Old History discovers the New History

November 5, 2004

This past October I have read several editorials and opinion

pieces condemning those who do not think that Christopher Columbus

is one of America's heroes. I would not mind yet I found so much

hate in their words that I just had to look into it. It seems,

these people say, that Western Civilization itself is under attack

and that these attacks are nothing but lies:

"Columbus is routinely vilified as a symbol of slavery and genocide,

and the celebration of his arrival likened to a celebration of hitler

and the holocaust. The attacks on Columbus are ominous, because the

actual target is Western civilization." [1]

"These methods allow multiculturalists to undercut Western

civilization's essential values that are timeless and superior for all

humans, so as to raise as culturally and morally "equal" the anti-life

essence of Indian cultures." [2]

While reminding us of our own superiority these same people

stress the inferiority of the natives:

"With rare exception, life was nasty, brutish, and short: there was no

wheel, no written language, no division of labor, little agriculture

and scant permanent settlement; but there were endless, bloody wars." [1]

"Besides many Indian tribes enslaving and ritually sacrificing the

lives of their individual tribesman, they constantly invaded, warred

with, looted and enslaved other tribes." [2]

"The land was not in use, evidenced by the pathetic level of any kind

of progress, intellectual or material, on the part of nearly all

Indian tribes despite thousands of years in lands of great plenty and

separated from the other people of the world who could have

potentially meddled with them." [3]

And these boobs whom I have quoted above are simply repeating

the legends and falsehoods they have learned as children. For no

intelligent and objective individual can research the history of

the various peoples of the Americas--from the hundreds of tribes

of the north to the large civilizations to the south--and still

repeat words such as theirs.

There actually was mass slavery and destruction of the indigenous

peoples of the New World by the masters of the Old World.

Slavery, as we think of it today, was more akin to servitude before

the discovery of the New World. Slavery of a mass scale with the

suppression and ownership of generations of "inferior" peoples,

sanctioned by the church, is an invention of the Europeans.

Whatever the population of the peoples found by Columbus in 1492

(150,000 to 3,000,000), within 50 years their were only hundreds

left. Whatever the estimates, they all plummet as the years go by.

"...to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so

populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than

three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons." [6]

But these facts, though, are no big deal when viewed from a European

point of view--it was just history as usual. The European powers

like Italy, Spain, France, England, etc. were constantly and

consistently at war with themselves and the rest of the world.

The great European powers were always exploring and exploiting.

One can say that that is how they became the great European powers

in the first place.

Columbus and many of the other "great adventurers" and "great

explorers" were specifically charged with conquering lands for

their wealth as the documents of their day show ("...those you

shall conquer and subdue..." [12a]). The first thing Columbus did,

as did all the of the "adventurers", was to take possession:

"The Admiral called upon the two Captains ... to bear witness that

he before all others took possession (as in fact he did) of that

island for the King and Queen his sovereigns...." [12b]

A certain backlash against the widespread fight to "multiculturalize"

Columbus Day is expected I suppose, because, as the history of the

New World is written about from a non-eurocentric view, those who

believe in historical legend are seeing their world unmasked.

More and more diverse cultural voices are being heard these

days--making their way into the mainstream press, and into our

schools. The days of history _as the re-telling of legend_ are in

decline.

Certainly some of these new voices swing to far and fall into the

category of "European bashing" (comparing Christopher Columbus to

Adolph Hitler for example). But as I read those who are in defense of

historical legends such as Columbus, I read only the repeat of legend

and the repeat of the "they deserved it" mantra.

Notes

Defenders of Legend

[1]

http://multiculturalism.aynrand.org/columbus.html, Ayn Rand Institute

[2]

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=196, Christopher Columbus: Multiculturalism vs. Objective History

[3]

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3228, Christopher Columbus, We Salute You

[4]

http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_6894.shtml, Clueless About Columbus

[5]

http://www.osia.org/public/culture/columbus.asp, "Columbus: Fact vs. Fiction" by the Order Sons of Italy in America

Scholarly Look at Columbus

[6]

http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/02-las.html, Bartoleme de Las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies.

[7]

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/Taino/docs/columbus.html, Examining the reputation of Christopher Columbus

[8]

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Columbus_PeoplesHx.html, Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress

[9]

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04140a.htm, Catholic Encyclopedia: Christopher Columbus

[10]

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/hns/garden/history.html, A Brief History of the European Myth of the Garden

Historical Documents

[11]

http://www.usm.maine.edu/~maps/columbus/translation.html, The Columbus Letter

[12]

http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/index.htm, From Revolution to Reconstruction: Documents

[12a]

http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1400-1500/columbus/privilege.htm, Privileges and prerogatives granted to Columbus

[12b]

http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1400-1500/columbus/extract.htm, Extracts from Journal

[13]

http://www.ku.edu/carrie/docs/amdocs_index.html, Documents For The Study Of American History