons. Seriosuly, this is not a good role model or someone to be celebrated. Columbus day should perhaps be a day where you burn effigies of him and beg native americans for forgiveness. That would seem more appropriate as a “celebration”.
It feels close to Germany celebrating Hitler because he “strengthened the economy” before WWII.
If we’re comparing Columbus to Hitler, this brings up the question of how extraordinary Hitler really was.
Personally, I would guesstimate that up to 10% of all humans are thoroughly evil. What’s more unusual is for such a person to get the opportunity to act out his desires on a grand scale. Society usually limits the ability of bad people to do bad things.
Any person (read: man) of enough means to be remembered by history (having wealth or power or fame etc.) from the not too distant past would have some strong attitudes about race, class, religion etc. that would always make them look akin to Hitler by modern standards.
Pol Pot? Joseph Stalin? Just because Hitler’s atrocities are more pervasive doesn’t mean there haven’t been other genocidal maniacs to rival him.
Nope. Legal and illegal might be, but right and wrong are effectively absolute – if you don’t want it done to you, you have no business doing it to others.
Furthermore, you’re wrong about “majority.” Very often, what is permitted is determined by a ludicrously small subset of the population.
Now you’ve become unintelligible. The people you’d call “politically correct” absolutely reject the idea that “every view is ok.”
Fairly easy to criticize someone when they are 500 years in your rear view mirror. Most of you pikers probably wouldn’t have survived the late 15th century. Hell, if not for old Chris, you’d probably still be hauling potatoes up in a sack to your Lord’s manor. Be grateful.
Attitudes are one thing. Having a conscience that enables taking delight in the sight of the mass suffering of innocents is another. 1492 is a long time ago, but not so ancient that empathy and compassion hadn’t been invented yet.
I find something distasteful about shrugging off the past because of an assumption that people operated on completely different standards for morality. And that’s what it is: an assumption. What is the basis for saying this if the same society that produced Columbus was also capable of producing a man like de las Casas?
Utter nonsense. I don’t owe that reprobate shit.
My guess is that with all the exploring and seafaring, some other European would have blundered into the continent soon anyway, whether Columbus had drowned in the Atlantic and never made it to Hispaniola or not. Whether the results would have been any better for the natives of the Western Hemisphere is of course debatable.
However, there is plenty of evidence that his contemporaries who, in any reasonable sense, could be considered arbiters of moral character, by and large did not think well of him at all. To say he is neutral or even a positive example of moral character, even judging by the standards of the times, is indefensible.
Well, sure, but that’s just because OP presumes that these are benchmarks of admirability/evil that most of the audience will be familiar with. If you set your points at St. Francis of Assisi vs. Countess Báthory or something like that, you’d risk leaving many people confused.
Not every 15th century explorer sold or would have sold children into sexual slavery. By that measure (and that was pretty bad, even back then), Columbus is way worse than the “normal” morality of his time.
Not likely, seeing as potatoes originated in Peru and Bolivia, and were first introduced to Europe in the 1500’s.
Indeed, potatoes are a New World crop. I remember an old Robotman comic strip where Monty teleports himself back to 1485 and witnesses a Belgian potato-farming dance. Not likely!
This is one of the most pedestrian, pointless, ridiculous threads I’ve read in a while. If you really think that morality and ethics and so called ‘right and wrong’ have not been fluid throughout time, up to and including right now, you are the ultimate dilettante student of history. Stick to Star Wars canon…
Except he is pretty par for the course, I’m not sure how stating facts is “indefensible.” Are you wholly ignorant of the history of the world? Prior to modern times it was widely accepted that if you were more powerful than another people you essentially were allowed to subjugate them. This is behavior common to all the great ancient empires, prevalent throughout the European dark ages, prevalent throughout Europe until around the 19th century when people started to question it–and even then Europeans continued to do it en masse until well into the 20th century. It was also common, by the way, of Native Americans. There were several Native American empires that we know were tyrannical and terrible to the peoples they subjugated, there’s decent evidence most of the major tribes of North America that Europeans first encountered were the “last men standing” of many centuries of conflict.
Columbus’s behavior is probably only slightly worse than some of his contemporaries because he also acted dishonorably and illegally to the Spanish crown. Most other explorers didn’t end up imprisoned, but you guys are talking about his barbarism in the New World–barbarism that is both uncontroversial in the 15th century pretty much anywhere (including among Native Americans) and not at all why he ended up arrested.
With an insulting “question” like this, I don’t see the point in responding to the rest of your post.
Not really debatable. Native tribes would have still been decimated by disease, Spain would have still sent conquistadors on a quest for gold and land (because, you know, Columbus was a jerk but Cortez and Pizarro were swell guys), Portugal would have still expanded its slave trade into the New World, France and England would have still exploited the North American tribes over land and beaver pelts, etc.
Columbus is memorable as the guy who opened the New World to Europe (when he discovered it, it stayed discovered) but his actions or lack thereof wouldn’t have moved the needle on what came next. Maybe it would have been English adventurers in Mexico killing Aztecs for gold while Spain got stuck killing Wyandots for beaver pelts but the result would have been the same for the natives. There wasn’t a “nice” European power to fill the void; they all had the same general attitude towards the natives.
I’m sure you’re right. That does not excuse Columbus from having been exceptionally bad, even compared to a very bad lot.