I apologize now for the following post. To be clear, I dont apologize for my opinions or how I express them, but rather that this will be a very long post and a generally uncomfortable/unpleasant one (which I normally reserve for posting on my Gryphons Aerie page). However, I wanted to distribute this to the widest possible audience, so I will break my own rule about where to post this stuff, and start here. I do this because I have something to say about something that is very important to me. As my friends and family, I hope that you respect that, and accept me for who I am (opinions and all). Lets get right to it then. Today is a big national holiday in Spain (which is one of my many ancestral homelands). In fact, it is Día de la Hispanidad or Fiesta Nacional de España, which translates roughly to the National Fiesta of Spain… which actually sounds pretty good. So whats the problem? What they are celebrating is how Christopher Columbus set out for Asia, but bumped into the Americas instead. Yes… I know. You are already thinking, Oh dear God, another Columbus Day rant?!?! And the simple answer is, Yes. I fully understand how and why the Spanish celebrate. After all, it was the beginning of a golden age for Spain. The country had just been recovered from the Moors after centuries of warfare and the individual Christian kingdoms had been united into a cohesive nation. The size and strength of the Spanish Empire was on the rise and so was the strength and reach of her economy. It was a wonderful time to be Spanish. However, all of this wealth and growth had a cost. It had a human cost, and while it was paid by only a few Spaniards, millions of Amerindians paid with their lives, their culture, and their history. The toll was indeed terrible, and the damage was complete. Even today, as so many people in the United States fear the rising influence of the Latino invasion, but the real tragedy in my book is that it is a Latino one. While the language is Spanish and the culture is indeed Hispanic, all of those brown-skinned people are in actuality Native Americans… but the effects of colonization have been so severe and dominating that for the most part, these people have even forgotten that they are natives. Just by that measure alone, I think it should be clear why native peoples in the Americas are not too thrilled with celebrating the life and achievements of Christopher Columbus. However, as they say on late night television, But wait! Theres more! If you went to school in the United States or Canada (or pretty much anywhere else), then you learned about Columbus and his three ships. The story is almost always framed in the context of a brave voyage of discovery through all sorts of adversity until he landed upon a fertile land rich in natural resources. It makes for a great novel or movie… but if you are a serious student of history and you have read beyond the simple text book explanations, you will find that generally the facts ARE correct, but the motivations behind the facts cited are usually spun within the context of a strong pro-Columbus bias, and (and this is the most important part), those facts only comprise about 20% of the WHOLE story. Somebody has been cherry picking the good stuff out of a whole bunch of bad stuff and THAT is what we are spoon fed in our history classes. Do yourself a favor and look up on the Internet for the COMPLETE journals and reports of Columbus himself, as well as the men that came to the Americas and worked with him. Read what happened in THEIR OWN WORDS and you will very quickly realize that Columbus and his men were responsible for and readily admit to a blood bath in their search for treasure and glory. Even their own writings paint a horrific picture that in todays terms would rank right up there with what the Nazis did during the Holocaust. If you want a complete picture, look up the writings and accounts from the native peoples that encountered Columbus and later on, the Conquistadors. Sure they are probably biased against the Spanish, but if you are going to make an honest judgment, then you really need to hear and consider the accounts of all parties involved. Hopefully, by this point it should be clear that Columbus was a bit of a stinker and should not merit his own national holiday. However, there might still be those that insist that his voyage was significant because he was the first European to set foot in the Americas. Unfortunately, there is plenty of circumstantial and HARD evidence that those pesky Vikings (specifically Leif Erikson and his expeditions) arrived here first… and they did so several centuries before Columbus AND they did so without devastating tens of millions of native people. So Mr. Columbus was a bit of a stinker AND he was NOT first. So why are we celebrating him? Tomorrow will be the observance of Columbus Day in the United States. It is a Federal holiday, and most states observe it as well. My wife and kids will have the day off, but it will still be a work for me. I will announce the holiday like I always do… but I think that I will join the city of Seattle in celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 15:21:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015