Posted on 08/09/2006 5:44:39 AM PDT by Marius3188
Christopher Columbus, the man credited with discovering the Americas, was a greedy and vindictive tyrant who saved some of his most violent punishments for his own followers, according to a document uncovered by Spanish historians.
As governor and viceroy of the Indies, Columbus imposed iron discipline on the first Spanish colony in the Americas, in what is now the Caribbean country of Dominican Republic. Punishments included cutting off people's ears and noses, parading women naked through the streets and selling them into slavery.
"Columbus' government was characterised by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists.
One man caught stealing corn had his nose and ears cut off, was placed in shackles and was then auctioned off as a slave. A woman who dared to suggest that Columbus was of lowly birth was punished by his brother Bartolomé, who had also travelled to the Caribbean. She was stripped naked and paraded around the colony on the back of a mule.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
You spell it your way; I'll spell it mine.
Yes, I do. Are you sure you do? Methinks you place too much credibility in the latest pop history theory of climatological determinism. Just as the Marxists wanted to attribute everything to economic class struggles, the current Ecofanatic greenie movement wants to attribute everything to climate, usually on very scant evidence.
BTW, about that "spur" part you put in there ~ let's add = "half a millenium later".
Hardly. The population crash from the plague if the 1300's led almost immediately to the rapid decline of feudalism, the rise of trade guilds, thence to the beginnings of large mercantile powers that spurred the Renaissance.
Feudalism itself was a social response to the retreat of Imperial Roman power and widespread trade. It consolidated local power hierarchies and allowed large territorial organization, quite in contrast to your idea of roving bands of Frankish "bandits".
Boys at Mecca were virtually untouched by the whole thing, but Byzantium seems to have had one serious economic catastrophe for about 80 years.
The city of Constantinople suffered a series of plague outbreaks from 540-600 AD, which more than accounts for any economic downturns in Byzantium.
Yup, most of Europe was pretty much like Africa circa 1300 ~ but even worse ~ the only folks left were those who lived on or very near the ocean; e.g. the Friesians, the Irish, the coastal Britons, the Sa'ami, the Romans, etc.
Evidence? How about the fact that there are numerous inland European cities and towns that have had continuous populations from Rome to present?
As it is I'm going to take the word of my ancestors for what happened in Brittany ~ all the grapes had to be replanted because all the people who'd lived there before died.
You can believe what you want, but please, please, please don't call my ancestors Ecofascists.
We are not talking about today, are we? There was no place called Southern California in 1400, was there?
I am sticking with Northern and Western Europe and excluding Southern Italy, Greece, and most of the Balkans (as we now know them).
Even before the catastrophe of 538/540 there really weren't many cities anywhere (as we understand cities). The American Indians had some, but even the Mayans came to an end with a shifting of the Bermuda High for 500 years (and that change is reflected in deposits laid down in lakes as far away as Virginia).
Now, to the great plagues in Byzantium, they are referred to as The Plague of Justinian. Had a high death rate, etc., Could have been plain old black death, or maybe even ebola ~ the jury is still out, but that part of the world has had ebola and ebola-like disease in the past.
We now know that when you have a cool, dry period, grass thrives. Rats thrive under those conditions. Rats carry plague.
We even have a rat/pinion cycle in the Western United States. If there's a period of cool, dry weather, the pinion trees produce more pinion nuts. The rats thrive. Plague spreads, but in this case it's the hanta virus!
In earlier times hanta virus could virtually exterminate local populations all over the desert South West.
Same with Byzantium. There was cool, dry weather and folks died of plague.
One of the reaons there was this cool, dry weather was that Northern and Western Europe was in the grips of a profound period of cold, dry weather. Crops died. People starved.
We also have the lesson of the 1800s. The first great drought in modern times to affect Europe was in 1813. Most folks don't know it happened because the only part of Europe affected was in the far North as far as you can go in the Pechanga valley. I have ancestors who fled that drought and came to America.
It was far worse in China ~ killed untold tens of millions of people. Europeans had been distracted by the Napoleonic Wars and didn't particularly pay attention to distant parts.
The next major weather change was exceptionally cold and wet. It facilitated fungal infections of the Irish and German potato crops. People starved.
For most of the 1800s Europe was in the grip of a weather cycle with wide fluctuations ~ from cool and wet to exceedingly dry. This had happened in an earlier century, but populations were far less and the death rate was lower.
By the end of the end of the 19th century hundreds of millions of people around the world had died from these fluctuations, whole empires had evaporated (see MING, FRANCE), and America was definitely on the march recently beefed up with millions of young, healthy, hardworking immigrants.
You said weather has no impact?
I don't know? The locals might well have had a word for it. Maybe East Honshu?
BTW, there's no governmental entity called Southern California yet (in point of fact). Does not exist.
LOL! Nothing PC about it, just a rejection of the patently false. You can say anything bad about them you want; they weren't particularly pleasant people. Just be ready to back up your assertions with some data beyond ancestral oral traditions involving Merlin, lest I refute you with tales of Roland fighting off the Saracens singlehandedly at Roncevaux.(Yes, I know the real battle wasn't against Saracens.) Don't extrapolate conditions on the Brittany peninsula to all of Europe. And don't jump too early into giving credence to pop history fads.
I am sticking with Northern and Western Europe and excluding Southern Italy, Greece, and most of the Balkans (as we now know them).
Boy, you like to twist off on tangents, don't you? Who posited "great cities"?
I said that there were numerous cities and towns throughout Europe that were occupied continuously since Roman times. You said the only population was "those who lived on or very near the ocean..." and indicated the Continent was depopulated by some staggering climatological event that no one bothered to write down. Well, Paris, London, Cologne, York, Orleans, Strasbourg, Dijon, Lyons, Narbonne, Nimes, Aachen, Toulouse, Tours, Bath, Zurich, Geneva, etc, etc. were ALL inland and ALL populated continuously. Where's this great die off you posit? Got some hard figures? Contemporary accounts? Mass graves? Dark Age ghost towns?
We now know that when you have a cool, dry period, grass thrives. Rats thrive under those conditions. Rats carry plague.
Rats thrive under lots of conditions. I suspect shipping trade, esp. granary shipments, and general accumulation of garbage and filth had more to do with rat population in Constantinople than grass growing in the nearby countryside.
You said weather has no impact?
Where did I say that? I'm saying it didn't cause the Dark Ages (tm). Of course it had impact on local areas at differing times, but a single catastrophic event did not cause civilization to stop in its tracks for 500 years, nor cause a discontinuity with what came before. There was an evolution, not a mass extinction of civilization. Roman provinces were ceded local control, and they evolved into feudal Kingdoms, governing the local population in gradually different ways.
Since the Governor General of whatever Spain was called at the time ruled over the greater part of that area, my statement was absolutely correct.
The Franks, on the other hand, were not literate for another half millenia. It is inappropriate to apply standards applicable to pre-literate stories to written documents of an earlier age.
The two events are unrelated.
Besides, China collapsed at the same time as the calamity, and we can provide it with a precise date.
Since you claim Bretagne descent, note that the historical Roland was actually Hroudland, prefect of the Brittany March. The actual historical battle was a small skirmish between the Basques and the rear guard of Charlemagne's army. It was Charlemagne's only major defeat. We know all this because they WROTE IT DOWN.
The Franks, on the other hand, were not literate for another half millenia. It is inappropriate to apply standards applicable to pre-literate stories to written documents of an earlier age.
Don't be silly. Of course they were literate. The calligraphic hand known as Carolingian minuscule was invented as a court hand for Charlemagne's court. There were several contemporary chroniclers of the Merovingians, and plenty more writings from the Carolingian dynasty.
And, as far as applying story standards, the tales of Arthur and Merlin are hand in glove with the tales of Charlemagne and the Twelve Paladins. Both were French Chansons, epic poems of heroic deeds.
Still, there's a second source of Arthurian legend ~ over near the Jura mountains there are settlements of people with unaccountably Galician and Breton surnames. They have their own versions plus parts of copies of even more ancient documents from Galicia (which record events going back to 700 BC and maybe even older).
No kidding. The theorized "calamity" is unrelated to a lot of things. For example, the Battle of Tours.
Besides, China collapsed at the same time as the calamity, and we can provide it with a precise date.
You will have noticed that China is somewhat removed in distance from Western Europe. I have already asked you for evidence of the supposed population collapse in Europe. A contemporary cite, such as exists for Justinian's Plague will do. An abandoned, depopulated Roman province or three must have attracted someone's comments.
But...but..I thought Europe was an illiterate wasteland, save only for "Spain". How dare those benighted Welsh produce a history?
Yes, I am aware of the Welsh threads in the Arthurian legend, through such links as the Annals and the Mabinogion's Red Book and White Book. Still the core of the Arthur stories, the Grail Quest, Lancelot and Camelot, started with the Troubadors. Specifically, with Chretien de Troyes.
The Annals didn't mention Merlin (Myrrdin). He was the addition of Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Try Merida, Colonia, Bath, Rome (to a very substantial degree), there's a bunch of them.
Later, Medieval cities were frequently sited in the same areas as earlier Gaulish and Roman cities and towns.
Some, like an old Roman town in the middle of the military training area at Hoenfelz, Deutschland, never recovered ~ probably because it was stuck on the side of a hill.
Geoffrey of Monmouth is believed to have invented the FORM of the name, not the name itself. He was originally called EMRYS.
These guys were monsters, their color is beside the point.
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