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Famed explorer unfairly maligned
Waterbury-Republican American ^ | October 7, 2007 | Editorial

Posted on 10/08/2007 10:56:50 AM PDT by Graybeard58

Few men are more revered by Italian-Americans than Christopher Columbus. But as the Order of the Sons of Italy notes, the politically correct have transformed him from "a skilled sea captain and deeply religious man" to a "bloodthirsty, gold-hungry slave trader who destroyed the Garden of Eden civilizations." They also claim he was complicit in "the genocide" of Indians through the introduction of infectious diseases.

Balderdash. As author/columnist Michael Medved writes, Indians and Europeans were guilty of savagery but "none of the warfare (including an Indian attack in 1675 that succeeded in butchering a full one-fourth of the white population of Connecticut, and claimed additional thousands of casualties throughout New England) on either side amounted to genocide" because neither endorsed or practiced policies of extermination.

The Garden of Eden argument goes nowhere because copious scientific evidence proves syphilis, tuberculosis and arthritis were rampant in pre-Columbian America and Indians were lucky to live past 40. The notion that white settlers deliberately infected the Indians was based on discredited letters written by two obscure British soldiers in 1763, Mr. Medved notes. "By that time, Indian populations ... had already been terribly impacted by smallpox, and there's no evidence of a particularly devastating outbreak."

Jared Diamond, author of "Guns, Germs, and Steel," goes further, blaming itinerate Indians for spreading the European diseases "from tribe to tribe far in advance of the Europeans themselves, killing an estimated 95 percent of the pre-Columbian Native American population."

World history is replete with episodes of replacement of native populations. The Indians in fact came to dominate the Americas by exterminating an inferior paleo-Indian civilization. The Europeans supplanted the Indians simply because the latter never evolved beyond a Stone Age existence. But the idea that "unique viciousness to Native Americans represents our 'original sin,'" Mr. Medved writes, "... only serves the purposes of those who want to foster inappropriate guilt, uncertainty and shame in young Americans." It's long past time to reject the anti-Americanism of political correctness and restore Columbus to his rightful place in history.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: christophercolumbus; columbusday; italianamericans
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1 posted on 10/08/2007 10:56:51 AM PDT by Graybeard58
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To: Gabz; fire and forget; oswegodeee; woollyone; Squat; SICSEMPERTYRANNUS; ECM; cardinal4; ...

Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.

If you want on this list let me know. If you want off, you have to pay me.


2 posted on 10/08/2007 10:58:12 AM PDT by Graybeard58
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To: A Balrog of Morgoth; dirtboy; NavVet; Leisler; nmh; elkfersupper; DCPatriot; traviskicks; ...

Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.

If you want on this list let me know. If you want on or off this list, let me know.


3 posted on 10/08/2007 10:59:16 AM PDT by Graybeard58
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To: Graybeard58
I read once that the whole business of Columbus thinking he had found India, thus the naming of “The Indians”, was not at all the case, that Columbus called the indigenous people “Los Indios” which mean “those in God” or the Godly. I wonder if it’s true. Any professors out there?
4 posted on 10/08/2007 11:06:09 AM PDT by SoCalRight
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To: Graybeard58

bookmark


5 posted on 10/08/2007 11:06:09 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (("democrat" 'one who panders to the crude and mindless whims of the masses.'))
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To: Graybeard58

When in the Bahamas, it’s best not to bring up his name.


6 posted on 10/08/2007 11:06:51 AM PDT by Slapshot68
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To: Graybeard58
If you want on this list let me know. If you want off, you have to pay me.

ROFLMSS!!!!!!!!!!

7 posted on 10/08/2007 11:06:58 AM PDT by Gabz (Don't tell my mom I'm a lobbyist, she thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse)
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To: Graybeard58

What??? But what about “The Noble Savage”???? You can’t tell me Rousseau was wrong??? ;-)


8 posted on 10/08/2007 11:10:53 AM PDT by maryz
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To: Graybeard58

The unfair maligning of Christopher Columbus and basically any other white European man goes back at least 20 years to its genesis on college campuses.


9 posted on 10/08/2007 11:11:00 AM PDT by KC_Conspirator
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To: SoCalRight

Indios or indians from the West Indies. Columbus, et al, started naming the islands the West Indies almost as soon they figured they had bumped into something new, not the East Indies (the only Indies at the time) they intended.

And no, I am not a professor nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But I do live in the West Indies.


10 posted on 10/08/2007 11:13:43 AM PDT by cll (Carthage must be destroyed)
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To: Gabz
If you want on this list let me know. If you want off, you have to pay me.

Free enterprise.

11 posted on 10/08/2007 11:18:35 AM PDT by Graybeard58
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To: Graybeard58
They also claim he was complicit in "the genocide" of Indians through the introduction of infectious diseases.

Considering their penchant for ripping people hearts out on pyramids and eating them? Civilization NEEDED to fall in the new world.

A lot of the indian tribes were little better than the Stone Age when they came in contact with the Spanish.

12 posted on 10/08/2007 11:26:29 AM PDT by Centurion2000 (False modesty is as great a sin as false pride.)
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To: SoCalRight
Colombus spoke Italian, and probably Latin and Spanish. The word for “God” in Spanish is “Dio,” not “Indios.” “Indios” is indeed Indians in Spanish.
13 posted on 10/08/2007 11:42:36 AM PDT by elhombrelibre (RUN Paul - a man proudly putting al Qaeda's interest ahead of America's.)
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To: Graybeard58

The most accurate account is by Flip Wilson.


14 posted on 10/08/2007 11:52:24 AM PDT by norraad ("What light!">Blues Brothers)
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To: elhombrelibre

Correction, “Dios” is God.


15 posted on 10/08/2007 11:52:30 AM PDT by elhombrelibre (RUN Paul - a man proudly putting al Qaeda's interest ahead of America's.)
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To: Centurion2000
A lot of the indian tribes were little better than the Stone Age when they came in contact with the Spanish.

Head south (or north, for that matter) and you'll find several that still are little better than Stone Age.

16 posted on 10/08/2007 12:03:40 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (Islam: a Satanically Transmitted Disease, spread by unprotected intimate contact with the Koranus.)
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To: Centurion2000

Ah, Infectious Diseases. Caused by Microbes. A concept that the West would not fully understand for over 300 years.


17 posted on 10/08/2007 12:07:10 PM PDT by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: Graybeard58

Ping


18 posted on 10/08/2007 12:24:35 PM PDT by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid.)
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To: Graybeard58
Whatever may have been reported, the use of smallpox as a weapon must have been impractical in colonial times because nobody understood the disease well enough to control it.

The obvious question arises: why did the diseases brought by Europeans wipe out indigenous peoples, and not the other way round? This is not really a difficult question - the Indians were on the edge of starvation already - but to say this is to acknowledge that Western civilization was in an objective sense better than the Indian culture.

19 posted on 10/08/2007 12:34:30 PM PDT by Christopher Lincoln
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To: massgopguy

Your point wins in logic.

I loved the end of “Apocalypto” when the young man looks up after surviving multiple brutal attempts on his life, and there is a Spanish ship out in the bay... with a missionary coming ashore — a beautiful moment....for however long.


20 posted on 10/08/2007 12:36:20 PM PDT by Sioux-san
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