While I think all the protests against Columbus are stupid, I also think Columbus Day is pretty dumb. He didn’t discover America he discovered the Bahamas,. and he wasn’t even the first European here by a long shot, wasn’t even the first to establish intercontinental trade. He was just the first one to not see that trade end in a few decades, which really had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Europe’s growing colonialism, which he wasn’t even at the forefront of.
Columbus was an a-hole plain and simple, but so were the Taino so who cares? But their culture is gone and ours remain. So somebody’s gotta take the fall for the lost fantasies of a pre-Columbian America.
In my area the natives roasted-alive the first Spanish visitors. They were shipwreck survivors.
good article the only thing I beg to differ on is his comment that most Mexicans are descended from Spanish Colonialists. That is not all together true. Most Mexicans are Mestizo, both Indian and Spanish and maybe even some African.
Pure Indian is about 10% of the population, Caucasian is about 15%, Mestizo is about 70%.
In America, the Indian was either killed or put on a reservation.
The Spanish either killed them or made babies with them :)