Community Chat

[Ruby Laine]

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@dex wrote:

@SeaMaiden me too.I thought with all of the colonoscopy threads maybe someone got a diagnosis that I should explore...just never know who could be hit with the Cistobal Colon.

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And this was the best post, @dex.  

[maestra]

The same could be said for all those of the Age of Exploration. Read Jared Diamond's, Guns, Germs, and Steel, or watch the yu tube videos of his extraordinary book.

The most benign act was to bring and spread smallpox, a result of these Europenas traveling w/domesticated swine. Europeans had developed (many) some immunity; even the Hawaiians were deecimated by the disease brought by British and Dutch missionaries.

[cherry]

I was tagged, and asked if I would make Columbus Day a holiday. I have no idea why? I never implied in anyway that I would...

[Zernia Rose]

Christopher Columbus kept a diary of hus voyage and exploration.  They are available online and they offer  a wealth of information about his ideas, value, and morals.  Equally important, the Spain that Columbus lived in was multilingual, multicultural, multi-religious, etc. befoe the start of the Inquisition.  I mention these because history is complex and often belies our sanitizing efforts.

[esmerelda]

@Cakers3 Speaking of Vikings, how did they treat the people they found here?

[bathina]

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@esmerelda wrote:

@Cakers3 Speaking of Vikings, how did they treat the people they found here?

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Why? Do we celebrate Viking Day in this country?

[beckyb1012]

I have and always will have the wonderful memories in Social Studies class learning about Christoper Columbus.  The fall weather outside the and the months of October, November, and magical December ahead of me as a young girl. Loved the map colors, construction and tissue paper to create history and holidays.  Columbus, Pilgrims, Indians, and the Colonists.

Then the months in the new year with Valentines Day and Presidents of our great country.  Elementary was such a fascinating and fun time.

[bathina]

@beckyb1012 the problem is that we were not given the true picture of Columbus (who landed in the Bahamas, not the US). We were not given the true picture of the Pilgrims and their interactions with the native americans. I realize young children don't need to know details about the murder and rape and enslavement, but the least we can do is not elevate those who perpetrated evil to icons of greatness.

[beckyb1012]

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@bathina wrote:

@beckyb1012 the problem is that we were not given the true picture of Columbus (who landed in the Bahamas, not the US). We were not given the true picture of the Pilgrims and their interactions with the native americans. I realize young children don't need to know details about the murder and rape and enslavement, but the least we can do is not elevate those who perpetrated evil to icons of greatness.

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I learned later in school when I was older and about how things were not taught exactly the way they happened.  Your right young children should not be taught certain things until they are older.  Still loved school even my middle school and high school years.  It was just a great time except on Pop Quiz day.

[cherry]

I  think this is a realistic view of Columbus, and  the time he lived in, and what the outcome whould have been, had he not have been the one that  was credited with the discovery of America( which was wrong)

snip

Christopher Columbus: Hero or Villain?

Since his death in 1506, Columbus’ life story has undergone many revisions. He is vilified by indigenous rights groups, yet was once seriously considered for sainthood. What’s the real scoop?

Columbus was neither a monster nor a saint. He had some admirable qualities and some very negative ones. He was not a bad or evil man, simply a skilled sailor, and navigator who was also an opportunist and a product of his time.

On the positive side, Columbus was a very talented sailor, navigator and ship captain. He bravely went west without a map, trusting his instincts and calculations. He was very loyal to his patrons, the King and Queen of Spain, and they rewarded him by sending him to the New World a total of four times. While he took slaves from those tribes that fought him and his men, he seems to have dealt relatively fairly with those tribes that he befriended, such as that of Chief Guacanagari.

But there are many stains on his legacy as well. Ironically, the Columbus-bashers blame him for some things that were not under his control and ignore some of his most glaring actual defects. He and his crew brought awful diseases, such as smallpox, to which the men and women of the New World had no defenses, and millions died. This is undeniable, but it was also unintentional and would have happened eventually anyway. His discovery opened the doors to the conquistadors who looted the mighty Aztec and Inca Empires and slaughtered natives by the thousands, but this, too, would likely have happened when someone else inevitably discovered the New World.

If one must hate Columbus, it is far more reasonable to do so for other reasons. He was a slave trader who heartlessly took men and women away from their families in order to lessen his failure to find a new trade route. His contemporaries despised him. As governor of Santo Domingo on Hispaniola, he was a despot who kept all profits for himself and his brothers and was loathed by the colonists whose lives he controlled. Attempts were made on his life and he was actually sent back to Spain in chains at one point after his third voyage.

During his fourth voyage, he and his men were stranded on Jamaica for a year when his ships rotted. No one wanted to travel there from Hispaniola to save him. He was also a cheapskate. After promising a reward to whoever spotted land first on his 1492 voyage, he refused to pay up when sailor Rodrigo de Triana did so, giving the reward to himself instead because he had seen a “glow” the night before.

Previously, elevation of Columbus to a hero caused people to name cities (and a country, Colombia) after him and many places still celebrate Columbus Day. But nowadays people tend to see Columbus for what he really was: a brave but extremely flawed man. 

Sources

• Herring, Hubert. A History of Latin America From the Beginnings to the Present. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962.
• Thomas, Hugh. Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan. New York:

 My neice is 1/2 Odawa and she never mentions this at all. She is given a regular check from her tribe who has done very well from their gaming casinos

I think worrying about Columbus Day is like putting a band aid on a bullet hole

Most Native Americans are very poor ,and  have many problems they are dealing with ,that the Gov never addresses  at all. Things could, and should be done, to help them make their lives better..We rebuilt Germany ,under the Marshall plan. It only seems fair ,we should do as much for our First  Nation Peoples.