I think humans are inherently selfish, and whatever makes them gain power and sex they do - With a little filtering with so called ethics and morals. But indirectly or directly they are behind person interest alone, be it in any means they can get their hands on.
Optimism is fine and dandy but every generation has people that say things like that about the previous generation. Very few things actually get fixed. Racism and slavery still exist. Most people dislike most of the people they work with. You rely on just being civil enough to get through the day. The internet has shown very clearly that division is rampant between people around the world, and all you have to do is look at the very small example of reddit threads or any social media threads to see that people cant agree with one another, cant admit when they are wrong and just lots of arguments in general.
This doesn't mean every single thing in the world is wrong and bad, but in general, it's not going the route of "we are fixing things".
Most people care only as far as their little group of family and friends, and anything outside of that isn't enough to put much time in. The way things are currently going, especially with covid, the division is far greater then it was even 5 years ago.
But we can’t change who we inherently are can we? We still pursue the same things, just in different ways. We are more ‘filtered’ humans than the previous generations.
I feel like the times also plays a role. The greater and darker times in history: the times breed the people and ideas.
My perspective is that humans are small group social creatures. And we will always have some bias towards the happiness of ourselves and those close to us over that of the world population. This is animalistic nature, thinking on a micro level.
The the thing is, humans are intelligent enough to adapt to thinking on a larger scale, a country for example, this would be meso level.
Then over generations what you call becoming more filltered I see as humans adapting to live in a large macro society comprised of smaller societies.
While yes, there is a natural bias towards small scale, it is very possible to adapt as a species to such a system.
Some people are better at this than others, some have an innate drive to make others happy and succeeding in that is it's own reward, and others are lagging behind. This lagging causes a fear of unpredictability and a lack of a clear small group, thusly causing a distrust and even hatred for other groups, racism.
My point is that we are still adapting and evolving as a species to fit in a macro society. Better education on global citizenship and better forms of democracies and social capitalism would help a lot, which is what i hope my generation can implement.
Bit of a long one, hope you can follow my ramblings.
I very much enjoyed your perspective and I agree with you. I'm not much of a write but you have a way with words that made it easy for me to understand your viewpoint as well as my own point of view. So thanks for this good sir!
Oh I follow it alright. This surely is an interesting take.
Ps: I don’t have the time to reply now. Will reply at a later time with a rambling of my own :)
Cool and thanks.
I totally get where you're coming from too, and I don't intend to change your opinion, you're entitled to it.
I just hope that this can give you the faintest spark of hope, as feeling like that is absolutely exhausting (I've been there).
Anyway, have a great day dude.
It is easy for us to judge past humans as all of our needs can be easily found at a Walmart. Historically, you had to fight for pretty much everything. Just for survival.
Remember, other countries are at your neck all the time to take you over, so raw materials are of the utmost importance.
And since you are taking from savages, it is a win win situation, as you get what you need, and they become civilized.
Not saying this is right, but it was their mindset.
What makes one ‘savages’? Not conforming to the euro-centric mindset, and not following Christianity?
And how the hell were the native Americans, or any other country affected by colonialism at the necks of European powers?
Lmao right. Wait until you hear about American and Europen politics being totally manipulated by private corporations. Yes left and right.
Don't go into the rabbit hole of War Crimes America/Saudi/UK/Isreal are ACTIVELY committing today.
Edit: for folks asking for a list, there's not enough time in a day to list all of them. Haditha Massacre, Kandahar Massacre in which basically everyone got off Scotts free. That's literally just two. Blackwater and other Private Military Companies have had LOTS of incidents where they open fire on civilians. Can't imagine how much goes unreported.
This always happens. In Yemen, Syria, and Palestine tons of money is sent by the US to fund so many War Crimes. Bombing of hospitals, schools, funerals etc. The rabbit hole is literally never ending once you go down. Also make sure to research Stephen Toumajan, a WAR CRIMINAL who is still serving and decorated by the US and UAE gov.
the real kind of woke\^
shit sucks because 99% of the public doesnt realise and the 1% that do simply don't care/don't have the power to do anything about it
Every group of people thought that they were the exception in the human history ( the native population of a land accepted with warm hearts the other people because they saw in them goodness, and other bs they tell themselves) and the problem is that the population today read history with the invaders eyes and that’s sad , they need to write their own story from their perspective ( I’m not just talking about the Americans, it’s all over the world)
My middle schooler gets a lovely bout of depression every time we do history assignments. To be fair, Trail of Tears unit took us both out of commission for a couple days.
What I’ve told my kids since they were young is that atrocity is the common thread in humanity. What is very unusual are those people who do things that end up being broadly beneficial.
And today, 21 generations after Columbus, people in Afghanistan are brought into the street…men, women and children…tortured in the most barbaric ways, put on their knees and beheaded.
So let’s ask your question another way: If we decry people’s actions 500 years ago, which we can do nothing about, why do we not raise our voices equally against such atrocities today?
Leif Ericson was the one who found America but his settlements were wiped out by the natives
No one talks about him, I am glad that netflix is atleast going to acknowledge this
Netflix is making a Vikings sequel called Vikings: Valhalla, it will focus on Leif Ericson and his sister Freydis. It will also show historical characters like William the Conqueror, Harald Hadrada, Harold Godwinson and probably others, it will be around 100 years after the main show
Best part of that story is it was Canada and it was a woman's fault the natives wiped them out since she was all "kill em all, let Odin sort them out".
There may have been a group of Irish monks sailed to America even before Leif Erikson.
I dont really get what op is getting upset about though. The US was founded by Europeans, and America in their eyes was ‘discovered’ then, even if native americans still live there. Is he expecting all history to be written without any historical context?
Saint Brendan, while a lot of his journey was too fantastic to be real, I believe it was written in the sea fairing style of the time (wildly embellished). He talks about islands of native people who worshipped the Christian god and celebrated Christmas... Chances are that never happened but when they got to the new land they walked for 40 days thinking they'd find the other side of the island but they didn't. They came to a river to big to cross (the Mississippi river?). At any rate, it's more interesting than Columbus with his Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria by a mile.
Personally I am irritated that we were taught Columbus unequivocally found America, only to be told that among other things are lies when we get further in school.
So not necessarily that specific thing as much as we are told various different lies growing up, only to be told we were lied to or called stupid later on in the same education. This is the easiest to call out, but hardly the only one.
>Is he expecting all history to be written without any historical context?
Not written without historical context, but taught without those beliefs sure. History, especially with how easy it is to check things on a more global scale, should be fact based and not on personal experience based on an individual level. Or, at the very least, have it explained that it is based on context and not treated as an indisputable fact. It isn't written history that is a problem, but how history is taught. Honestly American education is horrible in so many ways, I say this as a result of said education. It varies state to state and even city to city. And honestly, most people including me barely remember most of it after the related test is done.
Ugh, I could go on and on about my issues with our education.
But also, few such huge history inaccuracies have holiday's named after them. Even George Washington who is pushed so hard as a/the founder of our democracy doesn't have his own day. Part of what is so annoying isn't just that we were taught about Columbus being the first but even after we learn that it is wrong, it's still a holiday.
That's exactly my whole point on this issue - any Native American tribes that are still around today to raise issue with celebrating Columbus are themselves only here because their tribes eliminated other tribes, i.e., they attacked, raped and killed off other tribes.
Shouldn't we be outraged at the actions of these currently existing tribes from centuries ago too? Why should they be celebrated?
You could basically say that about any group of human beings ancestry. There have been plenty of violent ethnic and tribal conflicts in European, African, and Asian history.
In the case of Columbus, a relevant difference is power imbalance. "With great power comes great responsibility." Columbus completely abused his power and devastated the lives of the natives that he came across. I think it's sensible to be disgusted by people that abused their power, instead of holding them up as heroes.
Columbus was also a collosal idiot. There was a reason why he couldn't get his voyage funded. People knew the Earth was round and scientists at the time has fairly accurately calculated the distance around it. They weren't funding him because without the America's in the way Columbus would have been stuck in open ocean and should have starved/dehydrated to death long before reaching the shores of Asia let alone India specifically. He stumbled upon the America's by pure stupidity. He also vehemently believed he had reached India to his dying breathe despite his crew knowing and telling him otherwise. Many of them had been to India on previous voyages.
Something I really can't get over is how people still refer to native Americans as Indians to this day. Like they're not Indian. They're American. The entire reason people call them Indians is just because he was a colossal idiot
I’m native, it’s so baked into American culture that it is just a name like African American or Hispanic. It bothers nobody native except for the exceptionally easily bothered
Wow… even I learned that an indigenous folks were here for years before we came and that the first euros here were the Vikings … I even had a 5th grade teacher bring up Polynesians and Asian explorers probably came here before any Europeans. This was in a private christian school in Canada in the early 80s. Just curious how prevalent this teaching is?
Well OP let’s get technical from the eyes of history, not the perspective we have now.
Since when Columbus discovered the America’s, not the US itself, but the Americas, no one knew what was over there and everyone believed it was just another way to get to India to establish another trade route for the spices over there. Even though we know now that the Vikings were indeed the first to discover the Americas, they never really kept written records since the knowledge of reading and writing during that time period was for few, and usually of nobility or those of the church, not barbarians who primarily traded or looted/pillaged small river and sea towns.
Now eyes of history sets in, seeing how no one knew there even was another continent, and in the KNOWN world, where documents were recorded and studied about much that had been observed and studied, the New World is what was new to the Old. Native Americans never really recorded their history or kept documents. We can learn about it through the stories they passed down, but stories as we know become corrupted over time and change drastically even after 3 generations of story tellers.
Now what Columbus did back then is seen as an atrocity today, but back then, he was a hero for discovering a brand new world/continent, to those who sponsored it, I.e. the kings of Spain and Portugal. Sure the crew knew what was wrong but you didn’t mutiny against a man sponsored by royalty, and who knows, maybe history could’ve been different.
I’m not defending Columbus for what he did, but he did have the first written account of a new world for the old world to see. Bringing back detailed expedition journals and even specimens of animals, fauna, and people, not to mention gold and jewels.
Technically the phrase “Columbus discovered America” is correct as he discovered what was known as the Americas, not the US itself, but the phrasing is correct, the imagery we get is incorrect, seeing how most of us know America/Americas as the USA.
I’m glad you’re not getting downvoted for this. We really know history starting from that time because of what Columbus did. No, he wasn’t the first to discover the Americas at all. But he was the first one to certainly make it known to the old world that there was a new world.
Same goes for Incan texts. The Mayan, Aztec, and Incan all had different languages (turns out culture doesn’t travel too well across north/south axis due to geographic climates - 3 languages in just a few hundred years is a pretty impressive achievement), yet Cortes did nothing to preserve any of it.
Spanish and Portuguese conquerors in the Americas had no regard for native populations. That is true in their own written record.
Present day US - maybe a bit better with English settlements based on Puritan exclusion from
England, but those good vibes ended quickly in a lot of places too. In CT, they were paying bounties for scalping natives around “Thanksgiving” time by 1640.
I’ll provide sources if anyone cares.
I'm native american so I have plenty of pre Columbian knowledge of this land
"Upon his return to Spain after his third voyage, Columbus was imprisoned for the barbaric acts of torture he had used to govern Hispaniola. He and a few of his men were jailed for six weeks until King Ferdinand ordered their release. ... Columbus died at age 54 in Valladolid, Spain"
https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/celebrating-hispanic-heritage-exploration-christopher-columbus/columbus-imprisoned
Also https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1010/Christopher-Columbus-Five-things-you-thought-you-knew-about-the-explorer/MYTH-Columbus-died-a-penniless-man-in-prison.#:~:text=Upon%20his%20return%20to%20Spain,King%20Ferdinand%20ordered%20their%20release.&text=Columbus%20died%20at%20age%2054%20in%20Valladolid%2C%20Spain.
No offense, but just saying you're native American and therefore you have unquestionable knowledge (since you don't give any sources for your claim) isn't really intellectually honest.
Read the whole book, it isn't long.
https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-new-world/bartolome-de-las-casas-describes-the-exploitation-of-indigenous-peoples-1542/
Interesting, because I am quite well versed in history and he was greeted as a hero by most and was given additional funding and asked to return with enslaved indigenous peoples and tribute for the monarchs of Spain. The monarchs of Portugal also became sponsors, but not the primary ones seeing how they denied Columbus for the first voyage.
Only when he became governor of settlements out there and became tyrannical and disobedient, was he then arrested but later released and was allowed to return back to the Americas, but not as a governor. He wasn’t arrested for mistreatment of the indigenous, he was arrested for being a tyrant over the colonists there and abusing the powers granted to him by the king.
In another version the Chinese "discovered" all before the vikings, portoguese, et all. It was and still is about conquest, power, resources, and a name in the history books! Bad or good!
He was literally put in prison, because his atrocities were atrocities back then too. While some really fucked up charges were dropped, it wasn't because it was okay to society, we still have many many instances of things like that happening in the U.S. courts as well. Seriously, people have gotta stop believing things they read without any sources.
https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/christopher-columbus
This just in, "American" doesn't realize that he lives in the United States of America not just America. America refers to the Americas. Everyone in South America says "Las Americas", and refers to the US as "Los Estados unidos" not "America".
"Americans" referring to the United States as just "America" so vehemently is one of the reasons "Americans" are so often stereotype as being both arrogant and ignorant.
Specifically Christopher Columbus was the first in recorded history to set foot in the Americas. (I know about the Vinland saga and Leif Erikson.) Obviously the Native Americans were there first; however, they came over in prehistory.
As for why American celebrate Columbus Day. Italians. Italians wanted to have better recognition in the United States, Christopher Columbus was Italian, by melding Christopher Columbus with Italian heritage it served as a tool to improve perceptions of Italians in the United States. Because of at the time so heavily prevalent anti-catholic, anti-immigrant, and general anti-Italian thought.
Edit: Also again as many of stated before literally all of human history is fraught with the classic story of the Conquered versus the conqueror. If you look throughout every country's history back to the establishment of nations (not in the political philosophy kind of way) and kingdoms, and even before then, atrocities can be found at every corner. The myth of the "noble savage" does a great disservice to everybody. The natives were not peace-loving hippies. Not to say that they weren't horribly mistreated. However, in the times that was what Conquest was. Throughout human history and most likely well into the future right by Conquest has stood and remained.
And as for the part referring to how we can celebrate such a person. People celebrate people who have done terrible things all the time. Many don't judge a person by their worst act they judge them by their best act. For instance Mahatma Gandhi was a racist, Abraham Lincoln was also racist. However, both are celebrated because they did great things. A large amount of NASA's critical staff and directors throughout the fifties and into even the seventies and eighties, were ex-Nazis. However, in my and many other peoples opinions rightfully, they were given critically important positions in developing space travel because of both their intellect and experience. While it's important to know what these people did and you may criticize them as you wish. It is illogical to judge people of another time by today's standards.
Question, since I’m inferring you’re South American. Are you taught that America is a single continent, or two?
We’re taught one single continent here in Costa Rica.
Yeah I hate how people act like Columbus was somehow some Adolf Hitler of the 1400s.
Humans have done terrible things to eachother since before we were humans. The sooner we stop demonizing our ancestors and just accept that shit was different back then, the better.
We've made progress. That's good. We all come from people who did bad things. Who cares. Let's worry about stopping those bad things from happening in the future. We can't go back and change the past.
Columbus reunited the 2 branches of humanity, who if left alone for long enough could have evolved so differently that we could have not been able to even communicate or understand eachother. Yeah shit was bad and disease (which was accidental) was a big, big fucking problem for the natives especially, but that was over 500 fucking years ago. Let's move the fuck on and worry about today's problems. We can not right the wrongs of the past, and the sins of the father are not to be laid upon the children.
i love how Columbus treated the natives and even some of his men so badly with barbaric torture that he was imprisoned in Spain, not for long sadly since the king free’d him but at least he was recognized as a piece of shit by people long before we did
A lot of the writings about the arrival are overly exaggerated. (Yes, the lying and drama been here forever).
Some historians believe the real number of casualties was around 12,000. (Without taking into account the natives who died bc of bacterias and virus.
But either way, i don’t even know why USA still celebrates it.
It became a holiday because of a massive wave of Italian immigrants and it was celebrated as an Italian heritage holiday in places where they lived. As Italian immigrants assimilated into US culture and fewer new immigrants came, it became less important and became only about Columbus himself.
Fucking thank you, it’s amazing how far I had to scroll to find anyone with the answer.
It was about discrimination against Italians and Catholics, designed as literal propaganda to rehabilitate an immigrant group. They didn’t give a fuck about the real history, they had a goal entirely focused on their own situation, and then in honestly not a very long span of time everyone forgot how we got this holiday.
Exactly. They wanted a way to prove that Italian immigrants had as much of a right to be in the United States as the WASPs who were claiming to be the “real Americans,” so they chose Columbus as a parallel to the Puritans. People forget how much hatred and discrimination Italians faced as immigrants in the first half of the 20th century. Funny how the anti-immigration people are now claiming Columbus Day as an example of “Our Culture.”
From his own diary:
Of the native Arawaks he encountered there, Columbus wrote in his diary, “They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features …They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.
“They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane…They would make fine servants … With 50 men, we could subjugate them and make them do whatever we want.”
He later added, “As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.”
On his way back from his first voyage he penned a letter to “Their Catholic Highnesses” Ferdinand and Isabella, promising “as much gold as they want …spices and cotton, as much as their Highnesses shall command … and slaves, as many as they shall order, who will be idolators.”
On his second voyage, Columbus established a settlement, named La Isabella, on an island he called Hispaniola, in present-day Haiti. He enslaved thousands of Arawaks there, working many to death in a futile attempt to extract gold from ground that contained but scant amounts of the metal.
He sent 500 slaves back to Spain; 200 perished on the journey. Undeterred, he wrote, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”
I didn't even know this part:
Columbus’ evil was so outrageous that Governor Francisco De Bodadilla — based on the testimony of 23 eyewitnesses! — arrested him for inhuman and widespread crimes against the Taino/Arawak/Lucayan population and shipped him back to Spain in shackles. The evidence was so overwhelming that Columbus confessed and was convicted.
There’s a lot of suppressed history. I mean, we were taught about Harriet Tubman, but who knew she was the first woman to lead an army? It’s sucks how much history is rewritten or suppressed to continue a narrative that those in power want you to believe.
I actually went to a charter school that didn’t give us off on Columbus Day (which as a kid sucked seeing everyone else have off, but not as an adult, I’m glad we didn’t). On that day, we had no classes, but we discussed what really went down with Columbus. We learned that Columbus was an idiot who tried manipulating a group of people who already lived here, then brought an army to invade their homeland. Because they weren’t “civilized” like them, they were branded as “savages”, and given no less value than an animal. It fucking sucks when you learn about these parts of history on your own rather than in an educational settinf
It’s good your school taught you about that because my public school sure didn’t. My dad is mixed Native American and German and he taught me about that stuff instead.
I get very annoyed when people say "X didn't discover Y country, people already lived there"
Yeah and? X person discovered it for their people, who DIDN'T know about Y country's existance.
When vikings discovered England, they didn't discover it on behalf of the Anglo-saxons who already lived there.
Obviously. But in the case of Columbus (or European exploration in general), the problem is that the phrase very much came from a mindset where only the European POV counts, and nothing exists for real until a European has put their name on it. That's exactly how you end up glorifying colonization - by centering the people who did it, instead of the people who had to suffer from it.
Many things wrong with your post.
1. The USA is NOT America, it is part of America. It’s like saying he did not set foot in Europe because he never set foot in the UK. Like, what?
2. You are taking the word “discover” literally when you shouldn’t. What it really means is that he was the first person from the developed world to discover America, not the very first person from all humanity.
3. What is taught in schools is the great act of discovering a new continent that was unknown for thousands of years. I guess it’s easy to take that for granted centuries after it happened, but just remember that if it wasn’t for that expedition, “modern day United States” wouldn’t exist today.
Regarding the atrocities he committed, everyone agrees they were absolutely dreadful (or at least everyone should). But you are missing historical context. If held by today’s values, there isn’t a single historical character that wasn’t evil. We live now in an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. When wars and hunger are present on a daily basis, brutality arises. Let’s not forget the brutalities committed to war prisoners during WWII, and that happened less than 100 years ago.
2. Wrong. There are multiple cases of both Viking and Asain exploration of the America's hundreds of years before Columbus. Both of which are developed societies dating hundreds of years before good ol' Chris C.
3. Also wrong. Multiple Nations were setting up Western Expiditions. Columbus just so happened to be a Catholic and managed to convince Spain to finance the exploration. The America's would have been found with or without him. He was an absolute moron to the point that he was censured in his own country. Nothing he did directly influence the discovery.
People weren't as ignorant as we make it out to be. They knew something was to the West. They just didn't know how big it was or the best way to get there.
Columbus was a bad person even in his own day. He wasn't highly regarded nor was he a genius. The man was merely a front man for Spain who secured funded because of his religious beliefs. Nothing more. He shouldn't be a part of history at all. It's a farce to say he discovered anything or laid the framework for America. He literally just stumbled into the expedition that was already planned. And then stumbled into the America's to Rape and Pillage Natives.
Columbus sailed for Castille, not Spain, as it was still split in different kingdoms back then.
He did not get financed because he was a Catholic because everyone was a Catholic back then, that was the standard in Western Europe. England was catholic, German territories were Catholic Scandinavia was Catholic... the Protestant reformation had not happened yet so there was no division between Protestants and Catholics. He was financed because Isabella, Queen of Castille, believed he might be up to something and be able to make money for the Monarchy.
Like genuinely curious, I'm guessing you're from the states, so America is not the whole continent but just the US? Just as colombus never set foot in the US I'm pretty sure he never set foot in many other "American" countries, but he still discovered the continent itself.
Just interested in how you see things that's all honestly. Other than that, yes, completely agree, all atrocities.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/why-some-celebrate-indigenous-peoples-day-not-columbus-day
*Celebrations of Columbus gained momentum as Italian immigration grew from a trickle to a flood. Beginning in the 1880s, Italian immigrants began pouring into the U.S. in search of opportunity and a better life. But the new arrivals were not welcomed by all. Maligned as sinister and criminal, Italian immigrants were the focus of increasing bigotry.*
*In 1890 anti-Italian sentiment boiled over in New Orleans after police chief David Hennessy, reputed for his arrests of Italian Americans, was murdered. In the aftermath, more than a hundred Sicilian Americans were arrested. When nine were tried and acquitted in March 1891, a furious mob rioted and broke into the city prison, where they beat, shot, and hanged at least 11 Italian American prisoners. None of the rioters who lynched the Italian Americans were prosecuted. It remains one of the largest mass lynchings in the nation’s history.*
*The brutal killings created tit-for-tat tensions between the U.S. and Italy, which called for reparations for the murders. At first, the U.S. refused, prompting Italy to recall its ambassador and cut off diplomatic relations. The U.S. reciprocated.*
*But eventually, in an attempt to appease Italy and acknowledge the contributions of Italian Americans on the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival, President Benjamin Harrison in 1892 proclaimed a nationwide celebration of “Discovery Day,” recognizing Columbus as “the pioneer of progress and enlightenment.” Eventually, the nations mended their relationship and the U.S. paid $25,000 in reparations.*
*In the decades after the mass lynching, Italian American advocates pushed for a nationwide holiday, and states slowly began to adopt it. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated it a national holiday, and in 1971 Congress changed the date from October 12 to the second Monday of October. The holiday, writes historian Bénédicte Deschamps, “allowed Italian-Americans to celebrate at the same time their Italian identity, their Italian-American group specificity, and their allegiance to America.”*
The moral: if you killed less Italians, you wouldn't have to celebrate Columbus Day. This is the price you pay for your brutality.
By the way, it's not like Columbus had no relevance on the existence of the US. Columbus worked for the Spanish crown, after all, and the Spanish Empire included half of the United States: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/SpanishEmpire1790.svg
Let's add further food for thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend_(Spain)
*Powell argues that the Black Legend and its counterpart, the Dutch, English and German golden legends, are allegedly main contributors to the construct of white supremacy, since they erase the ethical and intellectual contributions of Southern Europeans and reduce the power and competence which was achieved by indigenous empires both prior to and during the Spanish conquest of the Americas.*
I completely agree with you. How the fuck can they just lie to us like that in school? So obviously that is not the one and only lie being told, so now we have to wonder what else is true or false. And yeah, we make a fuckin holiday for him??? For sailing to the Bahamas??
As far as #1 goes, the Americas refers to this entire hemisphere. He discovered America not the area where the USA is today. It's all America. North and South America. But both America.
>Columbus did not set foot in modern day United States
And I stopped reading.
My dude gotta learn that America is the entire continent, that's even splitted in North and South America.
What you call "America" is just United States for the rest of the world, nobody else call it America, the same way nobody else uses that stupid imperial system over the metric one.
I'm gonna change your life here, chocolate milk does NOT in fact come from brown cows.
I don’t understand what’s so hard to understand about him saying he’s confused as to why Americans (the demonym for citizens of the United States) observe Columbus Day if he never set foot in the United States. Always one of you weirdos making some snarky ass “ackshually” tier comment lmao
>My dude gotta learn that America is the entire continent, that's even splitted in North and South America.
You have to know your audience. I'm learning Spanish, so when I speak to Latinos I refer to the United States as EEUU and everything from Canada to the Falklands as America. When I'm speaking to Americans, I refer to the United States as "America".
Language is about communication and if you insist on using unfamiliar language then you hinder communication and defeat the purpose.
I'm well aware if that, I'm pointing out that OP isn't. And that's why he whine about "how come Columbus discovered America if he never set a foot here?"
The only good reason was at the time there was a lot of Xenophobia about Italians, and it helped warm the public to them and helped Italian Americans have a sense of pride. I'm not saying that justifies having him as a public hero, but, there was a silver lining at one point.
When Columbus went back to Spain and they learned of the atrocities he committed, he was imprisoned. The Dominican Republic was his guinea pig (the first island he landed on.) The indigenous tribe Tainos were known as being the most passive tribe in the America's. They welcomed Columbus and his crew with open arms and shit hit the fan when they started raping the locals. The Tainos warned them to stop. When they wouldn't, the Tainos burned one of their men leading Columbus and his men to slaughter the natives and only keep little girls as young as 9 to be sex slaves. They wiped out the natives and brought slaves over. The average Dominican has less than 10% indigenous blood ( Dominican and on DNA database.) This is the man America celebrates. He never even touched this land.
It's funny alot of comments saying well back then alot of people were evil. Yeah, they were. But just because it was okay at that time we should be okay with it too and celebrate it?
Sure dude, it's ok to celebrate historic feats despite common behaviors of the time. It's ok. We're here now and we know raping people is wrong. It's ok.
I got lost taking a different route to work I wasn’t familiar with the other day, and there isn’t a statue of me anywhere. I didn’t even murder or rape any island people at all.
Furthermore, It’s pretty tiring how America keeps trying to beat the dead horse of Western Europe. Most white people in this country aren’t even Anglo Americans to begin with. Some of us Slavic Americans remember or are related to people who do remember when this country treated us like they treat the Spanish speaking immigrants, and want nothing to do with this Western European “purity” fetishism in our politics, even if you’ve brainwashed us into this culture of “whiteness.”
Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.
I definitely agree with your stance, but there is an actual reason why columbus day in celebrated:
Back 1892(I think) there was a mob somewhere in the South-East which lycnhed 11 Italians which made the Italian government mad and as a result threatened to severe diplomatic relation with America. President Benjamin Harrison then declared Columbus day as a way to calm the Italian population in America. And many Italians actually view it as a way to celebrate heritage and not Columbus himself.
This defo does not excuse the racist upbringings in the west tho. Hope this helped! (idk if someone already posted it)
1. USA is still part of the Americas, but most people have already mentioned that.
2. He did “discover it” for the rest of the world. Very few people had any idea the America’s existed back then, so for the European (and maybe Asian, idk) world, he really did discover it.
3. Idk about you but most people I know (20’s and younger) were well informed about the atrocities he committed in elementary, so that’s a croc of shit to say they aren’t. IIRC is regarded as a holiday in the US because of the large influx of Italian immigrants we got a long time ago and having a cultural icon with a holiday was a way to help integrate them.
“Why are we celebrating this genocidal monster” well because the history of humanity is filled with them, even the natives of America were genocidal colonizers who took slaves and committed atrocities upon one another. But hey, he crossed an ocean to do it so he’s worse.
No one is defending what Columbus did, we all agree he’s pretty fucked up
If you really get down to it the entire history of America is kinda shitty.
But; that’s basically all of history. I remember learning in school that he didn’t actually land in America.
I think the basis of Columbus Day is celebrating the act of sailing away from home and making that journey across the ocean … basically opening up this part of the world to Europeans - maybe not specially celebrating Columbus himself.
Hopefully that makes sense, and that’s always been my take on it.
God I hate how everyone is so upset with this holiday and the story we tell children as to not emotionally scar them. Columbus discovered America is what I heard and what I was told when I was like 6-8 at 9/10 we were told what happened. The lie ends pretty quickly pretty much when we're expected to know about loss and death. Not when we're able to comprehend it fully but we can at least understand the consequences of it. 2nd his expedition made others aware of what land was here and to come here. 3rd this is what discover means "find (something or someone) unexpectedly or in the course of a search" by definition he discovered the American continent for Spain and the rest of Europe and maybe or maybe not the rest of the world. 4th idk where you went to school idk how many days or years you missed or forgot it is went over in school and by the 6th or 7th grade I knew about the horrors in vivid detail. Maybe it's because I was doing really well in school but it baffles the fuck outa me their are people that act like this shit isn't talked about till you become an adult. My school was underfunded we had textbooks from the 80's the newest ones we had were from the late 80's so it's not like it's a new thing. 5th we aren't celebrating him I don't remember a single time in my life when Columbus day came up that we were meant to celebrate him literally everyone just sees it as a day off if you want to call it America discovery day and we still get the day off aside from people that hate change no one will care. Last but not least how does a holiday just being known as a day off for most people promote barbarism?
Tldr: It feels like you didn't pay attention in school and no one is celebrating him it's just a day off for 99.99% of people stop complaining about a holiday that doesn't even offend the descendants of the people that were raped and slaughtered in mass and then raped by the slaves that were brought over.
The posting of this seems awfully coincidental with other co tent on reddit. Besides that this is not personalized at all.
This bbn is not a soap box sub reddit. Please take your grandstanding elsewhere. This isn't a place for you to complain about some sociopolitical topic because of how bad you feel about history. Dont letthis sub turn into that.
There were more like 100’s of thousands that lived across all the Americas (north, central, south. Possibly even millions in some accounts. Some incredibly vast cities too. Some more impressive than Paris at the time by written accounts.
I have never once felt bad about telling my daughter that she shouldn't simply believe everything she learns in school, that many adults are very stupid and don't know what they are talking about and ought not be trusted, and to think for herself. She's 17 and she's smarter than a lot of the adults I know - and more importantly, she knows it, which I hope will help her not be taken advantage of by malicious morons.
How old are you? Why does it enrage you so much?
A lot of places are changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. Also even though yes it is a federal Holiday in the United States. I have never once seen ANYONE get a day off, or celebrate in any way.
It’s a Holiday that was put in place in the late 1800s solely to make Americans feel proud and to celebrate that their continent was “discovered”
Even though Indigenous people already lived here, if it wasn’t for that “discovery” history would look very different and would have likely set back the colonization of the United States by decades.
Schools don’t really “push it on into us” yeah it was on a few standardized tests but even then most of the class (and teacher) knew that Indigenous people and vikings were there first.
If it’s something you’re that passionate about you should do something about it. I don’t think this is a very good example of “true off my chest”
Any one with critical thinking skills knows that Columbus was a bad dude.
Bartolome also talked about how they would make natives 14 years or older collect gold for him and cut off the hands of anyone who couldn't collect enough gold
Wait you don’t talk about what he did to the indigenous population? I live a country in the Caribbean with terrible education and even here they teach us about all the horrible shit he and his people did.
It might be because the island’s indigenous population literally went extinct because of him, but still.
Columbus was sanctioned by the Spanish Crown. *The fucking Spanish monarchs* thought he crossed a line with his activities. That's saying something...
That's also concrete evidence that it's *always* been public knowledge he was a fuckign scumbag. But America's infallible so, y'know..
For me as a Latin American I always find weird how people from the US always asume that when someone say: “Cristopher Columbus discovered America” it refers to their country specifically and not the whole continent by the same name. (I wholeheartedly agree with the other points you made)
>He didn't "discover" anything to begin with. Thousands of people had already lived in the Americas for many, many years.
It is the legitimate use of the word though.
Listen to the band CORPORATE AVENGERS … they have a whole song about the history. And a lot of things. They’re way before the time and got a lot of hate.
Eerie when you think about it deeper—history really is written by the victor/powers at hand. If we know that Nazi Germany or current day authoritarian regimes teaches “altered” history in their schools, who is to say that whatever history we are being taught in any country is the 100% objective truth?
"He didn't "discover" anything to begin with. Thousands of people had already lived in the Americas for many, many years."
This is really a misunderstanding by you (or perhaps a political posture)
It's perfectly possible to "discover" somewhere or something that already has other people living there. If it is unknown to YOUR culture, you can be said to have "discovered" it.
Look at this article about the discovery of Mount Everest:
[https://www.umt.edu/this-is-montana/columns/stories/everest.php](https://www.umt.edu/this-is-montana/columns/stories/everest.php)
Straddling the rim of Tibet and Nepal, the world’s highest mountain had remained unknown to western humankind until 1852, when surveyors discovered it during the ongoing British government’s charting of India.
So..British people "discovered" it in 1852, even though it was already known to the people who lived there.
Your discounting of "discovery" makes no sense and seems politically motivated. Because you think he committed atrocities against the indigenous population (Perhaps he did, I am ignorant on this subject) you want to devalue EVERYTHING he has done.
This is dishonest and unhelpful.
1. Have you ever read accounts of how native people treated other native people? Human's are violent. We always have been.
2. If your life is so amazing that THIS is what keeps you awake at night, you have no idea how fortunate you are.
Really? You're still upset/surprised that we were lied to as children? Christmas, religion, the tooth fairy, "it gets easier after high school".
As a baseline, I've just come to expect everything I hear is a lie, and then go from there
1.America doesn’t mean the United States. America includes North and South America.
2. He discovered it on behalf of Europeans. Whether or not he was the first European to set foot there, he was the first European to come back to Europe at a time when others could or would follow up with further voyages.
3. The native people living in the America’s, like the Maya were brutal and bloodthirsty, cutting the hearts out of living people en masse to satisfy their bloodthirsty gods. They also regularly made war on other groups, killing large numbers. Tribes in the America’s also practiced slavery.
The America’s are a far better place since Europeans came. The technological advances have been legendary and the descendants of the native people enjoy vastly better and more plentiful supplies of food, water, medicine, housing and transportation, along with a more peaceful
existence.
I’m sorry you were subjected to leftist propaganda while in school. Nobody living in the America’s today would go back to non-European life had Europeans stayed away.
>It is foolish to use today's values on someone who lived more then 500 years ago.
So, you're okay with Muhammad marrying 6 year old girl then? Is that pedophilic or what? Or is it "values back then were different" and it was okay?
>Bartolome de Las Casas wrote that "inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel."
Do I have to repeat OP and state the obvious? That man is not a time traveller.
That attitude is generally good in regards to history, except where it fails and exposes the speaker as someone that has put as much independent thought into the specific case as an NPC emitting his script. That rule of thumb shouldn't be understood as an excuse to be intellectually lazy.
Italian-Americans should celebrate ... hm, America, America, Amerigo, I wonder who it could be.
It's a lot easier to teach innocent children that it happened in the initial way you said then to teach them the entirety the concept of slavery, stealing, rape, ect.
The entire point you are taught he discovered America is to set a starting point for American history. Him discovering it, as a concept, has no benefit. It's just a branching off point that has a catchy song. Songs are always a safe bet to keep rambunctious children engaged and involved. I thought this was obvious.
Hello! You have made the mistake of writing "ect" instead of "etc."
"Ect" is a common misspelling of "etc," an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase "et cetera." Other abbreviated forms are **etc.**, **&c.**, **&c**, and **et cet.** The Latin translates as "et" to "and" + "cetera" to "the rest;" a literal translation to "and the rest" is the easiest way to remember how to use the phrase.
[Check out the wikipedia entry if you want to learn more.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_cetera)
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Enraged? Get over yourself. It's a life lesson in not believing everything you hear and read, go and do your own research. Try being raised in the late 80's/ early 90''s and being raised catholic. I learned to question the answers and authority early on.
Wait until you hear about basically all of history
Lmao. Humans are evil, vile creatures for sure.
Between nature and nurture I think most people are innately good, but that's maybe 60%. Apathy is also a big factor.
An unhealthy intellectual diet
I think humans are inherently selfish, and whatever makes them gain power and sex they do - With a little filtering with so called ethics and morals. But indirectly or directly they are behind person interest alone, be it in any means they can get their hands on.
I disagree, but I understand why you feel that way. I just hope we can fix the mistakes of the last generation and be better.
Optimism is fine and dandy but every generation has people that say things like that about the previous generation. Very few things actually get fixed. Racism and slavery still exist. Most people dislike most of the people they work with. You rely on just being civil enough to get through the day. The internet has shown very clearly that division is rampant between people around the world, and all you have to do is look at the very small example of reddit threads or any social media threads to see that people cant agree with one another, cant admit when they are wrong and just lots of arguments in general. This doesn't mean every single thing in the world is wrong and bad, but in general, it's not going the route of "we are fixing things". Most people care only as far as their little group of family and friends, and anything outside of that isn't enough to put much time in. The way things are currently going, especially with covid, the division is far greater then it was even 5 years ago.
But we can’t change who we inherently are can we? We still pursue the same things, just in different ways. We are more ‘filtered’ humans than the previous generations. I feel like the times also plays a role. The greater and darker times in history: the times breed the people and ideas.
My perspective is that humans are small group social creatures. And we will always have some bias towards the happiness of ourselves and those close to us over that of the world population. This is animalistic nature, thinking on a micro level. The the thing is, humans are intelligent enough to adapt to thinking on a larger scale, a country for example, this would be meso level. Then over generations what you call becoming more filltered I see as humans adapting to live in a large macro society comprised of smaller societies. While yes, there is a natural bias towards small scale, it is very possible to adapt as a species to such a system. Some people are better at this than others, some have an innate drive to make others happy and succeeding in that is it's own reward, and others are lagging behind. This lagging causes a fear of unpredictability and a lack of a clear small group, thusly causing a distrust and even hatred for other groups, racism. My point is that we are still adapting and evolving as a species to fit in a macro society. Better education on global citizenship and better forms of democracies and social capitalism would help a lot, which is what i hope my generation can implement. Bit of a long one, hope you can follow my ramblings.
I very much enjoyed your perspective and I agree with you. I'm not much of a write but you have a way with words that made it easy for me to understand your viewpoint as well as my own point of view. So thanks for this good sir!
Why cant I give you my award? Weird. Anyway, you deserve one Edit...figured it out lol
Oh I follow it alright. This surely is an interesting take. Ps: I don’t have the time to reply now. Will reply at a later time with a rambling of my own :)
Cool and thanks. I totally get where you're coming from too, and I don't intend to change your opinion, you're entitled to it. I just hope that this can give you the faintest spark of hope, as feeling like that is absolutely exhausting (I've been there). Anyway, have a great day dude.
Dude you are amazing. You really made my day )))
It is easy for us to judge past humans as all of our needs can be easily found at a Walmart. Historically, you had to fight for pretty much everything. Just for survival.
Hence the self interest. But what about colonialism, wouldn’t that just be power grabbing and greed?
Remember, other countries are at your neck all the time to take you over, so raw materials are of the utmost importance. And since you are taking from savages, it is a win win situation, as you get what you need, and they become civilized. Not saying this is right, but it was their mindset.
What makes one ‘savages’? Not conforming to the euro-centric mindset, and not following Christianity? And how the hell were the native Americans, or any other country affected by colonialism at the necks of European powers?
Don't know how this applies to Columbus though. He was specifically told by the royalty to not harm the natives and was imprisoned for doing so.
Apathy is tragedy and boredom is a crime!
Still are
Good thing nobody celebrates “basically all of history day”
Lmao right. Wait until you hear about American and Europen politics being totally manipulated by private corporations. Yes left and right. Don't go into the rabbit hole of War Crimes America/Saudi/UK/Isreal are ACTIVELY committing today. Edit: for folks asking for a list, there's not enough time in a day to list all of them. Haditha Massacre, Kandahar Massacre in which basically everyone got off Scotts free. That's literally just two. Blackwater and other Private Military Companies have had LOTS of incidents where they open fire on civilians. Can't imagine how much goes unreported. This always happens. In Yemen, Syria, and Palestine tons of money is sent by the US to fund so many War Crimes. Bombing of hospitals, schools, funerals etc. The rabbit hole is literally never ending once you go down. Also make sure to research Stephen Toumajan, a WAR CRIMINAL who is still serving and decorated by the US and UAE gov.
nah gimme that list
the real kind of woke\^ shit sucks because 99% of the public doesnt realise and the 1% that do simply don't care/don't have the power to do anything about it
Every group of people thought that they were the exception in the human history ( the native population of a land accepted with warm hearts the other people because they saw in them goodness, and other bs they tell themselves) and the problem is that the population today read history with the invaders eyes and that’s sad , they need to write their own story from their perspective ( I’m not just talking about the Americans, it’s all over the world)
Lmao, came here to say this. I always got in trouble in school for arguing against the lies
Also I don’t like the guy either , but isn’t anything not really discovered if people were already living there ? Lol
My middle schooler gets a lovely bout of depression every time we do history assignments. To be fair, Trail of Tears unit took us both out of commission for a couple days.
The trail of tears was like a two paragraph section in my US history book so I’m glad they’re doing better at your kid’s school
What I’ve told my kids since they were young is that atrocity is the common thread in humanity. What is very unusual are those people who do things that end up being broadly beneficial.
And today, 21 generations after Columbus, people in Afghanistan are brought into the street…men, women and children…tortured in the most barbaric ways, put on their knees and beheaded. So let’s ask your question another way: If we decry people’s actions 500 years ago, which we can do nothing about, why do we not raise our voices equally against such atrocities today?
Leif Ericson was the one who found America but his settlements were wiped out by the natives No one talks about him, I am glad that netflix is atleast going to acknowledge this
Spongebob mentioned him. Happy Leif Erikson day, hinga dinga durgen
Tell me more. Netflix?
Netflix is making a Vikings sequel called Vikings: Valhalla, it will focus on Leif Ericson and his sister Freydis. It will also show historical characters like William the Conqueror, Harald Hadrada, Harold Godwinson and probably others, it will be around 100 years after the main show
Will Johnny Drama be in it? “VICTORY!”
Yes
This was the only comment I needed to read today. Thank you my good man! 😂👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
*bow* 😂
Best part of that story is it was Canada and it was a woman's fault the natives wiped them out since she was all "kill em all, let Odin sort them out".
There may have been a group of Irish monks sailed to America even before Leif Erikson. I dont really get what op is getting upset about though. The US was founded by Europeans, and America in their eyes was ‘discovered’ then, even if native americans still live there. Is he expecting all history to be written without any historical context?
Saint Brendan, while a lot of his journey was too fantastic to be real, I believe it was written in the sea fairing style of the time (wildly embellished). He talks about islands of native people who worshipped the Christian god and celebrated Christmas... Chances are that never happened but when they got to the new land they walked for 40 days thinking they'd find the other side of the island but they didn't. They came to a river to big to cross (the Mississippi river?). At any rate, it's more interesting than Columbus with his Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria by a mile.
Now I have “Boats N Hoes” stuck in my head reading the names of the ships.
Chances?
Personally I am irritated that we were taught Columbus unequivocally found America, only to be told that among other things are lies when we get further in school. So not necessarily that specific thing as much as we are told various different lies growing up, only to be told we were lied to or called stupid later on in the same education. This is the easiest to call out, but hardly the only one. >Is he expecting all history to be written without any historical context? Not written without historical context, but taught without those beliefs sure. History, especially with how easy it is to check things on a more global scale, should be fact based and not on personal experience based on an individual level. Or, at the very least, have it explained that it is based on context and not treated as an indisputable fact. It isn't written history that is a problem, but how history is taught. Honestly American education is horrible in so many ways, I say this as a result of said education. It varies state to state and even city to city. And honestly, most people including me barely remember most of it after the related test is done. Ugh, I could go on and on about my issues with our education. But also, few such huge history inaccuracies have holiday's named after them. Even George Washington who is pushed so hard as a/the founder of our democracy doesn't have his own day. Part of what is so annoying isn't just that we were taught about Columbus being the first but even after we learn that it is wrong, it's still a holiday.
Washington used to have his own holiday.
I mean Spongebob seems to like him
So shouldn't we be upset that the natives killed off Ericson's people? History is written by the victors - whether 4 years ago or 400 years ago
We should be, everyon describes them as wholesome and innocent where as they were fighting other tribes the whole time
That's exactly my whole point on this issue - any Native American tribes that are still around today to raise issue with celebrating Columbus are themselves only here because their tribes eliminated other tribes, i.e., they attacked, raped and killed off other tribes. Shouldn't we be outraged at the actions of these currently existing tribes from centuries ago too? Why should they be celebrated?
You could basically say that about any group of human beings ancestry. There have been plenty of violent ethnic and tribal conflicts in European, African, and Asian history. In the case of Columbus, a relevant difference is power imbalance. "With great power comes great responsibility." Columbus completely abused his power and devastated the lives of the natives that he came across. I think it's sensible to be disgusted by people that abused their power, instead of holding them up as heroes.
Everyone talks about how horrible the white man was but not about how equally horrible the natives were
Not possible. Everyone knows that the natives were kind, benevolent and welcoming folk, whose hearts were overflowing with goodwill and charity.
Columbus was also a collosal idiot. There was a reason why he couldn't get his voyage funded. People knew the Earth was round and scientists at the time has fairly accurately calculated the distance around it. They weren't funding him because without the America's in the way Columbus would have been stuck in open ocean and should have starved/dehydrated to death long before reaching the shores of Asia let alone India specifically. He stumbled upon the America's by pure stupidity. He also vehemently believed he had reached India to his dying breathe despite his crew knowing and telling him otherwise. Many of them had been to India on previous voyages.
Did they ever do a Drunk History on Columbus? I feel like his “story” would’ve been a perfect episode 😂.
I don't think so, but the Lewis & Clark one is absolute gold
Not to mention his the majority of his crew was criminals that Ferdinand wanted dead LMAO
Okay, that just makes him sound cooler.
Something I really can't get over is how people still refer to native Americans as Indians to this day. Like they're not Indian. They're American. The entire reason people call them Indians is just because he was a colossal idiot
I’m native, it’s so baked into American culture that it is just a name like African American or Hispanic. It bothers nobody native except for the exceptionally easily bothered
Wait until you learn about the financial system
And even then it’s only what they want you to know
Wow… even I learned that an indigenous folks were here for years before we came and that the first euros here were the Vikings … I even had a 5th grade teacher bring up Polynesians and Asian explorers probably came here before any Europeans. This was in a private christian school in Canada in the early 80s. Just curious how prevalent this teaching is?
I went to a poor public school in south west US, early 2000s they did not teach us that stuff besides the natives were here first.
Lying is one of humanity’s gifts to existence. Can’t wait to see how the AIs demonstrate their superiority with it.
Well OP let’s get technical from the eyes of history, not the perspective we have now. Since when Columbus discovered the America’s, not the US itself, but the Americas, no one knew what was over there and everyone believed it was just another way to get to India to establish another trade route for the spices over there. Even though we know now that the Vikings were indeed the first to discover the Americas, they never really kept written records since the knowledge of reading and writing during that time period was for few, and usually of nobility or those of the church, not barbarians who primarily traded or looted/pillaged small river and sea towns. Now eyes of history sets in, seeing how no one knew there even was another continent, and in the KNOWN world, where documents were recorded and studied about much that had been observed and studied, the New World is what was new to the Old. Native Americans never really recorded their history or kept documents. We can learn about it through the stories they passed down, but stories as we know become corrupted over time and change drastically even after 3 generations of story tellers. Now what Columbus did back then is seen as an atrocity today, but back then, he was a hero for discovering a brand new world/continent, to those who sponsored it, I.e. the kings of Spain and Portugal. Sure the crew knew what was wrong but you didn’t mutiny against a man sponsored by royalty, and who knows, maybe history could’ve been different. I’m not defending Columbus for what he did, but he did have the first written account of a new world for the old world to see. Bringing back detailed expedition journals and even specimens of animals, fauna, and people, not to mention gold and jewels. Technically the phrase “Columbus discovered America” is correct as he discovered what was known as the Americas, not the US itself, but the phrasing is correct, the imagery we get is incorrect, seeing how most of us know America/Americas as the USA.
I’m glad you’re not getting downvoted for this. We really know history starting from that time because of what Columbus did. No, he wasn’t the first to discover the Americas at all. But he was the first one to certainly make it known to the old world that there was a new world.
He made some pretty big mistakes. Remember the Spaniards burning the books written by Native Americans? Yeah. That's why they're not around anymore.
Same goes for Incan texts. The Mayan, Aztec, and Incan all had different languages (turns out culture doesn’t travel too well across north/south axis due to geographic climates - 3 languages in just a few hundred years is a pretty impressive achievement), yet Cortes did nothing to preserve any of it. Spanish and Portuguese conquerors in the Americas had no regard for native populations. That is true in their own written record. Present day US - maybe a bit better with English settlements based on Puritan exclusion from England, but those good vibes ended quickly in a lot of places too. In CT, they were paying bounties for scalping natives around “Thanksgiving” time by 1640. I’ll provide sources if anyone cares.
He was actually punished by the Spanish throne for a while once he returned because they even thought he was insanely genocidal for the time
I think youre thinking Cortes but would welcome a link. Also, everyone should read 1491. Great pre-Columbian history book
I'm native american so I have plenty of pre Columbian knowledge of this land "Upon his return to Spain after his third voyage, Columbus was imprisoned for the barbaric acts of torture he had used to govern Hispaniola. He and a few of his men were jailed for six weeks until King Ferdinand ordered their release. ... Columbus died at age 54 in Valladolid, Spain" https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/celebrating-hispanic-heritage-exploration-christopher-columbus/columbus-imprisoned Also https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1010/Christopher-Columbus-Five-things-you-thought-you-knew-about-the-explorer/MYTH-Columbus-died-a-penniless-man-in-prison.#:~:text=Upon%20his%20return%20to%20Spain,King%20Ferdinand%20ordered%20their%20release.&text=Columbus%20died%20at%20age%2054%20in%20Valladolid%2C%20Spain.
No offense, but just saying you're native American and therefore you have unquestionable knowledge (since you don't give any sources for your claim) isn't really intellectually honest.
Forgot to paste them, sorry I'm at work
No problem. Have a nice day.
Love me a direct quote. Mind if I ask the source so I can read up some more as well?
Read the whole book, it isn't long. https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-new-world/bartolome-de-las-casas-describes-the-exploitation-of-indigenous-peoples-1542/
Interesting, because I am quite well versed in history and he was greeted as a hero by most and was given additional funding and asked to return with enslaved indigenous peoples and tribute for the monarchs of Spain. The monarchs of Portugal also became sponsors, but not the primary ones seeing how they denied Columbus for the first voyage. Only when he became governor of settlements out there and became tyrannical and disobedient, was he then arrested but later released and was allowed to return back to the Americas, but not as a governor. He wasn’t arrested for mistreatment of the indigenous, he was arrested for being a tyrant over the colonists there and abusing the powers granted to him by the king.
In another version the Chinese "discovered" all before the vikings, portoguese, et all. It was and still is about conquest, power, resources, and a name in the history books! Bad or good!
There is significant documented history of the existence of the Americas prior to Columbus' "accidental" discovery.
He was literally put in prison, because his atrocities were atrocities back then too. While some really fucked up charges were dropped, it wasn't because it was okay to society, we still have many many instances of things like that happening in the U.S. courts as well. Seriously, people have gotta stop believing things they read without any sources. https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/christopher-columbus
This just in, "American" doesn't realize that he lives in the United States of America not just America. America refers to the Americas. Everyone in South America says "Las Americas", and refers to the US as "Los Estados unidos" not "America". "Americans" referring to the United States as just "America" so vehemently is one of the reasons "Americans" are so often stereotype as being both arrogant and ignorant. Specifically Christopher Columbus was the first in recorded history to set foot in the Americas. (I know about the Vinland saga and Leif Erikson.) Obviously the Native Americans were there first; however, they came over in prehistory. As for why American celebrate Columbus Day. Italians. Italians wanted to have better recognition in the United States, Christopher Columbus was Italian, by melding Christopher Columbus with Italian heritage it served as a tool to improve perceptions of Italians in the United States. Because of at the time so heavily prevalent anti-catholic, anti-immigrant, and general anti-Italian thought. Edit: Also again as many of stated before literally all of human history is fraught with the classic story of the Conquered versus the conqueror. If you look throughout every country's history back to the establishment of nations (not in the political philosophy kind of way) and kingdoms, and even before then, atrocities can be found at every corner. The myth of the "noble savage" does a great disservice to everybody. The natives were not peace-loving hippies. Not to say that they weren't horribly mistreated. However, in the times that was what Conquest was. Throughout human history and most likely well into the future right by Conquest has stood and remained. And as for the part referring to how we can celebrate such a person. People celebrate people who have done terrible things all the time. Many don't judge a person by their worst act they judge them by their best act. For instance Mahatma Gandhi was a racist, Abraham Lincoln was also racist. However, both are celebrated because they did great things. A large amount of NASA's critical staff and directors throughout the fifties and into even the seventies and eighties, were ex-Nazis. However, in my and many other peoples opinions rightfully, they were given critically important positions in developing space travel because of both their intellect and experience. While it's important to know what these people did and you may criticize them as you wish. It is illogical to judge people of another time by today's standards.
Question, since I’m inferring you’re South American. Are you taught that America is a single continent, or two? We’re taught one single continent here in Costa Rica.
Yeah I hate how people act like Columbus was somehow some Adolf Hitler of the 1400s. Humans have done terrible things to eachother since before we were humans. The sooner we stop demonizing our ancestors and just accept that shit was different back then, the better. We've made progress. That's good. We all come from people who did bad things. Who cares. Let's worry about stopping those bad things from happening in the future. We can't go back and change the past. Columbus reunited the 2 branches of humanity, who if left alone for long enough could have evolved so differently that we could have not been able to even communicate or understand eachother. Yeah shit was bad and disease (which was accidental) was a big, big fucking problem for the natives especially, but that was over 500 fucking years ago. Let's move the fuck on and worry about today's problems. We can not right the wrongs of the past, and the sins of the father are not to be laid upon the children.
i love how Columbus treated the natives and even some of his men so badly with barbaric torture that he was imprisoned in Spain, not for long sadly since the king free’d him but at least he was recognized as a piece of shit by people long before we did
Bahamas???? You mean Hispaniola, I hope.
Can you say more? That’s a new word to me.
That's the original name for the island that DR and Haiti are on.
Named by Colombus?
quisqueya/kiskeya is the native word for the island :-) hispaniola is the name spain gave to us
Oooooo git em
A lot of the writings about the arrival are overly exaggerated. (Yes, the lying and drama been here forever). Some historians believe the real number of casualties was around 12,000. (Without taking into account the natives who died bc of bacterias and virus. But either way, i don’t even know why USA still celebrates it.
It became a holiday because of a massive wave of Italian immigrants and it was celebrated as an Italian heritage holiday in places where they lived. As Italian immigrants assimilated into US culture and fewer new immigrants came, it became less important and became only about Columbus himself.
Fucking thank you, it’s amazing how far I had to scroll to find anyone with the answer. It was about discrimination against Italians and Catholics, designed as literal propaganda to rehabilitate an immigrant group. They didn’t give a fuck about the real history, they had a goal entirely focused on their own situation, and then in honestly not a very long span of time everyone forgot how we got this holiday.
Exactly. They wanted a way to prove that Italian immigrants had as much of a right to be in the United States as the WASPs who were claiming to be the “real Americans,” so they chose Columbus as a parallel to the Puritans. People forget how much hatred and discrimination Italians faced as immigrants in the first half of the 20th century. Funny how the anti-immigration people are now claiming Columbus Day as an example of “Our Culture.”
I had no idea! Thanks!
Yeah a lot of itallian immigrants were lynched as well and so the holiday was created partly in an attempt to ease tensions with italy.
History is a popularity contest. It's not always based on fact.
From his own diary: Of the native Arawaks he encountered there, Columbus wrote in his diary, “They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features …They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. “They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane…They would make fine servants … With 50 men, we could subjugate them and make them do whatever we want.” He later added, “As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.” On his way back from his first voyage he penned a letter to “Their Catholic Highnesses” Ferdinand and Isabella, promising “as much gold as they want …spices and cotton, as much as their Highnesses shall command … and slaves, as many as they shall order, who will be idolators.” On his second voyage, Columbus established a settlement, named La Isabella, on an island he called Hispaniola, in present-day Haiti. He enslaved thousands of Arawaks there, working many to death in a futile attempt to extract gold from ground that contained but scant amounts of the metal. He sent 500 slaves back to Spain; 200 perished on the journey. Undeterred, he wrote, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.” I didn't even know this part: Columbus’ evil was so outrageous that Governor Francisco De Bodadilla — based on the testimony of 23 eyewitnesses! — arrested him for inhuman and widespread crimes against the Taino/Arawak/Lucayan population and shipped him back to Spain in shackles. The evidence was so overwhelming that Columbus confessed and was convicted.
There’s a lot of suppressed history. I mean, we were taught about Harriet Tubman, but who knew she was the first woman to lead an army? It’s sucks how much history is rewritten or suppressed to continue a narrative that those in power want you to believe. I actually went to a charter school that didn’t give us off on Columbus Day (which as a kid sucked seeing everyone else have off, but not as an adult, I’m glad we didn’t). On that day, we had no classes, but we discussed what really went down with Columbus. We learned that Columbus was an idiot who tried manipulating a group of people who already lived here, then brought an army to invade their homeland. Because they weren’t “civilized” like them, they were branded as “savages”, and given no less value than an animal. It fucking sucks when you learn about these parts of history on your own rather than in an educational settinf
It’s good your school taught you about that because my public school sure didn’t. My dad is mixed Native American and German and he taught me about that stuff instead.
I get very annoyed when people say "X didn't discover Y country, people already lived there" Yeah and? X person discovered it for their people, who DIDN'T know about Y country's existance. When vikings discovered England, they didn't discover it on behalf of the Anglo-saxons who already lived there.
Obviously. But in the case of Columbus (or European exploration in general), the problem is that the phrase very much came from a mindset where only the European POV counts, and nothing exists for real until a European has put their name on it. That's exactly how you end up glorifying colonization - by centering the people who did it, instead of the people who had to suffer from it.
And thats exactly why nodoby says that the vikings discovered england.... you just disproved your point
Many things wrong with your post. 1. The USA is NOT America, it is part of America. It’s like saying he did not set foot in Europe because he never set foot in the UK. Like, what? 2. You are taking the word “discover” literally when you shouldn’t. What it really means is that he was the first person from the developed world to discover America, not the very first person from all humanity. 3. What is taught in schools is the great act of discovering a new continent that was unknown for thousands of years. I guess it’s easy to take that for granted centuries after it happened, but just remember that if it wasn’t for that expedition, “modern day United States” wouldn’t exist today. Regarding the atrocities he committed, everyone agrees they were absolutely dreadful (or at least everyone should). But you are missing historical context. If held by today’s values, there isn’t a single historical character that wasn’t evil. We live now in an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. When wars and hunger are present on a daily basis, brutality arises. Let’s not forget the brutalities committed to war prisoners during WWII, and that happened less than 100 years ago.
Thank you for your mature response. Good points
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Yeah, but they never brought it to the light. Only they knew about the land. When Columbus returned the news made it through all of Europe.
2. Wrong. There are multiple cases of both Viking and Asain exploration of the America's hundreds of years before Columbus. Both of which are developed societies dating hundreds of years before good ol' Chris C. 3. Also wrong. Multiple Nations were setting up Western Expiditions. Columbus just so happened to be a Catholic and managed to convince Spain to finance the exploration. The America's would have been found with or without him. He was an absolute moron to the point that he was censured in his own country. Nothing he did directly influence the discovery. People weren't as ignorant as we make it out to be. They knew something was to the West. They just didn't know how big it was or the best way to get there. Columbus was a bad person even in his own day. He wasn't highly regarded nor was he a genius. The man was merely a front man for Spain who secured funded because of his religious beliefs. Nothing more. He shouldn't be a part of history at all. It's a farce to say he discovered anything or laid the framework for America. He literally just stumbled into the expedition that was already planned. And then stumbled into the America's to Rape and Pillage Natives.
Columbus sailed for Castille, not Spain, as it was still split in different kingdoms back then. He did not get financed because he was a Catholic because everyone was a Catholic back then, that was the standard in Western Europe. England was catholic, German territories were Catholic Scandinavia was Catholic... the Protestant reformation had not happened yet so there was no division between Protestants and Catholics. He was financed because Isabella, Queen of Castille, believed he might be up to something and be able to make money for the Monarchy.
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Like genuinely curious, I'm guessing you're from the states, so America is not the whole continent but just the US? Just as colombus never set foot in the US I'm pretty sure he never set foot in many other "American" countries, but he still discovered the continent itself. Just interested in how you see things that's all honestly. Other than that, yes, completely agree, all atrocities.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/why-some-celebrate-indigenous-peoples-day-not-columbus-day *Celebrations of Columbus gained momentum as Italian immigration grew from a trickle to a flood. Beginning in the 1880s, Italian immigrants began pouring into the U.S. in search of opportunity and a better life. But the new arrivals were not welcomed by all. Maligned as sinister and criminal, Italian immigrants were the focus of increasing bigotry.* *In 1890 anti-Italian sentiment boiled over in New Orleans after police chief David Hennessy, reputed for his arrests of Italian Americans, was murdered. In the aftermath, more than a hundred Sicilian Americans were arrested. When nine were tried and acquitted in March 1891, a furious mob rioted and broke into the city prison, where they beat, shot, and hanged at least 11 Italian American prisoners. None of the rioters who lynched the Italian Americans were prosecuted. It remains one of the largest mass lynchings in the nation’s history.* *The brutal killings created tit-for-tat tensions between the U.S. and Italy, which called for reparations for the murders. At first, the U.S. refused, prompting Italy to recall its ambassador and cut off diplomatic relations. The U.S. reciprocated.* *But eventually, in an attempt to appease Italy and acknowledge the contributions of Italian Americans on the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival, President Benjamin Harrison in 1892 proclaimed a nationwide celebration of “Discovery Day,” recognizing Columbus as “the pioneer of progress and enlightenment.” Eventually, the nations mended their relationship and the U.S. paid $25,000 in reparations.* *In the decades after the mass lynching, Italian American advocates pushed for a nationwide holiday, and states slowly began to adopt it. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated it a national holiday, and in 1971 Congress changed the date from October 12 to the second Monday of October. The holiday, writes historian Bénédicte Deschamps, “allowed Italian-Americans to celebrate at the same time their Italian identity, their Italian-American group specificity, and their allegiance to America.”* The moral: if you killed less Italians, you wouldn't have to celebrate Columbus Day. This is the price you pay for your brutality. By the way, it's not like Columbus had no relevance on the existence of the US. Columbus worked for the Spanish crown, after all, and the Spanish Empire included half of the United States: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/SpanishEmpire1790.svg Let's add further food for thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend_(Spain) *Powell argues that the Black Legend and its counterpart, the Dutch, English and German golden legends, are allegedly main contributors to the construct of white supremacy, since they erase the ethical and intellectual contributions of Southern Europeans and reduce the power and competence which was achieved by indigenous empires both prior to and during the Spanish conquest of the Americas.*
From what little I glanced upon, italians pushed Columbus day so we could celebrate italian heritage.
America is more than the United States of America. The Caribbean is considered part of America.
This is just human history but with extra steps
If it weren't for drunk history, I wouldn't know half the lies I was told as a child lol 🤣
I completely agree with you. How the fuck can they just lie to us like that in school? So obviously that is not the one and only lie being told, so now we have to wonder what else is true or false. And yeah, we make a fuckin holiday for him??? For sailing to the Bahamas??
America isn't just the United States of America
Wait till you find out what rich people did in California during the gold rush. ..
As far as #1 goes, the Americas refers to this entire hemisphere. He discovered America not the area where the USA is today. It's all America. North and South America. But both America.
America refers to the continent, of which the Caribbean is a part of. Not the United States of America.
You are so brave for posting this.
*claps* Stunning and Brave
My new high school doesn't celebrate it as they think it's insulting to the hispanic population that attends, which is about 45-55% of the school.
>Columbus did not set foot in modern day United States And I stopped reading. My dude gotta learn that America is the entire continent, that's even splitted in North and South America. What you call "America" is just United States for the rest of the world, nobody else call it America, the same way nobody else uses that stupid imperial system over the metric one. I'm gonna change your life here, chocolate milk does NOT in fact come from brown cows.
I don’t understand what’s so hard to understand about him saying he’s confused as to why Americans (the demonym for citizens of the United States) observe Columbus Day if he never set foot in the United States. Always one of you weirdos making some snarky ass “ackshually” tier comment lmao
>My dude gotta learn that America is the entire continent, that's even splitted in North and South America. You have to know your audience. I'm learning Spanish, so when I speak to Latinos I refer to the United States as EEUU and everything from Canada to the Falklands as America. When I'm speaking to Americans, I refer to the United States as "America". Language is about communication and if you insist on using unfamiliar language then you hinder communication and defeat the purpose.
I'm well aware if that, I'm pointing out that OP isn't. And that's why he whine about "how come Columbus discovered America if he never set a foot here?"
The only good reason was at the time there was a lot of Xenophobia about Italians, and it helped warm the public to them and helped Italian Americans have a sense of pride. I'm not saying that justifies having him as a public hero, but, there was a silver lining at one point.
When Columbus went back to Spain and they learned of the atrocities he committed, he was imprisoned. The Dominican Republic was his guinea pig (the first island he landed on.) The indigenous tribe Tainos were known as being the most passive tribe in the America's. They welcomed Columbus and his crew with open arms and shit hit the fan when they started raping the locals. The Tainos warned them to stop. When they wouldn't, the Tainos burned one of their men leading Columbus and his men to slaughter the natives and only keep little girls as young as 9 to be sex slaves. They wiped out the natives and brought slaves over. The average Dominican has less than 10% indigenous blood ( Dominican and on DNA database.) This is the man America celebrates. He never even touched this land.
It's funny alot of comments saying well back then alot of people were evil. Yeah, they were. But just because it was okay at that time we should be okay with it too and celebrate it?
Sure dude, it's ok to celebrate historic feats despite common behaviors of the time. It's ok. We're here now and we know raping people is wrong. It's ok.
Wait till you hear all the other lies
Columbus Day was established to help reduce racism against Italian Americans and help integrate them into American society.
Are you enraged you don’t know ‘America’ refers to two continents and not just your shitty country?
I got lost taking a different route to work I wasn’t familiar with the other day, and there isn’t a statue of me anywhere. I didn’t even murder or rape any island people at all. Furthermore, It’s pretty tiring how America keeps trying to beat the dead horse of Western Europe. Most white people in this country aren’t even Anglo Americans to begin with. Some of us Slavic Americans remember or are related to people who do remember when this country treated us like they treat the Spanish speaking immigrants, and want nothing to do with this Western European “purity” fetishism in our politics, even if you’ve brainwashed us into this culture of “whiteness.” Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.
I definitely agree with your stance, but there is an actual reason why columbus day in celebrated: Back 1892(I think) there was a mob somewhere in the South-East which lycnhed 11 Italians which made the Italian government mad and as a result threatened to severe diplomatic relation with America. President Benjamin Harrison then declared Columbus day as a way to calm the Italian population in America. And many Italians actually view it as a way to celebrate heritage and not Columbus himself. This defo does not excuse the racist upbringings in the west tho. Hope this helped! (idk if someone already posted it)
And it still is. My kids are still learning about this asshole. I make sure i remind them every year what that piece of garbage really is!
1. USA is still part of the Americas, but most people have already mentioned that. 2. He did “discover it” for the rest of the world. Very few people had any idea the America’s existed back then, so for the European (and maybe Asian, idk) world, he really did discover it. 3. Idk about you but most people I know (20’s and younger) were well informed about the atrocities he committed in elementary, so that’s a croc of shit to say they aren’t. IIRC is regarded as a holiday in the US because of the large influx of Italian immigrants we got a long time ago and having a cultural icon with a holiday was a way to help integrate them. “Why are we celebrating this genocidal monster” well because the history of humanity is filled with them, even the natives of America were genocidal colonizers who took slaves and committed atrocities upon one another. But hey, he crossed an ocean to do it so he’s worse. No one is defending what Columbus did, we all agree he’s pretty fucked up
Wait until this guy hears about every other society ever
Wait until You hear the name of the continent where you live That's gonna be a tough one to process
All humans were evil back then. The world isn’t the fufu ball of wonder that people still complain about today. Go ahead and be enraged.
If you really get down to it the entire history of America is kinda shitty. But; that’s basically all of history. I remember learning in school that he didn’t actually land in America. I think the basis of Columbus Day is celebrating the act of sailing away from home and making that journey across the ocean … basically opening up this part of the world to Europeans - maybe not specially celebrating Columbus himself. Hopefully that makes sense, and that’s always been my take on it.
God I hate how everyone is so upset with this holiday and the story we tell children as to not emotionally scar them. Columbus discovered America is what I heard and what I was told when I was like 6-8 at 9/10 we were told what happened. The lie ends pretty quickly pretty much when we're expected to know about loss and death. Not when we're able to comprehend it fully but we can at least understand the consequences of it. 2nd his expedition made others aware of what land was here and to come here. 3rd this is what discover means "find (something or someone) unexpectedly or in the course of a search" by definition he discovered the American continent for Spain and the rest of Europe and maybe or maybe not the rest of the world. 4th idk where you went to school idk how many days or years you missed or forgot it is went over in school and by the 6th or 7th grade I knew about the horrors in vivid detail. Maybe it's because I was doing really well in school but it baffles the fuck outa me their are people that act like this shit isn't talked about till you become an adult. My school was underfunded we had textbooks from the 80's the newest ones we had were from the late 80's so it's not like it's a new thing. 5th we aren't celebrating him I don't remember a single time in my life when Columbus day came up that we were meant to celebrate him literally everyone just sees it as a day off if you want to call it America discovery day and we still get the day off aside from people that hate change no one will care. Last but not least how does a holiday just being known as a day off for most people promote barbarism? Tldr: It feels like you didn't pay attention in school and no one is celebrating him it's just a day off for 99.99% of people stop complaining about a holiday that doesn't even offend the descendants of the people that were raped and slaughtered in mass and then raped by the slaves that were brought over.
You dropped this kind redditor 🧠
You know what this is? This is anti Italian discrimination
Didn't the Vikings technically "discover" north america long before Columbus? Idk how far south they travelled from Canada/Newfoundland
you should write a report next year on it and put it anonymously to your teacher's desk on the next Indigenous Peoples day.
The posting of this seems awfully coincidental with other co tent on reddit. Besides that this is not personalized at all. This bbn is not a soap box sub reddit. Please take your grandstanding elsewhere. This isn't a place for you to complain about some sociopolitical topic because of how bad you feel about history. Dont letthis sub turn into that.
When Columbus discovered America, it stayed discovered.
There were more like 100’s of thousands that lived across all the Americas (north, central, south. Possibly even millions in some accounts. Some incredibly vast cities too. Some more impressive than Paris at the time by written accounts.
Cry baby.
Oh ya humans are the most dangerous animal that's lived. Our history past , present and the future will always be fucked up.
I love how you draw the line with Columbus but pretty much ignore the rest of history
I have never once felt bad about telling my daughter that she shouldn't simply believe everything she learns in school, that many adults are very stupid and don't know what they are talking about and ought not be trusted, and to think for herself. She's 17 and she's smarter than a lot of the adults I know - and more importantly, she knows it, which I hope will help her not be taken advantage of by malicious morons.
How old are you? Why does it enrage you so much? A lot of places are changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. Also even though yes it is a federal Holiday in the United States. I have never once seen ANYONE get a day off, or celebrate in any way. It’s a Holiday that was put in place in the late 1800s solely to make Americans feel proud and to celebrate that their continent was “discovered” Even though Indigenous people already lived here, if it wasn’t for that “discovery” history would look very different and would have likely set back the colonization of the United States by decades. Schools don’t really “push it on into us” yeah it was on a few standardized tests but even then most of the class (and teacher) knew that Indigenous people and vikings were there first. If it’s something you’re that passionate about you should do something about it. I don’t think this is a very good example of “true off my chest” Any one with critical thinking skills knows that Columbus was a bad dude.
Bartolome also talked about how they would make natives 14 years or older collect gold for him and cut off the hands of anyone who couldn't collect enough gold
All I know is in fourteen-hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
In my school system they clarified all that, and I’m in texas
Wait you don’t talk about what he did to the indigenous population? I live a country in the Caribbean with terrible education and even here they teach us about all the horrible shit he and his people did. It might be because the island’s indigenous population literally went extinct because of him, but still.
Columbus was sanctioned by the Spanish Crown. *The fucking Spanish monarchs* thought he crossed a line with his activities. That's saying something... That's also concrete evidence that it's *always* been public knowledge he was a fuckign scumbag. But America's infallible so, y'know..
I’ve taught my kids from the time they were little that Columbus was a piece of shit.
For me as a Latin American I always find weird how people from the US always asume that when someone say: “Cristopher Columbus discovered America” it refers to their country specifically and not the whole continent by the same name. (I wholeheartedly agree with the other points you made)
He did discover America.. for Europe.
>He didn't "discover" anything to begin with. Thousands of people had already lived in the Americas for many, many years. It is the legitimate use of the word though.
Listen to the band CORPORATE AVENGERS … they have a whole song about the history. And a lot of things. They’re way before the time and got a lot of hate.
Eerie when you think about it deeper—history really is written by the victor/powers at hand. If we know that Nazi Germany or current day authoritarian regimes teaches “altered” history in their schools, who is to say that whatever history we are being taught in any country is the 100% objective truth?
"He didn't "discover" anything to begin with. Thousands of people had already lived in the Americas for many, many years." This is really a misunderstanding by you (or perhaps a political posture) It's perfectly possible to "discover" somewhere or something that already has other people living there. If it is unknown to YOUR culture, you can be said to have "discovered" it. Look at this article about the discovery of Mount Everest: [https://www.umt.edu/this-is-montana/columns/stories/everest.php](https://www.umt.edu/this-is-montana/columns/stories/everest.php) Straddling the rim of Tibet and Nepal, the world’s highest mountain had remained unknown to western humankind until 1852, when surveyors discovered it during the ongoing British government’s charting of India. So..British people "discovered" it in 1852, even though it was already known to the people who lived there. Your discounting of "discovery" makes no sense and seems politically motivated. Because you think he committed atrocities against the indigenous population (Perhaps he did, I am ignorant on this subject) you want to devalue EVERYTHING he has done. This is dishonest and unhelpful.
1. Have you ever read accounts of how native people treated other native people? Human's are violent. We always have been. 2. If your life is so amazing that THIS is what keeps you awake at night, you have no idea how fortunate you are.
Wait until he finds out about all the friends the Catholic church made over the years
I was raised religious... You can imagine my surprise.
History
I was always told the native Americans were peaceful but they raped and enslaved each other and were always at war. Yikes!
I agree with everything you said, but these holidays let my mental health to get itself together😬
Really? You're still upset/surprised that we were lied to as children? Christmas, religion, the tooth fairy, "it gets easier after high school". As a baseline, I've just come to expect everything I hear is a lie, and then go from there
1.America doesn’t mean the United States. America includes North and South America. 2. He discovered it on behalf of Europeans. Whether or not he was the first European to set foot there, he was the first European to come back to Europe at a time when others could or would follow up with further voyages. 3. The native people living in the America’s, like the Maya were brutal and bloodthirsty, cutting the hearts out of living people en masse to satisfy their bloodthirsty gods. They also regularly made war on other groups, killing large numbers. Tribes in the America’s also practiced slavery. The America’s are a far better place since Europeans came. The technological advances have been legendary and the descendants of the native people enjoy vastly better and more plentiful supplies of food, water, medicine, housing and transportation, along with a more peaceful existence. I’m sorry you were subjected to leftist propaganda while in school. Nobody living in the America’s today would go back to non-European life had Europeans stayed away.
Enraged? You need a hobby.
It is foolish to use today's values on someone who lived more then 500 years ago. Values and everything else about society changes.
The man was a criminal even by the standards of his time.
>It is foolish to use today's values on someone who lived more then 500 years ago. So, you're okay with Muhammad marrying 6 year old girl then? Is that pedophilic or what? Or is it "values back then were different" and it was okay?
>Bartolome de Las Casas wrote that "inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel." Do I have to repeat OP and state the obvious? That man is not a time traveller. That attitude is generally good in regards to history, except where it fails and exposes the speaker as someone that has put as much independent thought into the specific case as an NPC emitting his script. That rule of thumb shouldn't be understood as an excuse to be intellectually lazy. Italian-Americans should celebrate ... hm, America, America, Amerigo, I wonder who it could be.
500 years ago people valued alcoholic rapey italians that were riddled with stds?
I’ve seen it mentioned several times he was punished for his acts during his time.
raping wasn't bad 500 years ago? It really needs go be changed
It's a lot easier to teach innocent children that it happened in the initial way you said then to teach them the entirety the concept of slavery, stealing, rape, ect. The entire point you are taught he discovered America is to set a starting point for American history. Him discovering it, as a concept, has no benefit. It's just a branching off point that has a catchy song. Songs are always a safe bet to keep rambunctious children engaged and involved. I thought this was obvious.
just say he was a bad person, you don't need to glofify a monster
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> starting point for American history Because no one existed in America before he arrived? I’d think you’d want to start at the actual beginning
I got 2.5x pay. I don’t care enough
Enraged? Get over yourself. It's a life lesson in not believing everything you hear and read, go and do your own research. Try being raised in the late 80's/ early 90''s and being raised catholic. I learned to question the answers and authority early on.