Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Post Info TOPIC: Christopher Columbus


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 418
Date:
Christopher Columbus


I wanted to get some opinions on the history of Christopher Columbus.  I'm not looking for a debate or anything.  I think it is understood that Christopher Columbus had many flaws in his actions, some of them attributable to the time he lived and his "employers".


I've done some reading on Christopher Columbus in trying to reconcile some of what was taught my son in school.  There were a lot of atrocities committed by Columbus and his men I won't dispute.  However, until now I hadn't read the account of requiring tributes of the Tainos people and chopping off the hands of those who didn't pay up.  Supposedly this comes from his voyage logs but I haven't found a direct citing or attribution anywhere.  Anyone have any additional incite?


 



__________________


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 376
Date:

I remember reading about it in my AP US History class in high school. We read a book called "Lies My Teacher Told Me" which had a huge segment on Christopher Columbus. We also had another book, but I can't remember what it was called. Maybe I can have my sister track down my old history teacher and see what it is. It's been a few years. However, I know that the Lies My Teacher Told Me book is well documented, although it is definitely written with a strong bias and in quite a liberal manner. It was a precurser to the class.

__________________
Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. — Oscar Wilde


Head Chef

Status: Offline
Posts: 4439
Date:

I don't know, it all smacks of revisionist history to me. But TitusTodd didn't ask for a debate, so I'm not going to debate it.

__________________
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
- Samuel Adams


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 418
Date:

While I'm not asking for a debate, I am asking for opinions.  I'm trying to get an idea of what there is factual basis for.  I'm not for revisionist history either way (and I don't believe anyone that participates here is for it either, so there's probably not a basis for debate) - either glorifying Christopher Columbus or villianizing him.


I think my son has been taught some information that comes from an extreme end of thought on Christopher Columbus but I'm not solid in that opinion and want to get on firmer ground.  If he was involved in chopping hands off (in the ordering or execution of) I want to know the source of that information, if there is no factual basis (such as notations in his logs) and the information is hearsay I want to know that. 


Some atrocities were committed by Ovando who came after Columbus was removed as governor in Hispaniola (and after Bobadilla).  Columbus as well as his brothers appeared to be inept at administration so some atrocities may have been carried out despite or unbeknownst to them. 


This is information exploration so please fire away!



__________________


Wise and Revered Master

Status: Offline
Posts: 2882
Date:

I think we had a similar discussion a while back on this very thing on another topic.  Basically, there are some people that want to give this false impression that the native peoples were living in a garden of eden like state here in the western Hemisphere prior to the Evil Columbus and his European allies showing up who raped, pillaged, tortured, murdered, enslaved, spread war and disease on them, etc.  I'm not into the whole victimology thing.  Yea, bad things were done by the early explorers but the native people's were not adverse to doing their own bad things to each other or to the white man either.  I frankly think the Aztecs got some sort of biblical or at least BOM type justice when Cortez came to town.  The nativists try to gloss over their own attrocities and try to play the victim card.  Not that comparrisons of one wrong makes the other right but the 13th through the 19th centuries were brutal times in the world.  Basically, humans did some really bad things to eachother.  We like to think that we are so much more enlightened now but the world sat by while Sadam, Pol Pot, Hitler, Milosevich, etc did their horrible genocides.  Even today, the world is unwilling to confront genocide in Darfur.


The way I look at Columbus is he was inspired by God as we read in the Book of Mormon to find the western hemisphere to lead the way for the restoration of the gospel.  From his own writings we know he was a religious man who believed in God fervently and asked for His assistance in his voyage.  That's what I tell my kids.  Obviously, he was no Hitler or Pol Pot as some educators would have us believe.


I tell them that we should be grateful to him for discovering a place where the gospel could come forth and where our English ancestors could find a place to live where they could have freedoms that had never before been imagined in history.  A place where they were less likely to starve to death.  The freedoms this country has today would not have happened if Columbus and his contemporaries decided to hang out at the Pub.  Freedoms that many in the rest of the world also enjoy because of the influence of American Democracy.  Even the native peoples today enjoy great freedoms they would never have had were this continent left undiscovered by Europe such as the Freedom to open a Casino, sell high powered fireworks, and sell duty free cigarrettes!


Of course you could go with the so called experts who can't seem to agree what nationality Columbus actually was anyway or even the correct spelling of his name.  I prefer Christobal Colon because I like to give credit to the Spanish for taking the risk to actually finance the voyage.



__________________

God Made Man, Sam Colt Made Him Equal.

Jason



Wise and Revered Master

Status: Offline
Posts: 2882
Date:

I read this article by Ultra Lib Garrison Keillor in my local paper and thought the man must have lost a marble.  His contention that the vikings were somehow more noble than Columbus because they just took a short tour of the place is laughable.  As if to make himself feel better about his Scandanavian ancestory he thinks that the Vikings were somehow peace loving beat nicks who did no wrong while Columbus was a bumbling butcher.  Of course he gives away any credibility in most of his articles when he comes out and mentions his ongoing loathing of President Bush.  I used to really like this guy but he has to relate nearly every article to his extreme dislike of what he refers to as "The Current Occupant" that I have lost all respect for the man.  He is of course entitled to his opinion but to be intellectually dishonest in sanctifying the vikings while villifying Columbus is just plain arrogant on his part.  Enjoy!  http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/10/11/keillor/

__________________

God Made Man, Sam Colt Made Him Equal.

Jason



Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 418
Date:

The Vikings did not make a lasting impact.  They didn't spawn additional exploration. Of course, maybe Keillor is proud of that.

__________________


Wise and Revered Master

Status: Offline
Posts: 2882
Date:


TitusTodd wrote:



The Vikings did not make a lasting impact.  They didn't spawn additional exploration. Of course, maybe Keillor is proud of that.



They didn't make a lasting impact in the western hemisphere but they certainly did in Europe!  Just because they were good boys and girls here didn't negate their depravity and barbarity in Europe.  Viking raids on Britania were exceptionally bad.  Raping, pillaging, burning, looting, extorting, and murdering their way around England, France, etc became very common practice for their time.  That is why I think his comparrison is pretty bone headed.  Which brings me to the point I posted in another thread.  Nearly every culture or people in the world has at one point been the brutal barbarian or the slave.  I don't buy into these modern victimologies or the game of blaming white Europeans for every ill in the world because nearly every race, creed, color, religion, or nationality also engaged in genocide, murder, slavery, etc, etc.  Bad behavior does not justify other bad behavior but to seriously play the victim card and point out the evil purpetrators serves only to divide us.  Does one's own self worth increase by telling people how bad your life is because whitey took your great, great, great, great, grandpapy's land away back in 1723?  Do you really think that you are owed something because your great, great, great, grandaddy was forced from his homeland eaking out a meager survival as a stone age hunter to serve mint julips on the porch of a South Carolinan plantation?  Or that somehow I owe you something in life because my great, great, great grandfather was Cyrus P. Slaveholder, general in the Confederate army?  I don't buy into that bullhocky one bit.  I'm tired of folks who want to purge the names of Robert E. Lee and George Washington off of schools because they owned slaves or somehow dismiss anything good that Jefferson did because he owned slaves.  The victimology and villification has got to stop. 



__________________

God Made Man, Sam Colt Made Him Equal.

Jason



Understander of unimportant things

Status: Offline
Posts: 4126
Date:

salesortonscom wrote:


Does one's own self worth increase by telling people how bad your life is because whitey took your great, great, great, great, grandpapy's land away back in 1723?  Do you really think that you are owed something because your great, great, great, grandaddy was forced from his homeland eaking out a meager survival as a stone age hunter to serve mint julips on the porch of a South Carolinan plantation?  Or that somehow I owe you something in life because my great, great, great grandfather was Cyrus P. Slaveholder, general in the Confederate army? 



Well Brother of Cat Herder and Cat Herder (also known as my brother and me) had a nice little discussion like this back when the State of Illinois formally apologized to the Church for the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith and subsequent expulsion of the saints from Nauvoo.


We thought, hey, since we had ancestors who were Mormons and owned land in the general area of the martyrdom during the Nauvoo period, then we should be entitled to compensation... like having the land given back to us.  That way, we could build tax free casino enterprises on the land since we also had ancestors that were choctaw and/or cherokee and most likely forced from their land in Mississippi, Alabama, and / or Georgia by the evil anglo-saxon government.  And, since we had anglo-saxon ancestry that was victimized by the them durn Yankees during the War Between The States, and their fortunes were lost and homes and livelihood destroyed in the process, we should be given war reparations (with interest).  And, because the same ancestor who was Mormon and lived in Illinois at the time of the martyrdom and expulsion was later a polygamist and most likely was persecuted as a result by the evil U.S. government and media and abolitionists, well, we should get free health care for life for ourselves and all our dependents (even the polygamous ones we don't really have).



__________________
It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."


Senior Bucketkeeper

Status: Offline
Posts: 1568
Date:

It is all too easy to try to categorize historical figures in one of two camps: Very very good, or Horrid.

"The way I look at Columbus is he was inspired by God as we read in the Book of Mormon to find the western hemisphere to lead the way for the restoration of the gospel. From his own writings we know he was a religious man who believed in God fervently and asked for His assistance in his voyage."

I believe this too. But I also believe that fervently religious people are sometimes capable of doing very bad things. I think that it is not incompatible that Columbus could have been "wrought upon by the Spirit" as well as commit cruelty upon the heathen.

I don't know what the truth is: which version of His Story gives us the true picture of Columbus? Probably neither one.

__________________
"My Karma Ran Over My Dogma"


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 418
Date:

They didn't make a lasting impact in the western hemisphere but they certainly did in Europe! 


Of course, I was only referring to their presence in North America.


I think that it is not incompatible that Columbus could have been "wrought upon by the Spirit" as well as commit cruelty upon the heathen.



 



__________________


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 418
Date:

I was hoping for Jeffery's take on this.  Jeffery?

__________________


Hot Air Balloon

Status: Offline
Posts: 5370
Date:

I got a book called "1491" but my dad promptly stole it from me, and I've not had a chance to read it, but apparently it is a less than flattering more honest portrayal of the state of the Americas prior to Columbus's arrival. I'd recommend the book, if I could ever get it back to read it... :(


--Ray


 



__________________
I'm not slow; I'm special.
(Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 418
Date:

1491 is mostly about the Americas before Europeans and the impact of Europeans when they started to arrive.

__________________


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 264
Date:

The book isn't half bad, it deals with a new theory and has some facts to back up the view.  I would recommend the book.

__________________
I am like a rough stone rolling...


Profuse Pontificator

Status: Offline
Posts: 876
Date:

For what it's worth, it appears to me that according to 1 Nephi 13: 12, Columbus was able to be directed by the spirit of God to carry out a very formidable mission for his day.


He was also worthy enough to be among those 54 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and others who were permitted to approach Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Temple and ask that their ordinance work be done for them.  A microfilm copy of the St. George Temple Records, Baptisms For The Dead Book E, showing Columbus among them, is available for viewing in the Family History Library is SLC.  Wilford Woodruff also identified Columbus as among them in his journal.



__________________


Wise and Revered Master

Status: Offline
Posts: 2882
Date:

lundbaek wrote:



For what it's worth, it appears to me that according to 1 Nephi 13: 12, Columbus was able to be directed by the spirit of God to carry out a very formidable mission for his day.


He was also worthy enough to be among those 54 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and others who were permitted to approach Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Temple and ask that their ordinance work be done for them.  A microfilm copy of the St. George Temple Records, Baptisms For The Dead Book E, showing Columbus among them, is available for viewing in the Family History Library is SLC.  Wilford Woodruff also identified Columbus as among them in his journal.






Good point!  I had totally forgotten that.  He obviously accepted the gospel, was allowed to appear to a prophet of God,  and was eager for his work to be performed.  Not what you would expect from a genocidal maniac.



__________________

God Made Man, Sam Colt Made Him Equal.

Jason

Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.

Tweet this page Post to Digg Post to Del.icio.us


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse
Powered by ActiveBoard