We all know how terrible Mr Columbus, the Genoese sailor
hired by the Spanish crown, was when he came to the Caribbean Islands. But do
you know the people he encountered were also, at times, very terrible people?
The funny thing about humans is that we often see so much in
black and white. There is always good and bad. Never is there a gray area!
Except, you know, when there is, which is usually all the time. However, we seem to be programmed to look past gray and see only black and white.
This black and white world view exists now, just as it did way back when. For example, it was reported by the Spanish that the Carib
were savage cannibals. This is a very black and white world view. Some historians later dismissed it as Spanish propaganda to justify the
wars against the Carib, and therefore the Spanish are horrible people and liars. This, too, is black and white, as there is evidence that show there was limited
amounts of cannibalism in the Carib society, among the warriors. Evidently,
there was a practice of eating some meat of dead enemy warriors. If you ask me,
this is a pretty terrible thing to do. However, we don't mention this when we talk about Mr. Columbus and his encounters with the indigenous islanders.
The Spanish are also criticized for taking native slaves,
including many native women to be wives. This, of course, is really bad by our standards. But did you know
that the Carib invaders from South America did the same thing? They raped,
pillaged, conquered and took wives from the Taino. Why is this never discussed? Why don't we write long posts to discuss how bad the Carib were?
The Carib are just ONE example of the gray area that exists
in history of the New World. It is not black and white as the Spaniards told.
The Carib were not all cannibals who feasted on the flesh of the living. HOWEVER, it is also not the black and white revisionism told in modern times (that the Natives on
the Islands were all peace loving people).
There is a middle ground. There is a gray area that we neglect to see. And this is an issue that bothers me greatly when discussing
the history of the New World.
So many people used to believe only the European narratives about savages, and so forth. As we got into more modern times, many people switched completely to the other side and started telling tales about how savage the Europeans were. In reality, the truth lies in the middle.
So many people used to believe only the European narratives about savages, and so forth. As we got into more modern times, many people switched completely to the other side and started telling tales about how savage the Europeans were. In reality, the truth lies in the middle.
By modern standards, the Europeans did some pretty terrible
things. Slavery, war, and conquest are not admirable things. But we cannot
distort history and make it seem as if the Europeans were the only people to do
these things. There are countless examples in both the New World and the Old
World.
Europeans brought 14 million slaves to the Americas in a horrible slave trade. That is really bad, right? Of course it is!! But, what about the slavery that existed in the Americas pre-European colonization? Or the Arab slave trade that took about as many slaves as the Europeans did (including 1 – 1.5 million Europeans)? Is this not terrible as well? Why don’t we talk about it?
Do you hate the fact that Europeans brought diseases to the New World that killed off millions of people? Yeah, I do too. But what about a disease that worked in reverse? Europeans were afflicted by a New World disease, called syphilis. It spread through Europe, all the way to India and China, killing off millions of people along the way. Europeans get trashed for unknowingly spreading small pox in the early days of exploration, but no one ever trashes the people of the New World for unknowingly spreading Syphilis to the Europeans. And do we hate on the Chinese for unknowingly spreading the Black Plague that killed (in some estimates) 200 million people in just TWO years?
We hate on the Europeans for causing environmental damage and exploiting natural resources. Ever heard of the North American Pleistocene extinction? At the same time that people were migrating to the Americas, the large fauna went extinct. We know that slash and burn has destroyed millions of acres of rain forest, and we blame European introduction. The only problem is that this technique existed hundreds of years before Europeans came to the Amazon. We also know that Native Americans in North America deforested the areas surrounding where they lived. Cahokia, in modern southern Illinois, was once a large capital city of an empire. Archaeological evidence has shown how the nearby Mississippi river drastically swallowed land due to massive deforestation. This was one of many factors that led to the decline of the city, which was at its peak about several hundred years before Europeans.
Indigenous people have been in the Americas for somewhere between 15-40k years. It took them thousands of years to master the craft of ecological balance, and that wasn't always the case. The image of the “Noble Savage” who cries at the destruction of the environment is an entirely misleading image. The Americas were teeming with people, who used resources as needed. The reason we have this view is for three reasons:
1) It is propaganda (much like the Spaniards had) created by the Pan Indian movement to garner support for their cause
2) Disease struck the people of the Americas killing off millions. After they died, nature regained the land, making it look as if there was never anyone there.
3) After the mass death of the Natives, the major empire broke up into smaller tribal areas. This had already taken place in the North, after the fall of the Mississippian culture some years before Europeans came. It is similar to the fall of the Roman Empire in the 400s. The lands under the control fell into many smaller kingdoms and principalities.
Essentially what you have is a land that once had hundreds of millions of people when the Europeans first came (and wrote about it), and was reduced greatly due to disease. When more waves of Europeans came, they did not see the vast Empires that once existed. Instead, they saw small bands of people, living in simple communities. The rest of the land was reconquered by nature. It appeared to these later Europeans that Native Americans were incapable of building the type of cities that Europe had. Therefore, the Noble Savage was created. It was carried on in the 1900s by the Pan Indian movement, by people who were trying to get support for their cause. They wanted to get more autonomy and retribution from the US government. They used this image for that cause. As I have mentioned, this is totally inaccurate, but the majority of people believe it.
So why did I write all of these? Believe me, I am not a Euro apologist. I find what Europeans did to be disgusting. I find it even more disgusting because they used Christianity to promote what they were doing. That is the ugliest lie of all time. Christ would never approve of such actions.
So, if I am not being an apologist for Europeans, why did I choose to write this? I choose to do so because I want to be a responsible historian. History must be looked at with all facts present, and in the context of the time. In our modern standards, Columbus and company were terrible people. In the context of the time, they acted like every other single group of humans out there at the time. They practiced slavery, but so did the Arabs, Africans, and Native Americans of the time. They engaged in warfare, but the very reason Europe was going west was because of the constant war threat from the East (from the Mongols to the Ottomans, the latter who has seized Constantinople and were constantly attacking Vienna and other European cities at the time). Yes Columbus’ crew took native wives, but this was NO different than what they saw happen between the Native groups on the islands.
In short, humans suck. It doesn't matter if you are looking at ancient Rome, the Song Dynasty of China, the Mali Empire in Africa, or the many Empires of North and South America. Humans really are broken. This is history. When you try to revise history to make one group look innocent and one group look evil, you are distorting history. There is rarely (if ever, to be honest) black and white situations in history. There is only gray.
So, on this Columbus Day, instead of just mindlessly spewing out about how evil Columbus was and how innocent the poor indigenous people were (like everyone else on Facebook), I suggest you pick up a book and read about the world around 1492. It is a dark, scary place. It is a world full of chaos. It is a world that mirrors the world that existed hundreds of years before that time period. It is a world that mirrors now.
I hope no one thinks I am supporting or approving of Mr. Columbus and the Europeans. My faith and my human decency prevents this. I just want people to look at history with a clear view, which shows the truth about the human condition.
Europeans brought 14 million slaves to the Americas in a horrible slave trade. That is really bad, right? Of course it is!! But, what about the slavery that existed in the Americas pre-European colonization? Or the Arab slave trade that took about as many slaves as the Europeans did (including 1 – 1.5 million Europeans)? Is this not terrible as well? Why don’t we talk about it?
Do you hate the fact that Europeans brought diseases to the New World that killed off millions of people? Yeah, I do too. But what about a disease that worked in reverse? Europeans were afflicted by a New World disease, called syphilis. It spread through Europe, all the way to India and China, killing off millions of people along the way. Europeans get trashed for unknowingly spreading small pox in the early days of exploration, but no one ever trashes the people of the New World for unknowingly spreading Syphilis to the Europeans. And do we hate on the Chinese for unknowingly spreading the Black Plague that killed (in some estimates) 200 million people in just TWO years?
We hate on the Europeans for causing environmental damage and exploiting natural resources. Ever heard of the North American Pleistocene extinction? At the same time that people were migrating to the Americas, the large fauna went extinct. We know that slash and burn has destroyed millions of acres of rain forest, and we blame European introduction. The only problem is that this technique existed hundreds of years before Europeans came to the Amazon. We also know that Native Americans in North America deforested the areas surrounding where they lived. Cahokia, in modern southern Illinois, was once a large capital city of an empire. Archaeological evidence has shown how the nearby Mississippi river drastically swallowed land due to massive deforestation. This was one of many factors that led to the decline of the city, which was at its peak about several hundred years before Europeans.
Indigenous people have been in the Americas for somewhere between 15-40k years. It took them thousands of years to master the craft of ecological balance, and that wasn't always the case. The image of the “Noble Savage” who cries at the destruction of the environment is an entirely misleading image. The Americas were teeming with people, who used resources as needed. The reason we have this view is for three reasons:
1) It is propaganda (much like the Spaniards had) created by the Pan Indian movement to garner support for their cause
2) Disease struck the people of the Americas killing off millions. After they died, nature regained the land, making it look as if there was never anyone there.
3) After the mass death of the Natives, the major empire broke up into smaller tribal areas. This had already taken place in the North, after the fall of the Mississippian culture some years before Europeans came. It is similar to the fall of the Roman Empire in the 400s. The lands under the control fell into many smaller kingdoms and principalities.
Essentially what you have is a land that once had hundreds of millions of people when the Europeans first came (and wrote about it), and was reduced greatly due to disease. When more waves of Europeans came, they did not see the vast Empires that once existed. Instead, they saw small bands of people, living in simple communities. The rest of the land was reconquered by nature. It appeared to these later Europeans that Native Americans were incapable of building the type of cities that Europe had. Therefore, the Noble Savage was created. It was carried on in the 1900s by the Pan Indian movement, by people who were trying to get support for their cause. They wanted to get more autonomy and retribution from the US government. They used this image for that cause. As I have mentioned, this is totally inaccurate, but the majority of people believe it.
So why did I write all of these? Believe me, I am not a Euro apologist. I find what Europeans did to be disgusting. I find it even more disgusting because they used Christianity to promote what they were doing. That is the ugliest lie of all time. Christ would never approve of such actions.
So, if I am not being an apologist for Europeans, why did I choose to write this? I choose to do so because I want to be a responsible historian. History must be looked at with all facts present, and in the context of the time. In our modern standards, Columbus and company were terrible people. In the context of the time, they acted like every other single group of humans out there at the time. They practiced slavery, but so did the Arabs, Africans, and Native Americans of the time. They engaged in warfare, but the very reason Europe was going west was because of the constant war threat from the East (from the Mongols to the Ottomans, the latter who has seized Constantinople and were constantly attacking Vienna and other European cities at the time). Yes Columbus’ crew took native wives, but this was NO different than what they saw happen between the Native groups on the islands.
In short, humans suck. It doesn't matter if you are looking at ancient Rome, the Song Dynasty of China, the Mali Empire in Africa, or the many Empires of North and South America. Humans really are broken. This is history. When you try to revise history to make one group look innocent and one group look evil, you are distorting history. There is rarely (if ever, to be honest) black and white situations in history. There is only gray.
So, on this Columbus Day, instead of just mindlessly spewing out about how evil Columbus was and how innocent the poor indigenous people were (like everyone else on Facebook), I suggest you pick up a book and read about the world around 1492. It is a dark, scary place. It is a world full of chaos. It is a world that mirrors the world that existed hundreds of years before that time period. It is a world that mirrors now.
I hope no one thinks I am supporting or approving of Mr. Columbus and the Europeans. My faith and my human decency prevents this. I just want people to look at history with a clear view, which shows the truth about the human condition.
