Robert Gehl
October 12, 2015
Happy Columbus Day, you racist bastards.
The man who we all learned discovered America and dismissed prevailing notions about sea serpents in the Atlantic and boiling oceans was actually an evil, barbaric imperialist responsible for the slaughter of 250,000 people.
He was either a courageous explorer or an imperialist bastard, right?
Do a Google search of “Columbus Day” and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a link that doesn’t proclaim Columbus as a pretty evil guy – even by the standards of 15th Century Europe.
As happens every year about this time, local liberal governments engage in a little hand-wrenching about recognizing “Columbus Day” and whether “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” is more appropriate.
The truth is, though, the “Indigenous Peoples” we’re gushing over weren’t much better than Columbus himself.
The American Thinker has a great piece on what the Genoa explorer found when he landed in the Caribbean.
The Taino were rather passive. But the Caribs were a fierce people who abused the Tainos and took their lands before Columbus arrived. The Caribs made wives of captured Taino women (slavery, anyone?), fashioned necklaces from their vanquished enemy’s teeth and may have practiced cannibalism.
The Caribs may have decimated the Ciboneys who once inhabited the Caribbean. The Ciboneys descended from a prior culture that was all but exterminated by yet another people. And if the Caribs themselves weren’t cannibals, the Tupinamba Indians were. Finally, these tribes were indigenous Caribbean Indians; they migrated from the mainland. Thus the peaceful natives Columbus assaulted were neither peaceful nor native, but warrior explorers and conquerors.
A brave and able captain, excellent navigator and courageous explorer. That’s Christopher Columbus.
A brutal oppressor, murderer and pillager. That’s him too.
Can we celebrate the courage and contributions while recognizing the failures too?
http://downtrend.com/robertgehl/happy-columbus-day-bastards
