Christopher Columbus - Hero or Thug?

[MediumTex]

We celebrate Columbus Day for reasons that are not entirely clear to me.  To begin with, Columbus never visited or discovered what is today the U.S. mainland, and even if he had landed on the continentual U.S. he would have been the second explorer to do so after Leif Eriksson 500 years before.

What Columbus did do in the Caribbean islands he visited would not, IMHO, put him on the list of historic people to celebrate with their own holidays.

Among Columbus's accomplishments were to completely wipe out the native population of what is today Haiti and repopulate the island with African slaves.  Most of the black people in the Caribbean islands today are the result of Columbus's genocide of native populations and repopulation with African slave laborers. (How black people wound up in the Caribbean is a matter that used to puzzle me when I was a kid.)

Here is an article that gives you a taste of what Columbus was about, though there is plenty that has been written on this topic:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kasu ... 42708.html

I don't know what they are teaching kids about Columbus in schools today, but when I was a kid all I got on Columbus was that he discovered America, the names of his three ships, and the year in which he did it.  Not a word about never actually discovering the U.S., being preceded by 500 years by Leif Eriksson, genocide, theft of resources, introducing African slavery to the New World, etc.

[lazyboy]

I totally agree and yet it's worse than I thought. The history of the America's is one of unspeakable cruelty to native people.

[moda0306]

Jeez that artical is either completely obscuring facts or is sad as hell... leaning towards the latter.

[Gumby]

I remember being taught in elementary school that Columbus discovered that the Earth was round.

Turns out that was also totally false...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

By the way... if you want to uncover some of the other lies we were taught in school, check this out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... onceptions

[MediumTex]

When pressed, one defense of Columbus that is sometimes offered is that the native people that he murdered, tortured and/or abducted also had barbaric practices of their own.

But when you really think about this defense it doesn't make much sense.

The bottom line is that Columbus was just as much of a butcher (if not more) as Cortes and other conquistadors.  He somehow just got caught up in a historical updraft and is now viewed as someone deserving of a holiday.

[MediumTex]

I remember being taught in elementary school that Columbus discovered that the Earth was round.

Turns out that was also totally false...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

By the way... if you want to uncover some of the other lies we were taught in school, check this out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... onceptions

I would give anything to have learned more about Thomas Paine in school.  He makes the rest of the Founding Fathers look like indecisive wimps.

The whole story of Thomas Paine being the likely author of the Declaration of Independence is absolutely fascinating.  Based on that narrative, in many ways Thomas Jefferson may have just been a mouthpiece for Thomas Paine's views.  The reason that it was necessary to put Paine's words in Jefferson's mouth is that it was essential that they be spoken by a colonist and preferably a Virginian.  The idea of an unemployed Englishman coming to the colonies penniless in late 1775 and providing through the anonymous publication of "Common Sense" in 1776 an intellectual framework to what was essentially an aimless and poorly organized uprising, and then later ghostwriting the Declaration of Independence, is far more interesting than the bland stuff you were told in school.

[murphy_p_t]

a few comments/questions after several drinks...where is Lief's settlement? if he had settlements which lasted, maybe he'd have a holiday?....btw, did Lief & Columbus follow St. Brendan's maps?

How does this sort of scrutiny apply to the likes of Lincoln (sacrificing 100s of thousands to enforce his vision of the Union), T Roosevelt (allowing Stalin the run of E Europe at Yalta...among many other crimes), W Wilson ("war to end all wars" and "making world safe for democracy"...ie destroying monarchy in Europe), O Cromwell (the murderer), Henry VIII (the syphilitic self-proclaimed "pope")? How about the biological warfare executed on the natives by the Puritans?

Why doesn't this article examine the motivations of Columbus? Such as financing the Spanish monarchy in reclaiming/holding Spain after centuries of mohammadan rule?

Yes, HuffPo openly states their anti-Catholic bigotry in this particular article...for the benefit of those who might miss it if its not blatantly stated...just so the points are not lost...

[Gumby]

How does this sort of scrutiny apply to the likes of Lincoln (sacrificing 100s of thousands to enforce his vision of the Union), T Roosevelt (allowing Stalin the run of E Europe at Yalta...among many other crimes), W Wilson ("war to end all wars" and "making world safe for democracy"...ie destroying monarchy in Europe), O Cromwell (the murderer), Henry VIII (the syphilitic self-proclaimed "pope")? How about the biological warfare executed on the natives by the Puritans?

Why doesn't this article examine the motivations of Columbus?

It's because "Columbus Day" is a very odd choice for a National Holiday, given the historical record. We don't have National holidays for Lincoln, Roosevelt, Wilson, Cromwell, Henry VIII or the Puritans.

Here is the list of Federal Holidays:

Monday, January 2* New Year's Day
Monday, January 16 Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, February 20** Washington's Birthday
Monday, May 28 Memorial Day
Wednesday, July 4 Independence Day
Monday, September 3 Labor Day
Monday, October 8 Columbus Day
Monday, November 12*** Veterans Day
Thursday, November 22 Thanksgiving Day
Tuesday, December 25 Christmas Day

* January 1, 2012 (the legal public holiday for New Year's Day), falls on a Sunday. For most Federal employees, Monday, January 2, will be treated as a holiday for pay and leave purposes. (See section 3(a) of Executive order 11582, February 11, 1971.)

** This holiday is designated as "Washington's Birthday" in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees. Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in the law.

*** November 11, 2012 (the legal public holiday for Veterans Day), falls on a Sunday. For most Federal employees, Monday, November 12, will be treated as a holiday for pay and leave purposes. (See section 3(a) of Executive order 11582, February 11, 1971.)
Source: http://www.opm.gov/Operating_Status_Sch ... l/2012.asp

Do you really think Columbus deserves to be given the same honor as Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr?

[MediumTex]

a few comments/questions after several drinks...where is Lief's settlement? if he had settlements which lasted, maybe he'd have a holiday?....btw, did Lief & Columbus follow St. Brendan's maps?

As I recall, Leif Eriksson's settlement didn't last because they were not able to subdue the local natives (probably due to there not being enough technological superiority in weaponry, unlike the situation Columbus faced).  I would say that this point does not favor Columbus, though, since all it suggests is that Columbus was successful at completely exterminating the population of Hispaniola, while Eriksson failed in his attempt to exterminate the native Americans he encountered. 

How does this sort of scrutiny apply to the likes of Lincoln (sacrificing 100s of thousands to enforce his vision of the Union), T Roosevelt (allowing Stalin the run of E Europe at Yalta...among many other crimes), W Wilson ("war to end all wars" and "making world safe for democracy"...ie destroying monarchy in Europe), O Cromwell (the murderer), Henry VIII (the syphilitic self-proclaimed "pope")? How about the biological warfare executed on the natives by the Puritans?

I tend to think that all politicians who make history probably do so, in part, because of their own earlier incompetence.  In my view, the greatest politician in history is probably unknown because he is the one who had nothing destructive happen during his time in power, sort of like no one really knows who the greatest doctor in the world is, since his patients are ever sick. 

I am not in favor of idolizing any political leader.  If we're going to idolize someone, I say we idolize a person like Galileo or Isaac Newton.

Why doesn't this article examine the motivations of Columbus? Such as financing the Spanish monarchy in reclaiming/holding Spain after centuries of mohammadan rule?

Yes, HuffPo openly states their anti-Catholic bigotry in this particular article...for the benefit of those who might miss it if its not blatantly stated...just so the points are not lost...

I would say just pay attention to the facts in the article.  The fact is that Columbus did a lot of really bad things that few people are aware of, and if they were aware of the fullness of Columbus's acts they might not want him to have his own holiday.  I didn't intend to post anything with an agenda or slant that distorted this basic storyline.

[MediumTex]

I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that Columbus was the worst person who ever lived.  I am just suggesting that of all the people who have done good things for the United States, it is peculiar to pick Columbus as the guy who gets his own holiday, given that he seems to have been as much a ruthless killer and greedy slave trader as he was an idealistic explorer.

This comment sums it up well:

The United States honors only two men with federal holidays bearing their names.  In January we commemorate the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., who struggled to lift the blinders of racial prejudice and to cut the remaining bonds of slavery in America. In October, we honor Christopher Columbus, who opened the Atlantic slave trade and launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history.

[craigr]

Tribes in the US were at constant war with each other. They traded with the settlers for firearms so they could kill each other more effectively. In the Pacific NW it is established history that tribes in the region operated slave labor camps for other rival tribe prisoners and took rival tribe members into slavery. They did all this well before Columbus showed up. Same thing happened in other parts of the country as I recall. Slavery has happened in every culture and every continent on the planet.

http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/ ... OSHOW=6328
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2 ... 5927171673

These kinds of articles always assume that everyone else is an angel when history shows that humans pretty much are bastards no matter what culture they originate from.

[MediumTex]

Tribes in the US were at constant war with each other. They traded with the settlers for firearms so they could kill each other more effectively. In the Pacific NW it is established history that tribes in the region operated slave labor camps for other rival tribe prisoners and took rival tribe members into slavery. They did all this well before Columbus showed up. Same thing happened in other parts of the country as I recall. Slavery has happened in every culture and every continent on the planet.

http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/ ... OSHOW=6328
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2 ... 5927171673

These kinds of articles always assume that everyone else is an angel when history shows that humans pretty much are bastards no matter what culture they originate from.

In the same way that what used to be Washington's Birthday is now just Presidents Day, maybe we should change Columbus Day to "Cruel Bastards Day", just to be fair to all of the other ones in our history. 

[WildAboutHarry]

The diseases exported by Europe to the "new" world did far, far more damage than any overt act by any European explorer.

The "Columbian Exchange" involved diseases (small pox, perhaps "great" pox (syphilis), animals (horses), food (tomatoes, potatoes, wheat, etc.), gold and silver, language, etc.  Some things on purpose, many accidentally.

The North American Plains horse culture would not have existed without the escape and/or theft of Spanish horses.

Try Atomix Atztex if you want an alternative history of what would have happened if things had worked out differently for the Spanish.

Try 1491 by Charles Mann for an understanding of the North American cultures pre-Columbian.

[moda0306]

Tribes in the US were at constant war with each other. They traded with the settlers for firearms so they could kill each other more effectively. In the Pacific NW it is established history that tribes in the region operated slave labor camps for other rival tribe prisoners and took rival tribe members into slavery. They did all this well before Columbus showed up. Same thing happened in other parts of the country as I recall. Slavery has happened in every culture and every continent on the planet.

http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/ ... OSHOW=6328
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2 ... 5927171673

These kinds of articles always assume that everyone else is an angel when history shows that humans pretty much are bastards no matter what culture they originate from.

Most people, including the author, understand that many nomadic & tribal cultures could very often be cruel and savage-like... though some were not... like some Columbus chose to enslave, rape and murder.  This isn't about making Europeans out to be worse than other savages, but simply saving days of honor on our calendars for people who actually deserve it.

Only some people were bastards... some were very much not so.  Let's honor the men of history with great ideas that also happened to NOT be murderous bastards.

[Mountaineer]

A few thoughts come to mind after reading this thread:

1. People have been fighting and butchering each other for thousands of years for a variety of reasons - usually based on self interest, fear, or greed.  From a one perspective, this is because of "original sin".  Things have been spiraling downward since Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden.  For believers, the only way out of this mess is belief in Jesus and the promise of salvation.  This view, in my opinion, certainly does explain the messed up world we live in ... and the one Alexander the Great, Nero, Columbus, the Spanish Inquisitors, Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc. etc. lived in.  For nonbelievers, maybe the way out of the current mess of endless fighting and hate on an overpopulated earth is to be on the winning side - the side that will write the story that defines the heroes and thugs .... or invent time or galactic travel to populate yet another world whose inhabitants are "less human" than the earthlings who will ravage them.  ;D

2. The victor writes (spins?) the history books.  Why make one of your own look bad?  I wonder if the Japanese would say Harry Truman deserved a holiday?  Or, would the Germans idolize Woodrow Wilson?

3. Our holidays, as well as most other things or people "elevated" by the government, are a result of political processes and agendas at the time the "elevated" were established.

So, to answer the question of "Hero or Thug" ... it depends on whether you are referring to judgers at the time at which the person lived, looking back with 20-20 hindsight and the benefit of all the knowledge gained since the person lived, reading a revisionist history book or an original "at the time" history book, or, which side of the fence you are looking from.

Just my humble perspective.

... Mountaineer

[moda0306]

Mountaineer,

To your points:

1) The belief in Jesus did not stop, and probably accelerated, the murder, slavery and war of the past couple thousand years.  Non-believers would say that a solid reason-based moral-code is the cure, not to simply be on the winning side.  That's pretty naive, if not insulting to a "nonbeliever's" intelligence and morals.  That's an opinion, but I'd hardly call it humble.

2) The author isn't asking us to idoloze some Aztec Chief... he's asking us not to idolize a Spanish Conquistador.  I don't see how Columbus is "one of his own."  We're all individuals.  We shouldn't feel ashamed for pointing out evil or wrong-doing where it exists simply because we have things in common with that person.  We can look back at the technological, social, military, etc achievements of conquerers, and be in awe... but the awe should stop there.  They're nothing but smart, driven, ambitious, lucky sociopaths. 

This is a pretty poor example of a "living in your time" vs "20/20 hindsight" issue.  Some people during that time saw this treatment as incredibly cruel.  There were great philosophers and scientists of past centuries that contributed huge amounts to society, but didn't oversee the rape/murder/torture of people to make himself rich.  Christopher probably wouldn't even be mentioned but for the fact that we HAVE A HOLIDAY for the guy.  We aren't saying European Explorers or settlers are significantly more evil than other people... but they're hardly the shining examples we should be making Holidays for.

The founding fathers were brave philosophers first, and slaveowners second.  Columbus was a thug first, who happened to have an intelligence, drive and work ethic that are worth admiring in context.

[MediumTex]

One defense that is sometimes offered of Columbus (and the posts above touch on it) is that he was no better or worse than a lot of other people who were around when he lived.  Yes, he was a kidnapper, torturer, slave trader, rapist and murderer, but these practices were not that uncommon back then, and you should judge him based upon the standards of his time and not our more enlightened standards of today.

If we accept the premise that scoundrels should be judged based upon the standards of the time and of their own cultures, I think that a good shorthand approach is to ask what the reaction was to an individual's actions by his own political and religious authorities.  After all, there have been plenty of atrocities in history that the government and religious authorities in power at the time either endorsed or actively pursued.

When this standard is applied to Columbus, however, he still looks like a sadistic and evil person: 

Legal and political reaction to Columbus's acts within his own culture:

The following acts took place as part of Columbus's second voyage:

During the second voyage, Columbus sent a letter to the monarchs proposing to enslave some of the Americas people, specifically from the Carib tribe, on the grounds of their independence-minded aggressiveness and their status as enemies of the Taíno tribe. Although his petition was refused by the Crown, in February 1495 Columbus disobeyed the Queen and took 1,600 people from the Arawak tribe, who were taken by the Carib as captives and slaves. There was no room for about 400 of the kidnapped and they were released, leaving 1,200 people forcibly taken from their homeland.

...

Columbus enslaved five hundred and sixty people. The slaves were shipped to Spain; 200 died during the route back to Spain, and half of the remainder were ill when they arrived. After legal proceedings in the Cortes, some survivors were ordered released and to be returned to their las Americas homeland, whereas others were used by Queen Isabella as galley slaves. Columbus, desperate to repay his investors, failed to realize that Isabella and Ferdinand did not plan to follow or allow Portuguese slavery policy in this respect. Rounding up the slaves led to the first major battle between the Spanish and the free indigenous people in their old homeland, called by those invading it 'the New World.'

After his third voyage, Columbus was arrested by Spanish authorities.  Here is a description of what led to the arrest (he was released a few weeks later on orders from the king and queen):

By the end of his third voyage, Columbus was physically and mentally exhausted: his body was wracked by arthritis and his eyes by ophthalmia. In October 1499, he sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern. By then, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had also reached the Court.

The Court appointed Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava, but not as the aide that Columbus had requested. Instead, Bobadilla was given complete control as governor from 1500 until his death in 1502. Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away, Bobadilla was immediately peppered with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher, Bartolomé, and Diego. Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian, states: "Even those who loved him [Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."

As a result of these testimonies and without being allowed a word in his own defense, Columbus, upon his return, had manacles placed on his arms and chains on his feet and was cast into prison to await return to Spain. He was 48 years old.

On 1 October 1500, Columbus and his two brothers, likewise in chains, were sent back to Spain.

...

According to an uncatalogued document supposedly discovered very late in history purporting to be a record of Columbus's trial which contained the alleged testimony of 23 witnesses, Columbus regularly used barbaric acts of torture to govern Hispaniola.

The point of the accounts above is that even by his own contemporary legal and political standards, Columbus was apparently engaged in acts that were considered barbaric and illegal.

Reaction to Columbus's acts by religious leaders:

The church can normally be made to go along with almost any sort of brutality that is expedient, but here is what one priest wrote in 1502 about his observations of the effect of Columbus's policies in Hispaniola (Columbus and his brothers ruled Hispaniola from 1492-1500):

In 1502, Bartolomé [the priest] finally went to see the family holdings on Hispaniola. By then, the natives of the island had been mostly subdued and the city of Santo Domingo was being used as a resupply point for Spanish incursions in the Caribbean. The young man accompanied Governor Ovando on two different military missions aimed at pacifying those natives who remained on the island. On one of these, Las Casas witnessed a massacre of poorly-armed natives, a scene he would never forget. He traveled around the island a great deal, and was able to see the deplorable conditions in which the natives were kept.

Over the next few years, Las Casas traveled to Spain and back several times, finishing his studies and learning more about the sad situation of the natives. By 1514, he decided that he could no longer be personally involved in the exploitation of the natives, and renounced his family holdings on Hispaniola. He became convinced that the enslavement and slaughter of the native population was not only a crime, but it was also mortal sin, as defined by the church. It was this iron-clad conviction than made him such a staunch advocate for fair treatment of the natives in the years to come.

Overall, it appears that Columbus's actions were considered cruel and barbaric, even by the standards of his time.  Thus, I don't think it is persuasive to say that Columbus only looks like a cruel thug because we are applying our standards of today to a very different period in history.  Based on the accounts above, people of Columbus's time also found his actions to be illegal, immoral and inhumane.

Remember, too, that we are only talking about whether he deserves his own holiday.  We're not talking about whether there is some conceivable defense of the things that he did.

[Jake]

Thanks for posting the article and additional info Tex! Very informative. I find myself wondering just how much more fantasy rubbish I was "taught" in school...

[MediumTex]

2. The victor writes (spins?) the history books.  Why make one of your own look bad?  I wonder if the Japanese would say Harry Truman deserved a holiday?  Or, would the Germans idolize Woodrow Wilson?

Harry Truman is a great example to cite.  He ordered two nuclear weapons dropped on Japanese civilian populations.  I would not expect that the Japanese would want to name a holiday after him, but I also wouldn't want a holiday named after him either (and I really like Truman as a person).  What would it say about a society who celebrated a holiday honoring a person responsible for one of the greatest mass killings of civilians over a two day period in the history of the world?  I understand that Truman made his decision in the name of military expediency, but over the longer arc of history I think that what will be remembered about Truman is simply that he was the first to use nuclear weapons (the argument of military expediency can be made in every war), and he used them on civilian populations.

As with Columbus, I'm not saying Truman was all bad (or even mostly bad), I'm just saying I wouldn't be excited about a Truman Day holiday when there are so many other people in our history who did good things and who were not responsible for vaporizing tens of thousands of noncombatant during a military conflict.

So, to answer the question of "Hero or Thug" ... it depends on whether you are referring to judgers at the time at which the person lived, looking back with 20-20 hindsight and the benefit of all the knowledge gained since the person lived, reading a revisionist history book or an original "at the time" history book, or, which side of the fence you are looking from.

Part of what I am getting at in the post above is that Columbus was also viewed as a cruel thug during the time he lived and would be today if people knew the whole story, based upon our current sense of what is right and wrong.

I'm not suggesting that anyone today should feel bad that the way Europeans obtained access to what is now the U.S. was through a basically genocidal process; rather, what I am suggesting is that we should be aware that these things occurred so that we don't unwittingly make heroes of people who never really did anything all that heroic.

Slavery is a great illustration of this idea.  Slavery clearly helped establish the U.S. as a viable nation and I have no doubt that slavery led to the development of a lot of agricultural infrastructure that wouldn't have otherwise been developed, but that doesn't mean that I am not also saddened that such a cruel act as enslaving another human being is part of my own cultural heritage.  It would certainly never occur to me to give a holiday to someone whose claim to fame was the establishment of a new slave trading route, and it's not because I am concerned that some Caribbean islander would be offended; rather it would be because I would personally find it a strange reason to take a day off when there are so many other more deserving people we could use as an excuse to take a day off. 

For example, how about celebrating someone with a holiday who saved lives rather than took them?  How about a "Jonas Salk Day."  In addition to saving untold numbers of children from being crippled or killed through his development of the polio vaccine, he did the almost equally impressive thing of choosing not to personally reap the enormous profits that his vaccine could have brought to him.  A guy like that should have his own holiday.

[MediumTex]

Thanks for posting the article and additional info Tex! Very informative. I find myself wondering just how much more fantasy rubbish I was "taught" in school...

Thanks and BTW I'm not trying to get people stirred up with this topic.

I just think that when you take a clear look at history you see a lot of people who are remembered who really didn't do much to be remembered and a lot of others who are relatively unknown who contributed enormously to humanity's progress.

[Lone Wolf]

Over the next few years, Las Casas traveled to Spain and back several times, finishing his studies and learning more about the sad situation of the natives. By 1514, he decided that he could no longer be personally involved in the exploitation of the natives, and renounced his family holdings on Hispaniola. He became convinced that the enslavement and slaughter of the native population was not only a crime, but it was also mortal sin, as defined by the church. It was this iron-clad conviction than made him such a staunch advocate for fair treatment of the natives in the years to come.

Overall, it appears that Columbus's actions were considered cruel and barbaric, even by the standards of his time.  Thus, I don't think it is persuasive to say that Columbus only looks like a cruel thug because we are applying our standards of today to a very different period in history.  Based on the accounts above, people of Columbus's time also found his actions to be illegal, immoral and inhumane.

Just to clear up one point of confusion I see here and in the article -- Las Casas wasn't one of Christopher Columbus' men and made his transformation to social reformer after taking part in the conquest of Cuba (many years after Columbus' death.)  The slaughter and mistreatment that changed his mind took place after Columbus was long gone.

None of this excuses anything, of course.  It just illustrates that colonialism (perhaps the worst of colonialism) continued on after this just the same, with or without Columbus.

BTW, I agree that Jonas Salk is an outstanding choice for a "holiday person"!  (Edit: Hey, looks like President Reagan had the same idea as MT.  Reagan declared May 6, 1985 to be "Jonas Salk Day".)

My choice for "holiday dude" will be controversial to some, but I stand by it: Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution.  What's real heroism?  It's hard to beat saving a billion people from death by starvation.

[MediumTex]

Just to clear up one point of confusion I see here and in the article -- Las Casas wasn't one of Christopher Columbus' men and made his transformation to social reformer after taking part in the conquest of Cuba (many years after Columbus' death.)  The slaughter and mistreatment that changed his mind took place after Columbus was long gone.

I believe that Las Casas accompanied Columbus on his third trip to the New World in 1498 and it was Columbus's logs from this trip that were the basis for Las Casas' later writings that were critical of some of the things Columbus had done in subduing Hispaniola. 

Las Casas' father sailed with Columbus in 1492 and Bartolome [Las Casas himself] made the third voyage in 1498. He settled in Hispaniola in 1502, ready to seek his fortune in the New World. He was deeply moved toward a sympathy toward the Amerindians by a Dominican priest in 1509, and gave up his slaves. From 1509 until his death in 1566 he was the great champion of the Amerindians.

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/ ... scasas.htm

If Columbus and his brothers were finally kicked out of Hispaniola with their arrest in October of 1500 and Las Casas had been with Columbus in 1498 and came to Hispaniola to live in 1502 I would expect that he would have witnessed many of Columbus's policies firsthand.  Also, if Las Casas' father had been with Columbus in 1492 and Las Casas was with Columbus on his 1498 voyage, I'm sure that Las Casas knew a LOT about Columbus and his policies.

Las Casas' more strident criticism of Columbus and what he had done to the islands he visited did come much later in Las Casas' life, but I think most of it probably was based on a combination of firsthand experience, along with a review of Columbus's own words in his logs from the 1498 trip.

[Lone Wolf]

Las Casas' more strident criticism of Columbus and what he had done to the islands he visited did come much later in Las Casas' life, but I think most of it probably was based on a combination of firsthand experience, along with a review of Columbus's own words in his logs from the 1498 trip.

For sure.  I agree that Las Casas was a virtually unimpeachable witness to the injustice of the West Indies.  IMO this was a guy who had grown to hate the system he had been a part of and was doing everything he could to become a better man.

Timewise, though, Las Casas didn't give up his own slaves until 1515 after the horrors of his time in Cuba (and many years after Columbus died.)  To me this complicates the picture of to what extent Columbus was a "product of his times".  The world that finally made Las Casas throw up his hands in disgust was a world that Columbus had an enormous hand in building, no doubt.  But it was still a post-Columbus world and stayed horrible (got worse?) all on its own.

Was Columbus the product of nasty, imperialist times?  Or were these nasty, imperialist times a product of Columbus and the way that he thought?  When I think about the murderous characters like Cortes that came to the Americas later that century, I have to think it's the former.  Even the Aztecs were unprepared for just how bold, ruthless, organized, and savage the Spanish colonialists would be.

Anyhow, regardless of what the late 15th century was really like, I fail to dredge up sympathy for the perpetrators of any form of enslavement. I have never taken very seriously my supposed "duty" to only judge people in the context of their times.    IMO it's always been wrong to treat people like animals no matter what the calendar says.

Whew, between this thread and the North Korean prison camp escape, I'm feeling fortunate beyond measure to be living in this place in these times... refusing to even worry about my investment portfolio. 

[MediumTex]

Was Columbus the product of nasty, imperialist times?  Or were these nasty, imperialist times a product of Columbus and the way that he thought?  When I think about the murderous characters like Cortes that came to the Americas later that century, I have to think it's the former.  Even the Aztecs were unprepared for just how bold, ruthless, organized, and savage the Spanish colonialists would be.

Anyhow, regardless of what the late 15th century was really like, I fail to dredge up sympathy for the perpetrators of any form of enslavement. I have never taken very seriously my supposed "duty" to only judge people in the context of their times.    IMO it's always been wrong to treat people like animals no matter what the calendar says.

Whew, between this thread and the North Korean prison camp escape, I'm feeling fortunate beyond measure to be living in this place in these times... refusing to even worry about my investment portfolio. 

It seems to me that there are (at least) two ways to change the world:

1. You can create something entirely new that adds to humanity without taking away from any individual members of humanity.  Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine would be an example of this type of world changing.

2. You can steal something from someone and say its yours and then proceed to modify or improve upon it under the theory that if the person who previously possessed the thing you wanted couldn't protect it or improve it he didn't deserve to keep it (including his life in some cases). Christopher Columbus and the New World would be an example of this type of world changing. 

The history of humanity has been primarily characterized by coercion and ultimate societal collapse.  I like to think that if coercion were replaced with persuasion, however, that human institutions would be far more durable.  In order to do this, though, I think that it is important to see people like Columbus as the anti-heroes they are.  They are anti-heroes because their claim to fame is being highly skilled in the theft of property rather than being highly skilled in the creation of property.  Jonas Salk created property while Christopher Columbus stole property.  Salk left in his wake lives that were saved and bodies that avoided a crippling disease.  Columbus, by contrast left in his wake an enormous pile of dead bodies and another pile of people who were crippled physically and culturally as a result of crossing paths with him.   

LoneWolf, you have noted in the past that some people just can't resist the temptation to find a tribal chief and bow down before him.  I agree that this is a persistent trait in some human beings that leads toward coecive social arrangements and allows the tribal chief to avoid the need to engage in the harder task of persuasion (as a practical matter most tribal chiefs engage in a little of both).  I think that striving for a society with persuasion as its organizing principle and coercion as a taboo is a good place to focus one's efforts.  In the last few centuries I think that democracy experiments have been a large-scale application of this persuasion over coercion preference, though even in democracies people often seem very willing to be coerced when they could rightfuly demand that they be persuaded.

Developing a lot more skepticism toward violence as a way of solving problems or improving society would also be a step in the right direction.  Violence is one of coercion's favorite tools, while persuasion is stuck with the boring old processes of trying to find shared interests, common ground and maintaining respect for one another.

[Lone Wolf]

It seems to me that there are (at least) two ways to change the world:

1. You can create something entirely new that adds to humanity without taking away from any individual members of humanity.  Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine would be an example of this type of world changing.

2. You can steal something from someone and say its yours and then proceed to modify or improve upon it under the theory that if the person who previously possessed the thing you wanted couldn't protect it or improve it he didn't deserve to keep it (including his life in some cases). Christopher Columbus and the New World would be an example of this type of world changing. 

You are exactly right.  This is very much like what you get when you take Bastiat's concept of property vs. plunder and blow it up to the scale of human history.

It's nice to imagine that there might come a day where #2 seems completely antiquated.  That day isn't today but at least we're a lot closer than we were in 1500.