A Sense of Doubt blog post #1324 - No More Glorifying Genocide, Cruelty, and Avarice - NO MORE COLUMBUS DAY

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1324 - No More Glorifying Genocide, Cruelty, and Avarice - NO MORE COLUMBUS DAY

I interrupt my normal flow and will delay Musical Monday until tomorrow (or even Wednesday) to instead present this share from THE OATMEAL, one of the most creative sites on the WEB, which shares my views and those I have read in Zinn's A People's History of the United States on the atrocities committed by Christopher Columbus and other imperialists and murderers in the name of "progress."

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day

Sources:

All of the information in this essay came from A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, and Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen, both of which uses primary sources such as eyewitness accounts, journal entries, and letters from Christopher Columbus himself.

A very important note about Bartolomé de las Casas and the African slave trade

This issue keeps coming up and, despite my footnotes, I keep seeing commentary about it so I'm going to address it here.
Initially, Bartolomé de las Casas advocated the use of African slaves instead of native labor. In the first few years after he renounced his land and title, his initial cause was to end the suffering of the natives, rather than seeking an end to the institution of slavery itself, and so this became his deplorable rationale for the endorsement of African slavery. Bartolomé de las Casas eventually retracted those views, however, and came to see all forms of slavery as being equally wrong. In The History of the Indies published in 1527, he wrote the following:

I soon repented and judged myself guilty of ignorance. I came to realize that black slavery was as unjust as Indian slavery...
and I was not sure that my ignorance and good faith would secure me in the eyes of God.

I know that the discovery of the New World means a lot of different things to a lot of different cultures. I like the sound of Bartolomé Day. If you don't like that, call it Indigenous People's Day. Or perhaps Chris-Columbus-was-a-turd Day. I'd even settle for just calling it MONDAY.

But please, oh please

do not call it Columbus Day.

UPDATE!

Less than a year after the publication of this comic, Columbus Day was renamed to Indigenous People's Day in Seattle. I love you, Seattle. This is why after all these years we're still best buds and I still drink your coffee and run on your mountains.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

update 2003.26

Passages from Zinn's People's History of United States that I read about Columbus:

"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches, and swam out to get a look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts" (Zinn, 1).

"On Hispaniola, out of the timbers of the Santa Maria, which had run aground, Columbus built a fort, the first European military base in the Western Hemisphere. He called it Navidad (Christmas) and left thirty-nine crew members there with instructions to find and store the gold" (Zinn, 3).

"Columbus's report to the Court in Madrid was extravagant. He insisted he had reached Asia (it was Cuba) and an island off the coast of China (Hispaniola). His descriptions were part fact, part fiction:

Hispaniola is a miracle. Mountains and hills, plains and pastures, are both fertile and beautiful ... the harbors are unbelievably good and there are many wide rivers of which the majority contain gold ... There are many spices and great mines of gold and other metals...

The Indians, Columbus reported, "are so naïve and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone..."" (Zinn, 3).

EVENTUALLY, the Arawaks realize the Columbus and the Spaniards SUCK, and so...

"Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, and horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners, they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.

"When it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as ecomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island" (Zinn, 4-5).

AND we celebrate this psychotic murderer with his own HOLIDAY???

History is a story told by the victors until we re-tell the story, change the narrative.

Like Speech of the band Arrested Development says here:

Check the "narrative changing" concepts he shares starting at time stamp 4:05:




+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1810.08 - 10:10
updated for school use - 2003.26

- Days ago = 1192 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.