Columbus Day
- Thread starter Linkman226
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I'm surprised the Cherokee Nations and sympathizers haven't made a fuss about it. Or maybe they have and I just am not aware of itl.
Bah, this politically correct thing annoying!
Columbus was a man of his time; he was not a particularly evil 15th Century man at all. We celebrate the courage of men who crossed the ocean on small boats, sailing into the unknown. We celebrate a trip that marked the opening stage of one of the most important points of human history, the Conquest of America, a fact to which all we New Worlders owe our existences.
If we can't celebrate Columbus because he did some things our modern sensibilities find repulsive, we can't celebrate the Indians either. They were constantly killing each other, enslaving each other, and frequently sacrificing each other for their blood-thirsty gods. Europeans may have stolen their land, but the displaced indians also stole it from other tribes that came before. Compared to the Aztecs, Columbus was Gandhi.
So less PCness, guys.
Columbus was a man of his time; he was not a particularly evil 15th Century man at all. We celebrate the courage of men who crossed the ocean on small boats, sailing into the unknown. We celebrate a trip that marked the opening stage of one of the most important points of human history, the Conquest of America, a fact to which all we New Worlders owe our existences.
If we can't celebrate Columbus because he did some things our modern sensibilities find repulsive, we can't celebrate the Indians either. They were constantly killing each other, enslaving each other, and frequently sacrificing each other for their blood-thirsty gods. Europeans may have stolen their land, but the displaced indians also stole it from other tribes that came before. Compared to the Aztecs, Columbus was Gandhi.
So less PCness, guys.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
I mostly agree, but that is not totally correct either. Not every 15th century man was the same (read my post) and Columbus was not precisely among the best ones.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
Well he was one major actor in the total obliteration of the tainos at the Hispaniola. And the did not worse things becuase he was not given the chance.
Linkman226
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Because Catholics don't have a blood thirsty god? The very same in whose name Columbus slaughtered so many? Have you, sir, ever read a Bible?
As we can see from the controversy in Spain, there were plenty of people who didn't think his treatment of the indigenous people was acceptable. What I find especially immoral is the fact that as a practicing Catholic he must have believed that the way to salvation was through the Catholic faith (is this correct Catholics?) but he was apparently against converting the natives so that he could exploit their slave labor. He chose to jeapordize their souls in exchange for a profit. I suppose an alternative would be to forcibly convert them to Christianity which wouldn't be such a good thing either, but looking at this from the idea of morality from his own religious views makes it a really immoral decision.
I'm actually not arguing against having Columbus Day as a holiday but just bringing this up to say I can understand the controversy.
I'm actually not arguing against having Columbus Day as a holiday but just bringing this up to say I can understand the controversy.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
Where can I put my signature?
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
All hail senor Colon!
How about you read what I posted?
I see no problem in celebrating the Indians and their contribution to our culture, despite the fact that they were quite brutal people with brutal gods. Just like I see no problem in celebrating Columbus, despite the fact he did some things we now find reprehensible.
Ajidica
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The fact is is a bank holiday, so my dad likes it because he gets the day off.
Beyond that, I'm not sure. Teaching tool perhaps? In Spanish last year we read a fictional account of the discovery/accidentaly stumbling upon the new world in Spanish because that unit started on Columbus Day.
Jackson was often a bad man. As in he did a lot of harm to a lot of people long before he became president. He was a hero in that a lot of the harm he did was harm many other wanted done. And Jackson was just the guy who was effective at doing it.
As far as his time in office was concerned, I'd say there was plenty of things both the believers of good and bad could point to to make their case.
kochman
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Ok, he didn't discover "America"... He re-discovered the New World, after it had basically faded from the memory of the Ericson family. People say America, well... because they are Americans, and everything has to be Amero-centric.
In reality, he was a Renaissance Man, but a man of his time. He was ballsy and ambitious... his journey opened the line of trade with the New World that never ended, and led to huge events and shifts of fortune/power...
His impact was ginormous...
Go Cristoforo Colon!!!
Leif Eriksson is important to the archaeological record, and to keep the "Columbus was wonderful" supporters honest in admitting that he was not the first European to find North America.
Are you seriously suggesting that ALL the native North American peoples were brutal AND followed brutal religions? Granted, the Meso-American Indians practiced human sacrifice, and I personally find that reprehensible. But there were many other native cultures that did not practice human sacrifice.
There was civilization here before the Europeans came, folks. The Europeans just didn't choose to recognize them as such.
I am suggesting that the indians were a violent people (much like all stone age people, really). That killing and enslaving other tribes was common throughout the continent. You can't really expect them to adhere to our notions of right and wrong.
It's not only the Meso-Americans that were violent. When the French and Portuguese arrived in Southeastern Brazil, for example, the indians they found were virtually all from the Tupi family. But the Tupis are an Amazonian people, how did they come to be the dominant group in the Southeast, thousands of kilometers away from their homeland? Simple: they were more sophisticated than the southeastern natives, and through continous warfare, over centuries, they wiped the natives out and became dominant. And of course they fought each other as well. Archeological evidence shows vast evidence of widespread and continuous warfare; whole tribes wiped out, children killed. And then the Portuguese came and occupied their land. How's that any different from what the Tupis themselves did?
Fighting to take the land of weaker tribes was part of life for indians throughout America. They don't get to lecture us on stealing other people's land, no way.
Because the Dominican priests who argued that Spain did not have the right to take the land were less religious than the greedy swine encomienderos who were in it for money?
timtofly
One Day
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A lot of banks have stopped even celebrating it.
Europeans have dealt that way with quite a few native cultures.
And that's different from any other people how?
It isn't! As I said, they behaved just like Europeans behaved on a similar stage in their evolution!
What we need to get over is this ridiculous "theory", developed by militants, that the evil white men came accross the sea to kill and enslave the peace-loving indians, who lived in perfect harmony with Mother Nature. That europeans stole the land of its rightful owners (as if the indians themselves did not "steal" land from their neighbors all the time).
