Monday was Columbus day in some cities of the US. Social media and internet media outlets took the opportunity to build on a rising tide of criticism of the holiday and the eponymous explorer.
Let's be honest, Columbus was a pretty awful person by any standard of conduct, by any primary source on the man. Actually, I don't know how the Italian-Americans can rally behind him.
What seems to be forgotten in the race to crap on Columbus is his historical context. Europe was controlled by rulers in an religious and political arms race with each other and the Islamic empire, and a new continent meant a new source of converts, economic spheres, and revenues. Not one single European was ever recorded in the 17th century saying, oh we should let these natives alone.
To the leaders of the western world, the native Americans were like wild pigs, to be exploited as slaves at the minimum, as colonial vassals and religious converts at best. The leaders of Europe sent arrogant, violent, ambitious, and merciless shits like Columbus because they were precisely the kind of men you need to bring a continent to its knees for the raping.
I'm not sure how you can call the killing of 90% of two continents populations "progress", let alone dance away from the term "genocide." Actually, the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth rock had an easier time of their arrival because the village where they landed had already been cleared by European diseases.
Let's be honest, Columbus was a pretty awful person by any standard of conduct, by any primary source on the man. Actually, I don't know how the Italian-Americans can rally behind him.
What seems to be forgotten in the race to crap on Columbus is his historical context. Europe was controlled by rulers in an religious and political arms race with each other and the Islamic empire, and a new continent meant a new source of converts, economic spheres, and revenues. Not one single European was ever recorded in the 17th century saying, oh we should let these natives alone.
To the leaders of the western world, the native Americans were like wild pigs, to be exploited as slaves at the minimum, as colonial vassals and religious converts at best. The leaders of Europe sent arrogant, violent, ambitious, and merciless shits like Columbus because they were precisely the kind of men you need to bring a continent to its knees for the raping.
I'm not sure how you can call the killing of 90% of two continents populations "progress", let alone dance away from the term "genocide." Actually, the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth rock had an easier time of their arrival because the village where they landed had already been cleared by European diseases.
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