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 ...
Amazingly, I, too, do other stuff.
Good on ya!
Trajan was a Roman citizen, son of a Roman Senator, in a conquered Roman provence. The Iberian Peninsula existed in 727 AD, but as a collection of kingdoms and counties, such as Aragon, Catalonia, Grenada, Andalusia, Toledo, Asturias, etc. This was no different than the rest of Europe. The Visigoths fell to Islamic invaders in 711, the Franks didn't in 727.
Now, what was it you were saying about "The Dark Ages"? I'd suggest you go find out how many books were published in Western Europe from 538 AD to about 1066 AD ~ get back to us when you find some eh!
If you mean by published "printed and distributed", that would be difficult pre Gutenberg. If you mean authored, there were plenty. Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum by Bede, Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon chronicles, Irish chronicles, etc. There are over 3000 extant texts in just Old English. From here:
"The DOE is based on a computerized Corpus comprising at least one copy of each text surviving in Old English. The total size is about six times the collected works of Shakespeare. The body of surviving Old English texts encompasses a rich diversity of records written on parchment, carved in stone and inscribed in jewelry. These texts fall into several categories: prose, poetry, glosses to Latin texts and inscriptions. In the prose in particular, there is a wide range of texts: saints' lives, sermons, biblical translations, penitential writings, laws, charters and wills, records (of manumissions, land grants, land sales, land surveys), chronicles, a set of tables for computing the moveable feasts of the Church calendar and for astrological calculations, medical texts, prognostics (the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the horoscope), charms (such as those for a toothache or for an easy labour), and even cryptograms."
There was also a continuous history in art, achitecture, poetry, social development, trade, and many other aspects of civilization. See here for a compendium of links to medieval European and Byzantine history.
Its too late for that. Columbus has become the favorite whipping boy for all the historical revisionists that have an agenda against:
1. The Catholic Church
2. Western Civilization
3. Dead white men
4. Any heroic man that has actually accomplished anything
Columbus was no saint, nor was he the devil incarnate. he was a foreigner in the midst of Spaniards and an easy target for court intrigues.
He was also one of the most influential men in all of history and deservedly so.
Correct. THis is just for the headline readers.
"If I remember correctly, the main reasons Geronimo went "off the reservation" were because the white missionaries insisted that the Apaches stop beating their wives and stop drinking alcohol."
The book I'm reading now "Raiders of the Southwest" is more specific he says
"These were the prohibition against the making and drinking of tiswin (a drink made from fermented corn), and the Prohibition against mistreating wives, particularly against cutting off the end of the nose of unfaithful wives."
This was in 1885 (about 12 years before George Burns).
Ol'Rahman was the GOVERNOR GENERAL ~ see: Ummayad Dynasty
Beowulf ~ Old English ~ 1100 or there abouts. This was a body of literature which wasn't written down until long after the events it describes.
I just read a biography of Magellan ... his disciplinary practices were ghastly. Columbus was not unique in this stuff ... I think it was pretty much universal among the Spaniards, and most likely other countries as well.
True,they drove the Moors out of Spain but they also expelled all Jews or made them convert under penalty of death.
Nothing in History is black and white.
Bashing Columbus is very P.C. these days. As this surfaced in that most P.C. of newspapers, the Guardian, I'll wait until this surfaces in a credible source and the document is properly vetted by qualified historians.
And you said 1066, or there about, so within 35 years +/-. The saga was definitely created between 500 and 1100. Why the Norman invasion of Saxon England has anything to do with your arbitrary cut off of the so-called "dark ages", I don't know, other than (again) Victorian sentimentalism.
The greater point stands; there was no lull in civilization.
Ol'Rahman was the GOVERNOR GENERAL ~ see: Ummayad Dynasty
So? Emir, governor, whatever. He still didn't rule "Spain". He ruled Al Andalus. And, that was 30 years after the Battle of Tours ended northward expansion.
That's the whole point of the battle ~ the Moslem governor of Spain (which has, of course, had various names in various languages) led military forces into France to assist Moslem converts/settlers who were under attack by Frankish bandits.
He got killed.
End of story.
It was a really big event to the bandits. Not such a big event to everybody else.
I thought you were referring to the founder of the Andalusian Ummayads, Abd-al-Rahman, not the defeated invasion general, Abd-al-Rahman Al Ghafiqi.
the Moslem governor of Spain (which has, of course, had various names in various languages) led military forces into France to assist Moslem converts/settlers who were under attack by Frankish bandits. He got killed. End of story. It was a really big event to the bandits. Not such a big event to everybody else.
BS. He wasn't rescuing wayward converts. He was invading with over 60,000 men, following the same tactics that they had used to expand across North Africa and Visigoth Iberia. Two years before, the Muslims had sacked and burned their way through Aquitane, Gascony and Bordeaux.
Martel wasn't leading "bandits", either. He was a King in all but name of most of Western Europe, and had specifically trained his army to fight Muslim cavalry, anticipating more expansion. If the Ummayads hadn't got their asses kicked in a civil war back in Syria, they probably would have tried again.
It's because this was the depths of the Dark Ages, populations were much reduced, and there was an economic catastrophe underway. It was so bad counterfeit copper coins were accepted as valid currency.
Here's what you might do. Using SEARCH right here at FR, call up the DARK AGES threads. You'll read about the comet or massive volcanic explosion that brought on what seems to have been a 5 year+ Fimbul Winter in Northern and Western Europe, and China. There's substantial discussion of the dendrochronological evidence. And, best of all, we here at FR are NOT embarrassed to use the term "DARK AGES" because, as it happens, the climatological disaster that occurred circa 538AD actually darkened the skies.
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