Posted on 10/11/2004 4:44:09 PM PDT by Coleus
Ya know, I have no problem with people celebrating the achievements of Columbus - it's their right to do so. However, I also believe that people have the right to point out his flaws - and they were many - if they so choose.
The bottom line is, I am interested in truth, not a whitewash of history one way or another.
It's an interesting and difficult position, being who and what I am, when the Columbus issue comes up. I can understand the feelings that Columbus invokes in my fellow American Indians, as he really did change things for us and not really in a good way. He was a cruel greedy man that caused a lot of destruction... By the same token, however, I also find that if it wasn't for him and his voyages, there probably never would have been a United States of America - the greatest nation on Earth - and the world would be a far worse place without the U.S.
It's a difficult question. However, I stand by what I said - the truth, no matter how brutal it is, is better than lies, embellishments, and leaving things out...
By the way, on a completely unrelated note (or is it?) - regarding The Bush Doctrine? The Iroquois used to have that doctrine, too - "You are either allied with us, or you are against us" - no middle ground, no neutrality. Period. It's a great policy, and am glad to see President Bush going back to historical ideas in the modern world ;0)
Of course - Ben Franklin was well aquainted with the political and military confederation my ancestors created BEFORE the Europeans arrived. He figured if a bunch of ignorant savages could build such a successful political system, why couldn't the "Americans"?
Many of the founders were familiar with the 5, later 6, Nations - they were the dominant political power on the North American Continent (the "empire" stretched from Northeastern Canada, down well south of Virginia, and east to the Mississippi/Missouri River) prior to and during the colonial period...
One word. BRUTALITY.
Wrong word. The word should be "Greed".
And everyone knows that it had to be those savage indians who were at fault, too, because they could have had no reason for being hostile with the fuzzy cuddly teddy bear-like peace-loving vikings, right? ;0)
ping
Actually, King Ferdinand took a pass. Ferdinand believed, and correctly so, that Columbus' estimate on how far the Orient was westward from Spain was ridiculously underestimated.
Isabel then sponsored the venture in the name of her own Kingdom of Castile and Leon.
Pure blind luck then trumped navigational common sense.
As a result, the right of colonization of the New World and commerce with the new colonies was initially restricted to the subjects of Castile and Leon. Even after Isabella's death, when Ferdinand was no longer joint King of Castile and Leon but was the Regent for his daughter Juana, Ferdinand respected Castile and Leon's New World monopoly to the exclusion of Aragon.
Thus the motto associated with the coat of arms granted to Columbus:
"A Castilla y a Leon, Nuevo Mundo dio Colon." (To Castile and Leon, Columbus gave a New World.)
Christopher Columbus has always been the lightning rod for all of these multiculturalists. They just don't want to admit that European traditions and institutions made western civilization great. I doubt that these overeducated and mostly rich multicultural supporters would enjoy living under primitive "native" conditions today. These people need to get lives.
The last of the Moorish rulers was expelled from the Iberian peninsula in the reconquista of 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella, Los Reyes Catolicos (The Catholic Monarchs), expelled the last of the Moorish rulers, Boabdil of Granada, from the peninsula, uniting most of what is now Spain.
Today Columbis, tommorrow George Washington, Adams, and Jefferson.
One of the great misunderstandings of Chris Columbus...is that once he arrived there in the Caribbean....he came to grasp that his dream of the orient was a failure. He left a bunch of guys there...hoping that pity would cause the royal family to pay for another trip back...which it did. He took back some gold and some Indians....and the gold more or less convinced the royal family to front a second and third mission. Columbus returned in the second trip to find his sailors all dead...because of alittle misunderstanding probably (too many Indian babes). The new world map is based on a failed mission, and a sales job for gold. It stayed that way for well over 100 years.
It's not only the democrats who are PC and want to demonize our Western Civilization. These RepbuliCRATS will stop at nothing for votes and to pad their pensions.
He was about 5,000 years too late.
It was just prior to the time it broke down the the Iroquoian policy of "You are with us or against us" came about - it was a power play designed to get the French Allies to join the Iroquois against the French, who the Iroquois disliked with a passion.
The destruction of the Neutrals was the result of that policy... The bottom line is, the Neutrals brought it all on themselves - When the (French allies) Huron were being destroyed by their Iroquois bretheren, the supposed "Neutrals" allowed the surviving Hurons to move into their villages. Stupid mistake, and even more stupid was when the Iroquois basically said "Turn them over, or else" the Neutrals chose the "or else" part... They found out exactly what "or else" meant. Sorta like the Taliban did ;0)
And it should be pointed out that enslavement was NOT something the Iroquois were known for. Instead, they practiced "mass adoptions" of captured enemies (which led to the other policy, the "Great Pursuit policy that would eliminate the threat of rebellion internally by those adopted) which meant that while other indian populations were dwindling, the Iroquois population was booming...
However, adopted indians were not enslaved. They, too, were protected by the Great Law of Peace...
I certainly never said we were peace-loving, tree-hugging nature warshipping hippies - we were warriors. Period. Our system allowed us to avoid warfare among ourselves - it didn't apply to other tribes...
I never claimed that there is a massive amount of evidence that the Iroquoian system was an inspiration for the U.S. Constitution - our system was based on a myriad of influences, and it may be possible that the Iroquoian confederacy could have played a small role nonetheless - especially when you consider some founders lived among the 5 nations for a time... I'm not saying it's written in stone that there was influence, but to completely ignore the 5 nations as THE dominate power in North America during the early colonialization period, and even up into the French and Indian wars and beyond, would be ignore truth.
Enough founders were aware of, and understood, the nature of the condeferacy to make it a valid question, though - how much influence was there? To just flat out say "None" is to be in denial that such savages could possibly be worth anything...
I'm not denying that my ancestors were brutal. However, I'm also not denying that the Viking were brutal, either. ;0)
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