Posted on 10/13/2015 12:58:59 PM PDT by Kaslin
Monday was a federal holiday. By that we mean government bureaucrats had the day off - the people who pay them did not. For people addled by Political Correctness (PC) - it was “Indigenous People Day.” For We the Sane - it was Columbus Day.
Columbus is of course Christopher Columbus. The Italian man funded by Spaniards who in 1492 established the European New World connection that led to us today. (The Vikings got here first - but their imprints eventually withered away.)
Columbus set off to find…a new route to the East Indies (the Old World’s name for much of south and southeast Asia). Oops. He thought he had (or never wanted to admit he hadn’t) - which is why the people he found here were called “Indians.” No matter the confusion, what he did was perilous and visionary - and what he found special and important. Thus his legacy - and his Day.
Why did Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella decide to sponsor Columbus? Because competitive European free trade was driving the day - and Spain wanted to improve and increase its share. Trade with Asia was then a great and growing enterprise. Columbus stumbled upon the New World - while seeking a faster route to Asia by heading west.
Columbus’ discovery augured a huge, centuries-long trade boom. As the Asian relationship increased its ascendancy - and the New World began blossoming and bearing fruit. The Trade Triangle was born. Yet again - we see that actually free trade is a very good thing.
And on Columbus’ second trip to the New World - he brought sugar, which was the quintessential Trade Triangle. Sugar is not an Americas-indigenous crop - it is Asian. And the Europeans brought it. Trade - boom.
“Noting sugar cane's potential as income for the new settlements in the Americas — Europeans were already hooked on sugar coming from the Eastern colonies — Spanish colonizers snipped seeds from Columbus' fields in the Dominican Republic and planted them throughout their burgeoning Caribbean colonies. By the mid 16th-century the Portuguese had brought some to Brazil and, soon after, the sweet cane made its way to British, Dutch and French colonies such as Barbados and Haiti….
“During those three centuries, sugar was by far the most important of the overseas commodities that accounted for a third of Europe's entire economy….”
Sugar was such a wealth engine - the Old World called it White Gold. So successful still is this transplant that: “Today more sugar is produced in Brazil than anywhere else in the world….”
What isn’t nearly as successful today is the global trade environment. In Columbus’ day, it was just about a free market Xanadu. People from many nations trading almost totally freely with little if any government impediments to the omni-directional commerce. Quite the contrary - governments like Spain’s actively sought out new and better ways to trade.
Now - we have nations acting in confused, contradictory fashion. On the one hand, governments have trade departments and officers seeking new opportunities. But sadly, that is the much weaker hand. The other, much stronger hand is actively undermining trade and commerce.
That hand is over-taxing and over-regulating its domestic producers - rendering them far less competitive. That same hand is simultaneously - in Crony Socialist-fashion - subsidizing and favoring certain industries amongst the uber-regulated. And that hand is over-taxing and over-regulating imports - making the global marketplace an ever more tenuous place.
Just about every government on the planet is doing lots of this domestic and international meddling. It needs to stop. Thus are born free trade deal negotiations.
I mentioned sugar because sugar is one of the most government-gummed-up markets on the planet. Brazil is the world’s biggest producer - and probably its biggest Crony Socialist, anti-free market meddler.
Brazilian sugar subsidies? $2.5 billion a year. That certainly helped them achieve their Number-One-in-the-World status. Brazil cuts checks to farmers. And gives farmers “loans” - for which they never actually seek reimbursement. And gives them breaks on their government-retirement-program taxes. And on, and on, and….
All of which makes it all the harder for the rest of the world’s sugar farmers - including ours. Sadly, most of the rest of the world’s governments have responded in kind - including ours. Meeting more government with more government. Lather, rinse, repeat - and the resulting global sugar market is anything but free.
Thus are born free trade deal negotiations. We need to sit down with Brazil - and everyone else who produces sugar. And start tearing down the government walls impeding actually free trade. Where we as much as humanly possible zero-out all of this government. Something Florida Republican Congressman Ted Yoho calls - in his resolution calling for this less government approach - “zero-for-zero.”
The congressman is absolutely correct. So were Ferdinand, Isabella - and Columbus. Let’s get back to those halcyon free trade days. On sugar - and every other commodity anyone trades anywhere on the planet.
Lawrence Kansas near us changed it to Indigenous people day. One of my Facebook friends was rejoicing about this. I think I stole this in part from a freeper but my comment was “Columbus went to the wrong place with good intentions, some bad unexpected consequences happened, and he did it all with other people’s money. Sounds to me like a democrat.”
The 16th century Spanish gov’t didn’t believe in free trade.
It believed in mercantilism and tried to control the trade with the free world.
Columbus was a hero and imperfect.
Unlike your muZzzies and their liberal supporters.
GTH !
And I am an AMERICAN whose parents come from Italy
Disgraceful the abortionists are trying to change history.
Screwy lewy and the whole lot of them. GTH!
Whoever gets there first wins. They had no idea how big “There” was.
I am going out on a limb and saying this from memory, but wasn’t islam negatively responsible for the voyages to the West because islam shut down trade to the East?
islam through its barbaric jihad and primitivism shut down trade throughout the Mediterranean area causing the so called dark ages in Europe?
ping
Not “Free trade” as the current globalist nwo folks define it.
He was looking for a NEW trade route. Perhaps a better trade route. Faster trade route. To pimp the idea that it’s somehow akin to today’s free trade idea is just pap.
I think the writer of the article is so enamored of free trade, that he altered history to make his argument.
My takeaway from the 16th century Spanish empire is that, instead of being a benefit, all that gold and silver flowing in from the New World ruined them, as they used it to finance wars in Europe, and irresponsible fiscal policies ruined their domestic economy.
The parallel today is to the third-world oil producing countries.
Islam shut down the Silk Road. Columbus was looking for an alternate route to the West.
“I am going out on a limb and saying this from memory, but wasn’t islam negatively responsible for the voyages to the West because islam shut down trade to the East”
Only in a roundabout way. They shut down the old overland caravan routes, but by the time of Columbus, a quicker route around Africa had already been discovered by the Portuguese to replace those.
So Columbus was really just trying to beat the Portuguese, because they had the African route locked down pretty tight.
"Columbus set off to find…a new route to the East Indies (the Old World’s name for much of south and southeast Asia)."
An inconvenient truth....too often overlooked or simply erased from current history lessons:
Coincidental to Queen Isabella ridding Spain of Islam, Columbus was tasked to find a new trade route FREE of Muhammedan piracy/enslavement - which is rarely if ever mentioned anymore. 15th-16th century trade in the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans was dominated by Muslim merchants involving ports in Africa and the Middle East, India and Indonesia and China.
Fails to mention Mercantilism. The colonies (”children”) were forbidden by their masters in Europe from producing anything but the most basic manufactured goods or from trading with any countries but the “parent”. One of the underlying motivations for the American Revolution was to get out from under the economic thumb of the British Parliament and her merchant class. Genuine “free” trade was the last thing the governments of Europe wanted or would tolerate.
I read in an article (posted on FR a while back) that he looked for a new trade route because Muslims were interfering with the normal trade routes to the east.
It was free in the sense that it was internationally free; that is, the Reyes (the King and Queen) funded these expeditions to seek out new trade routes for their country, not for individual merchants.
One of the other goals of Spanish official expeditions, including that of Columbus, was to evangelize the native peoples...if they turned out to be human. Remember that nobody knew at that point if they would find human beings on the other side of world or some other creature, such as the “monopods” (basically large feet with an eye in the center) that were drawn from probably poorly translated accounts of the voyage of Marco Polo centuries earlier.
One of the things recorded by a 16th century Spaniard leading an expedition to Florida was that the natives who appeared on the shore “were human in every aspect,” which meant that they could be evangelized. But it would be like us landing on Mars and finding living beings: would they be human in every aspect or not? So you have to consider the European expeditions in these terms, and the Spanish happened to be the first to arrive in modern times, thanks to Columbus (an Italian).
There were, however, individual merchant voyages later and most of the bad expeditions were the private ones, where the leaders did horrible things to the natives, did not try to convert them, and basically took what they could and sold it.
But all of the colonial powers, even the later ones such as England, tried to control the trade of their colonies. Hence the Tea Party...
I never thought of it like that.
Mind expanding!
Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492. The Muslims weren’t expelled until King Phillip III in 1614.
In the case of both Jews and Muslims, some converted to Christianity in order to remain in Spain (”Conversos”) but the sincerity of those conversions was always open to question.
New Christians of Moorish origin were known as “moriscos.” The term morisco may also refer to Crypto-Muslims, those who secretly continued to practice Islam. New Christians of Jewish origin were referred to as marranos. The term “marrano” may also refer to Crypto-Jews, those who secretly continued to practice Judaism.
To all the NON-Indigenous Americans celebrating Indigenous People Day, you can prove your bona fides by packing your bags and moving permanently to : Europe, Africa, Asia - you pick, anywhere but America! If you’re unwilling to move out of America, stop being a hypocrite and shut up!!
Would people notice the cost of sweets zooming through the roof before noticing their taxes were less?
So, yes, it took much longer to expel the Moors once the march to their defeat but their expulsion began in earnest in her time.
Characterization of Moorish Spain as some 'golden age' (750-1260AD) is a misnomer as well. Bill Warner, PhD: The Not So Golden Age of Islam illustrates the vile mischaracterization of peaceful Islam during this "golden age" of al Anadalus.
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