Posted on 10/10/2016 7:21:04 AM PDT by ChessExpert
The indigenous peoples of the Americas were not peaceful. Indigenous lives were "nasty, brutish, and short." Archaeologists such as Steven LeBlanc believe that conflict between Indian tribes was endemic and intense. Warfare was usually conducted with the genocidal aim of complete annihilation. The homicide rate in Pre-Columbian America is estimated to have been about a hundred times higher than in the present day U.S. About one-third of adult males died in warfare. In the healthiest communities, life expectancy at birth was probably no more than thirty-five years.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I liked the observation (from the article, not the excerpt) that indigenous people of the Americas lived in the stone age. That is pithy statement, which I've never heard before.
A minor nit-pick is that several articles I've read could have used minor editing.
Maybe we should replace Columbus day with Charles Martel Day. Today is the anniversary of his victory in 732 at the battle of Tours.
I celebrate Columbus Day because if the great voyages of discovery hadn’t taken place, the muslims would have taken over Europe.
“nasty, brutish, and short.”
Chicago is Latin American? Who knew?
Thanks for posting. Good to see an article with both sides.
There were a few American cities in the top 50 but I think the worst ones in Latin America and Africa had far higher murder rates than any US city.
Columbus deserves to be celebrated for his courage, sense of adventure, and his actual achievements which above all was making a very hazardous voyage and trailblazing a route to a new world.
To criticize him for being part of the culture of his days is moronic. The same can be said for those who criticize Jefferson and other founders for owning slaves.
3 hazardous voyages. And that does not diminish the courage of earlier explorers.
The complete phrase is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. It was offered as a description of human life in a “state of nature”. Civilization elevates us, to some extent, above it. As Christians, we believe that the Grace of God can elevate us completely above it (and will in the next life).
No invitations to the PC cocktail parties for this author!
Hey youse guys, we Italians celebrate Columbus Day because Chris was Italian, capisce?
And the blacks and the Irish, even the Mexicans, they got their own day and it was high time we got ours.
Youse got a problem with that?
That is an interesting finding from that list.
Columbus and Charles Martel are both worth celebrating.
I read once that Columbus hoped his expeditions would provide new wealth that would be used to take back the Holy Land.
Good reason. That is an interesting conclusion. It would seem a little hard to prove it, one way or the other.
Books you need to read about the Indian Wars before your mind is perverted by modern apologists, movies and TV shows..
Massacres of the Mountains by J.p. Dunn Jr.
On the Border with Crook by Burke
My Life on the Plains by Custer
The Indian Wars of 1864 by Lt Ware.
Almost any book written by a Mountain Man. Andrew Garcia, Osborn Russell. John Y. Nelson, and way too many others.
Web sites;
http://www.dickshovel.com/scalp.html
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-mexican-site-yields-sacrifice-spaniards.html
http://ancientstandard.com/2007/07/17/csi-new-mexico-%E2%80%93-possible-genocide-ca-1275-ad/
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2885-mass-human-sacrifice-unearthed-in-peru/
http://archive.archaeology.org/9709/newsbriefs/anasazi.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0601_wireanasazi.html
http://www.jeffposey.net/2015/08/18/were-the-anasazi-cannibals/
Back about 1980 there was a show on OETA Oklahoma called IMAGES OF INDIANS. In one episode, a young Indian man said Indians NEVER scalped or tortured anyone! “They would not do anything like that!” But they DID!
YEP! Ancient life in the Americas was all peaches and cream before the “evil” White Man showed up and brought civilization!
Shitcago has more Mexicans in it than does Mexico City.
I celebrate Leif Erikson Day.......Hinga Dinga Durgen!
An author that depicts Native Americans in a balanced fashion is Terry C. Johnston.
He wrote 31 books, mostly on western tribes, and early mountain men explorers.
He did a great deal of research for his stories.
https://www.amazon.com/Terry-C.-Johnston/e/B000AP969Q
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_C._Johnston
Yeah, except Leif had a commie for a Dad. Erik the Red.
;^)
“To criticize him for being part of the culture of his days is moronic.”
Very true. This is something everyone should know. To understand a historical figure, you have to immerse yourself in that period and see things as they appeared in that time and place.
I wonder if the most vigorous enforcers of political correctness today would have been the most vigorous enforcers of political correctness in the past. Think of it as a personality trait. Perhaps a susceptibility to indoctrination, combined with an authoritarian personality. A bully of sorts.
So, for example, the people of today who see racism in everything, might have been members of the KKK if they had been around in the 1920s.
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