LUZIA has been here (Brazil) for 11,500 years. Can't we blame her for everything. This is the oldest 'dated' skeleton ever found in the Americas.
Posted on 10/08/2001 2:07:40 PM PDT by brentb
In case you slept through fourth grade history, or own a really outdated calendar, today is Columbus Day, the 509th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of North America. (I don’t care what some wispy, goateed professor told you between bites of hummus while leafing through this month’s Mother Jones. Christopher Columbus discovered America.) Now, as with anything honoring America, there are some who have a problem celebrating Oct. 12 as a holiday. They are the usual suspects, the same sniveling malcontents who always manage to find a problem with anything relating to capitalism, Christianity or America. They howl that Columbus violated a land of tranquility. They screech that Western civilization corrupted a Native American utopia. They squeal that the Native Americans lived in serenity and accord, until their overthrow at the hands of greedy capitalist crusaders hell-bent on eradicating all vestiges of the native populous in their quest for gold, silver and souls. And as usual, they are wrong. These "Columbu-phobes" wail and scream about how Columbus and his European followers supposedly ransacked and pillaged entire civilizations, wiping away cultures preaching harmony with nature and one other. History’s revisionists would have one believe Columbus invaded and overthrew a race of peaceful, harmonious people of the earth, a people far superior to the white Christian treasure-seekers who obliterated their society. Eyewitness accounts and the archaeological evidence, however, tell a far different story. The supposedly peaceful Guadelope inhabitants Columbus first encountered, the Arawaks, in fact raided weaker Siboney villages, brutally massacring the men and savagely raping the women. Boys were castrated, fattened, boiled in pots and eaten. The Arawaks kept girls captive as "breeders," providing carnal pleasure and a constant supply of babies, regarded as a delicacy. The plight of women, viewed as second-class and chattel, wasn’t much better. But what evil culture of doom did these pale-skinned conquerors leave behind? What legacy of decadence and nature-rape were the Native Americans shackled with? Only a Christian way of life that lifted them out of poverty, increased their life span and taught peace and equality. Constant starvation, cannibalism and child sacrifice were replaced by healthy diets, industriousness and democracy. People who once lived in disease-ridden huts and practiced shamanism were later introduced to immunization and life-saving surgery. Common sense, not arrogance, illustrates the fact Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian ethic is far superior to any other culture or faith to come along the pike. It is the Judeo-Christian ethic, not the animal worship of the South and North American natives, which gave us the model for a representative government by the people. It is Western civilization that gave us our written language, as opposed to the illiterate Caribs who had no written language to speak of. The anti-American apologists for the Native Americans of the 15th century would have a hard time proving the American Indian is better off today than he was 509 years ago. Thanks to Christopher Columbus and a half-millennia of European influence, the modern person of Native American has a longer lifespan, a means of communicating and teaching his heritage and the right to live his life and worship as he pleases. He even has the right to whine about the intrepid Italian who made it possible. Good luck trying that under King Montezuma. But leftists, as a lot, have never been one to let simple nuisances of fact deter them from whining and complaining. Despite the factually crushing tide of evidence against them, Columbus’ detractors persist in their own crusade to eliminate any celebration of, or even reference to, the famed explorer. The war against Columbus is merely a battle in a larger fight against Western civilization, Judeo-Christian ethic and 200 years of American progress. He was white, European, Christian and responsible for the birth of the nation that discredited socialism, therefore he must be discredited. Sadly for the anti-Columbus Left, while the events of Oct. 12, 1492, forever altered history and marked the end of a hunting-gathering society of cannibals, it did so for the better. Christopher Columbus’ sacrifice and bravery opened the door to a new land where a superior modern constitutional republic, based upon individual liberty and inalienable rights granted by God, took root. So to those young "Columbu-phobes" picketing their schools’ Indian mascot (schools and educational pursuit having never existed in pre-Columbus America), to those publishing books and articles on the evils of the white man and the virtues of the ancient Native American (the printing press and freedom of speech being the product of white European males) and to those griping about Columbus at the age of 70 over a healthy dinner of something other than human flesh (there being scant food, widespread disease and rampant cannibalism in pre-Columbus America) I say to you, Happy White Male Oppressor Day!
LUZIA has been here (Brazil) for 11,500 years. Can't we blame her for everything. This is the oldest 'dated' skeleton ever found in the Americas.
I'm referring very specifically to the island people wiped out by Columbus. All we know about them comes from Columbus' and his crews' writings, which may not be accurate.
Remember, Columbus did not discover what is now the USA, I think he didn't even discover Mexico (at least on the first voyage, I don't know about the rest), he just landed on Hispaniola and maybe a few other islands.
Happy Hispanic-Organized White Oppressor Day! ;^]
....and, this is "Spirit Cave Man," found in Fallon, Nevada. He has been here for 9,400 years.
It's unjustified to call it "bioterrorism" if it wasn't intentional. The first documented cases of biological weapons actually predate 1492. I don't remember when they were first used but it was well before 1492. It involved putting blankets used by sick people and throwing them at the enemy with catapults. Other methods involved throwing decaying corpses with catapults.
I don't think the smallpox helped Cortes. His conquest was so quick it couldn't have had an effect. Do you have any evidence it had an effect? I haven't read anywhere that it helped Cortes.
I thougth we were discussing the overall European conquest, not just Columbus.
I believe Columbus discovered the South American and Central American mainlands by his fourth voyage. He certainly didn't just discover islands.
Most of the island Indians were pretty peaceful. But the Caribs were cannibalistic savages. The Caribs lived on islands in the Caribbean. When the Spanish arrived in the Caribbean, the Caribs were in the process of exterminating the Arawak Indians.
Thanks for the reminder! I forgot.
Being a White Male Oppressor myself, I might as well clue you in.
Either you roll with us(the white Male Oppressors), or we roll right over you....
Everyone likes to push us around, but trust me we push back.
I don't understand how so-called "hispanics" can protest Columbus. It was hispanics that discovered and conquered America for Europe. Those so-called "hispanics" are not hispanic at all in my opinion.
The accumulating skeletal and genetic evidence suggests that the earliest populations to move into the Americas were not Asians whose primary genetic background was that of residents of northeastern Asia and eastern Mongolia (the old view). At the end of 1999 scientists meet in California and New Mexico to mull over the implications of recently discovered or restudied ancient American skeletons, most of which date between 8,600 and 11,000 years ago. And what they discovered has shaken the foundations of the anthropological communities. Instead of resembling the historically known American Indians, the wide range of skull shapes which have come to light so far display affinities with populations as diverse as the Ainu of Japan, peoples of central Asia, Australasia, India, southwest Asia, even the Neandertals of Europe (see Ancestors of the New World Had Multiple Origins for more information about the possible Neandertal connection). Genetic evidence also supports the idea of multiple migrations of people coming from distinctly different genetic poplations: perhaps as many as four or five different genetic populations.
(The 'Native Americans' or 'American Indians' as we know them today, arrived in the Americas no later than 6,000 years ago. The Monte Verde site is likely to be dated in the 30,000 year range )
The site is in error when it says that in Spanish his name is written "Cristoval Colon". It's actually written "Cristobal Colon".
It seems everyone wants to claim Columbus. I've heard arguments that he was Norweigian and Jewish.
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