I guess you agree with celebrating genocide then. Shame on you. It tells me how unconscious you are as a human being to celebrate such a monster.
Celebrating Genocide – Christopher Columbus' Invasion of America
Here we call it indigenous peoples day
First off do you really want to talk about this or is it just bait? If it is just bait then it is fantastic bait. If you want to have a real discussion about the man then we can.
First off we must remember the context of the time and judge people in the context of their societies. When people talk about the Vikings are they thought of as monsters or just as a warrior culture? Yes they did horrible things... killed and enslaved and raped and stole. History doesn't look badly on them though. It was simply their culture and religion. It doesn't make it right but just about anyone brought up in that society would have thought and done the same. It was the way things were done. There was no other way. That is all there was to it.
Colombus likewise did some horrible things. We must keep in mind though just about ANY explorer in Europe if they went on Columbus' journey would very likely have done similar things. It was the right of conquest of an uncivilized people from their point of view. The land was rich and huge. We can talk about the things Columbus did personally but the things that happened after Columbus opened up this new land to Europe were bound to happen in any case. Someone would have found it, took it and exploited the natives.
There was nothing that could have stopped that. Technologically unadvanced people with great wealth and land don't hold it for long. That is just how it always works. Is it fair? No. That is humanity. Also this was a fairly brutal time and exploitation of all peoples happened. Native Americans were killed. All people were sold as slaves to different people if you were unlucky enough to be capture (this includes many white people) and governing wasn't open to debate. You did as told or you were executed or at best had your position and possessions taken with no recourse.
It wasn't always like that of course for all people but lets not pretend kings didn't rule still and if you didn't like it there wasn't much recourse. Now all this said does it make the things Columbus did right? No. Should we celebrate his actions and offenses against those people? Of course not. He treated them horribly.
That being said he helped move history forward. He took a risk and was the first person to find what would be the Americas (north and south) for the rest of the world. That is indeed an accomplishment and was done cause he had the guts to take a risk few believed in or would dare at the time. We don't need to make him out to be something he wasn't but we should look at what he is.
Just like other big names in history he made big accomplishment and often off the blood and hard work and exploitation of others. That is sadly how history usually goes.
