Posted on 10/08/2007 10:56:50 AM PDT by Graybeard58
Few men are more revered by Italian-Americans than Christopher Columbus. But as the Order of the Sons of Italy notes, the politically correct have transformed him from "a skilled sea captain and deeply religious man" to a "bloodthirsty, gold-hungry slave trader who destroyed the Garden of Eden civilizations." They also claim he was complicit in "the genocide" of Indians through the introduction of infectious diseases.
Balderdash. As author/columnist Michael Medved writes, Indians and Europeans were guilty of savagery but "none of the warfare (including an Indian attack in 1675 that succeeded in butchering a full one-fourth of the white population of Connecticut, and claimed additional thousands of casualties throughout New England) on either side amounted to genocide" because neither endorsed or practiced policies of extermination.
The Garden of Eden argument goes nowhere because copious scientific evidence proves syphilis, tuberculosis and arthritis were rampant in pre-Columbian America and Indians were lucky to live past 40. The notion that white settlers deliberately infected the Indians was based on discredited letters written by two obscure British soldiers in 1763, Mr. Medved notes. "By that time, Indian populations ... had already been terribly impacted by smallpox, and there's no evidence of a particularly devastating outbreak."
Jared Diamond, author of "Guns, Germs, and Steel," goes further, blaming itinerate Indians for spreading the European diseases "from tribe to tribe far in advance of the Europeans themselves, killing an estimated 95 percent of the pre-Columbian Native American population."
World history is replete with episodes of replacement of native populations. The Indians in fact came to dominate the Americas by exterminating an inferior paleo-Indian civilization. The Europeans supplanted the Indians simply because the latter never evolved beyond a Stone Age existence. But the idea that "unique viciousness to Native Americans represents our 'original sin,'" Mr. Medved writes, "... only serves the purposes of those who want to foster inappropriate guilt, uncertainty and shame in young Americans." It's long past time to reject the anti-Americanism of political correctness and restore Columbus to his rightful place in history.
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When in the Bahamas, it’s best not to bring up his name.
ROFLMSS!!!!!!!!!!
What??? But what about “The Noble Savage”???? You can’t tell me Rousseau was wrong??? ;-)
The unfair maligning of Christopher Columbus and basically any other white European man goes back at least 20 years to its genesis on college campuses.
Indios or indians from the West Indies. Columbus, et al, started naming the islands the West Indies almost as soon they figured they had bumped into something new, not the East Indies (the only Indies at the time) they intended.
And no, I am not a professor nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But I do live in the West Indies.
Free enterprise.
Considering their penchant for ripping people hearts out on pyramids and eating them? Civilization NEEDED to fall in the new world.
A lot of the indian tribes were little better than the Stone Age when they came in contact with the Spanish.
The most accurate account is by Flip Wilson.
Correction, “Dios” is God.
Head south (or north, for that matter) and you'll find several that still are little better than Stone Age.
Ah, Infectious Diseases. Caused by Microbes. A concept that the West would not fully understand for over 300 years.
Ping
The obvious question arises: why did the diseases brought by Europeans wipe out indigenous peoples, and not the other way round? This is not really a difficult question - the Indians were on the edge of starvation already - but to say this is to acknowledge that Western civilization was in an objective sense better than the Indian culture.
Your point wins in logic.
I loved the end of “Apocalypto” when the young man looks up after surviving multiple brutal attempts on his life, and there is a Spanish ship out in the bay... with a missionary coming ashore — a beautiful moment....for however long.
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