Columbus and Genocide 2
Recently many American families came together to celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday. Many Americans observe this holiday as a reminder of when Columbus discovered America. For centuries, Columbus has been hailed as a brave explorer whose daring, perseverance, and navigational knowledge led to the "discovery" of America. In grade schools across America children are taught that Columbus is a hero for discovering America. Although, what most schools in the past have not informed their students of, is the fact that Columbus did a great deal more that discover America. The fact is however that Columbus was no more the discoverer of America than Pocahontas was the discoverer of Great Britain. Native Americans had built great civilizations with many millions of people long before Columbus wandered lost into the Caribbean. Columbus never set foot on North America, nor did he open it to European trade. Scandinavian Vikings already had settlements here in the eleventh century. The first European explorer to thoroughly document his visit to North America was the Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto, who sailed for King Henry VII of England and became kn
Although Indians probably would have traded their goods with the Spanish peacefully, it was once earnestly asked by Native Americans, "Why do you take by force what you can have by love?" Christopher Columbus reports in his personal diary that when he arrived in the Americas he was amazed. So now that you have heard all these terrible acts, I hope you agree with me that Columbus did indeed start a horrible genocide. Merely killing the women, he cautioned, was like pursuing "a wolf in the hammocks without knowing first where her den and whelps were. The plantation owners then turned to the American mainland and to Africa for new slaves to follow the tragic path of the Taino ("Explaining the Reputation," 2001). Within another 50 years, the Taino people had been made near extinction - the first casualties of the holocaust of American Indians. " After knowing all the thinks that happened to the Indians, I can't help but be in a state if pure disgust at how these people under Columbus' govern ship could split a man into, throw infants into the river, or burn the Indians alive. " In graphic and sometimes exaggerated detail, he recounted Spanish cruelties to the Indians, describing, in one instance, how Spaniards hanged natives in Columbus and Genocide 7groups of 13, "thus honoring our Redeemer and the twelve apostles," then lit fires beneath them (Bartolome De Las Casas, 1992). The conquerors of the southern half of the New World were forerunners of those twentieth-century Germans who extinguished the lives of what they called "useless eaters" in the Nazi camps. They burned entire Indian towns and surrounding cornfields. So not only did he not discover a "new" continent, he did not realize what he had found (McKay, Hill, Buckler, and Ebrey, 2000) Also, contrary to popular legend, Columbus did not prove that the world was round; educated people had known that for centuries. These two things are small compared to what happened after Columbus reached America. After three voyages to America and more than a decade of study, Columbus still believed that Cuba was a part of the continent of Asia, South America was only an island, and the coast of Central America was close to the Ganges River. The Arawaks were a peaceful people, willing to share anything they had, offering both emotional kindness and their physical objects.
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