Was Christopher Columbus a good guy or a bad guy

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: archiloco

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
We should have a Leif Ericson Day since he really discovered America.

Columbus didn't sail here until nearly 500 years later.

there is a difference between drunken conquest and Discovery. Columbus Discovered America and opened it up to the eastern world. the vikings just settled and left.

edit:::iknow he just wanted to find a route to The Indies, but an accidental discovery is still a discovery if you open up the eyes to the world....an example is you walking down the beach and trip on a treasure chest, you open and see gold, you close chest and keep on walking. another person comes along and trips on the same chest, sees gold and gets it and sells it. he discovered the treasure chest because he took initiative and actually did something about it.

And along the way you enslave and brutalize the brown people to whom the treasure chest belongs, opening the way for many more generations to do the same.

By the way, enshrining Columbus isn't "American". I grew up learning the same rosy story about Columbus, the Santa Maria, Nino, Pinto, etc etc back in Trinidad. The only history that matters is what really happened. Denying Columbus's atrocities is on the same level as denying the Holocaust. Just because Columbus "discovered" America, doesn't make him immune from truth.

In Hispaniola, Columbus and the Spanish set up a system that made every Indian over the age of 14 responsible for gathering a certain amount of gold each month. They received copper tokens to hang around their necks if they succeeded. If an Indian was caught without a token, the Spanish cut off their hands and let them bleed to death.

Sexual slavery was also widespread among the Spanish settlers. In 1500, Columbus wrote: "A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."

 

[ElFenix]

who really gives a fsck?

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
who really gives a fsck?

Who gives a fsck about what Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein did?