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Columbus didn't discover America, either! https://www.history.com/news/the-viking-explorer-who-beat-columbus-to-america https://www.history.com/news/the-viking
by carlivar 3y ago
Columbus didn't discover America, either!
https://www.history.com/news/the-viking-explorer-who-beat-columbus-to-america https://www.history.com/news/the-viking-explorer-who-beat-co...
- bigmattystyles 3y agoIt was certainly news to the inhabitants.
- camjohnson26 3y agoHe connected the civilizations
- dvt 3y agoThe relatively modern hate-boner for Columbus is kind of weird, and I'm not exactly sure why it's reached such prominence. I'm not Spanish or Portuguese, but I fail to see why lauding explorers is a contemporarily bad thing, colonialism or not.
- zakki 3y agoI have never been going to America (the continent). If I go there now can I tell my family that I discover America?
- smegger001 3y agoif it was previously unknown to your civilization and no one else told you about it first sure.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoYes, you can! https://www.discoveramericatravel.com/ https://www.discoveramericatravel.com/ https://discoveramericacanada.org/ https://discoveramericacanada.org/ https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/video/brand-usa-case-study-video/ https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/video/b... https://www.tours-usa.com/activity/discover-all-america https://www.tours-usa.com/activity/discover-all-america
- hulitu 3y ago> I have never been going to America (the continent). If I go there now can I tell my family that I discover America? Of course, in the sense of "i discovered this wonderful restaurant, you have to see it". /s
- kergonath 3y agoWell yeah. In the same sense you can discover a restaurant or a nice pub without meaning that nobody ever went there before. Lots of things have been discovered more than once.
- xref 3y agoWeeeellll you hand waived a lot away there with ‘colonialism or not’. “I don’t know what the hate-boner for Bill Cosby is, why is lauding comedians a bad thing”
- dvt 3y agoI'm genuinely curious, I wasn't trying to hand-wave anything. I think it's probably a cultural zeitgeist, but in my opinion it's interesting how Columbus was so specifically targeted (when there's inarguably much worse historical people out there that are still celebrated). With that said, just think about how disingenuous your comment comes off: you're literally comparing a person that's still alive and held to today's ethical and legal standards (able to face his accusers, etc.) to someone that lived 500 years ago.
- nextaccountic 3y ago> when there's inarguably much worse historical people out there that are still celebrated Like who? If they are as bad or worse than Columbus they should probably not be celebrated > held to today's ethical and legal standards What Columbus did was pure evil, no matter how slavery was justified in his own culture
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoColumbus was bad enough, but what followed after him was worse. The Tainos and other island tribes were cursed to have gold jewelry. If they had never had it the Columbian discovery of the Americas may not have been that much bigger a deal than the Viking discovery of the Americas.
- xref 3y agoIt was always going to go the way it did, because of sugarcane. Columbus introduced “white gold” in 1493 on his second voyage even. By 1515-1520 there were sugar plantations in the Caribbean, and the Portuguese had them in Brazil.
- 3y ago
- dllthomas 3y agohttps://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day https://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day explains how Columbus was unusually bad (and, accurate or not, might have been a partial cause of the modern hate-boner for Columbus, along with waves at everything else).
- unmole 3y agoColumbus was Italian.
- flextheruler 3y agoHe’d have told you he was Genoese if you asked him
- unmole 3y agoHe would have perfectly understood what Italian meant considering the equivalent term was in use for centuries.
- dvt 3y agoHe was famously bankrolled by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.
- gregjor 3y agoQueen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon, who married and then defeated the Emirate of Granada in 1492, the year Columbus sailed to the New World. Spain as a nation didn't exist until then.
- unmole 3y agoSpain as a nation state did not exist then.
- gregjor 3y agoIt existed as a unified kingdom from 1492. A kingdom occupied the same place in international relations and national identity back then that modern nation-states occupy today.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoJust want to nitpick everyone. Spain, less Navarre and Portugal, would have existed as a state at that time, but probably not yet a nation, as I presume the people still saw themselves as Aragonese, etcetera, and not yet Spanish. They even spoke different dialects at the time.
- hotpotamus 3y agoI don't think anyone questions his tenacity as an explorer. I always thought calling what he did the "reunification" of the old and new world was about right. It's more the plunder and enslavement of the native people that people have a problem with I'd guess. I'm also under the impression that a lot of the positive Columbus marketing was a 19th/20th Century US thing to help boost the social status of Italian immigrants; I don't really know his approval rating throughout the centuries, but I think you've right that it's down as of late.
- khazhoux 3y agoA not-insignificant number of people think that Europeans should never have settled there, and it should have been left in its pastoral state to tribal people, meanwhile the rest of the world advanced technologically and industrially on its own.
- fortran77 3y ago…yet those same people argue out of the other sides of their mouth that people who have “too much” stuff should have that stuff taken away from them and redistributed.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoYes, there are many indigenous Americans who think that the lands and gold that were taken from them by the ancestors of those who now have "too much stuff" should be taken from those people and returned to them. It's not hypocritical.
- xpe 3y agoNo, not necessary the “same people”. Perhaps you would like to clarify?
- dvt 3y ago> in its pastoral state to tribal people But this is the bon savage trope, which itself is quite problematic.
- gregjor 3y agoPastoral describes people who raise grazing animals, generally sheep or cattle, both species introduced by European explorers and colonizers (as were horses). Prior to Columbus no species of domesticated cattle or sheep existed in the New World, thus no "pastoral state." Describing the world Columbus and those who followed him discovered (for Europeans at least) as a "pastoral state of tribal people" shows a poor understanding of pre-Columbian history in the New World. Early European explorers and conquerors described finding large-scale farming, cities, extensive trade networks, empires, warfare, and of course slavery. Archaeology and the remaining records of those people confirm European accounts. We can condemn Columbus for many things, but neither he nor the Europeans who followed introduced violence and slavery to the New World. They did introduce novel pathogens which led to large-scale, if somewhat accidental genocide (prior to a germ theory of disease).
- Mistletoe 3y agoI think you need to read further to the parts where he started cutting natives’ hands off. Here’s even a comic for you. https://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day https://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day
- relix 3y agoAs everyone's "hate-boner" will be personal, to me a part that stands out is that Columbus seemed to be a conspiracy theorist akin to the flat-earther. The reason why his expedition took so long to get funding, is not because he was the only one who thought the earth was round, but it's that he used wrong calculations in order to calculate the size of the earth, and he was under the impression that it was much smaller than it actually is. Now at that time, similar to how everyone knew the earth was round, people had a pretty good idea of the actual size of the earth as well - it was already known in ancient Greece after all. So when he claimed "I can reach the far east by sailing around the other side of the world in X days, as it's just a distance of Y miles" that was against common knowledge of that time, and everyone knew that a trip like that would take 2Y or 3Y miles, something unfeasible with the technology of that time. The only reason his ship didn't perish halfway like everyone expected them to, is that there just happened to be a continent halfway that they stumbled upon. Columbus is a prime example of "task failed successfully".
- hef19898 3y agoIt seems using the wrong numbers was more of a marketing trick to attract investors. Otherwise, everyone else wouod just have used the known route to the east.
- Donckele 3y ago> I'm not Spanish or Portuguese Because you are “American”?
- dvt 3y agoI'm not sure I get the snark in your comment. I grew up in Eastern Europe (Romania), and now I am privileged enough to have dual EU/US citizenship.
- Donckele 3y agoMate, you used the word “boner” when discussing Columbus without mentioning your “privileged” US citizenship. Conflict of interest.
- marcell 3y ago15th century was a time of conquest and brutality around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartime_sexual_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartime_sexual_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_ordeal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_ordeal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel etc. I doubt Columbus's conquest was uniquely brutal for its time. The distinctive fact about him is that he discovered America, and kicked off the events that led to the formation of the US.
- eesmith 3y ago> I doubt Columbus's conquest was uniquely brutal for its time "Uniquely brutal" is a very high bar. I trust you didn't mean it as a rhetorical technique to require demonstration that no one else was as brutal as he was, before acknowledging that he was brutal even for his time? Since you argue that Columbus was unique in "that he discovered America", then he is also unique for being the first European to lead slave raids of indigenous Americans, and the European to introduce the genocidal encomienda system. And he was brutal. If Bobadilla's accusations of Columbus's brutality are correct, then Columbus's conquest was exceptionally brutal, even to other Spaniards of the time. From Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus "Bobadilla reported to Spain that Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. He claimed that Columbus regularly used torture and mutilation to govern Hispaniola.[l] Testimony recorded in the report stated that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartholomew on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut because she had "spoken ill of the admiral and his brothers"." Columbus was removed as Governor of the American due to these accusations, though later pardoned by the royals. When do we teach this history of Columbus in school? > and kicked off the events that led to the formation of the US What an odd focus. Using the exact same argument, Henry the Navigator also kicked of the events that lead to the formation of the US, because of his work to initiate what is now called the Age of Discovery. And he was unique for that. When is Dom Henrique day?
- crooked-v 3y ago
- eesmith 3y agoI did not find https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day#Opposition_to_Columbus_celebrations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day#Opposition_to_Col... to be unclear. It's kind of weird to laud one specific explorer, yearly. Before the late 1800s, Columbus Day wasn't really a thing, so it's not like that sort of lauding expresses a widespread innate desire. Instead, Columbus Day celebrations in the US need to be seen through the lens of xenophobia, as the then-newly immigrated Italian American celebrate a sort of Pride Day in the face of racism (they were not seen as really white) and religious bigotry (most were Catholic, not Protestant). It's also kinda weird that the century-long love-boner for Columbus caused so many people to omit any open discussion about how horrible a person he was, and the brutal policies he put into place. When do we teach that to the kids?
- dvt 3y ago> It's kind of weird to laud one specific explorer, yearly. Not really any more weird that celebrating a politician yearly, or a civil rights leader yearly, or a religious figure yearly. I don't think it would be weird at all to have an Armstrong or Neil-Buzz Day or whatever (in fact, it's a bit weird we don't have one, since flying to the Moon seems like a bigger deal than sailing to the New World). > It's also kinda weird that the century-long love-boner for Columbus caused so many people to omit any open discussion about how horrible a person he was, and the brutal policies he put into place. When do we teach that to the kids? I'm not sure if he was uniquely horrible in any meaningful way. I know some folks try to argue this, but it seems pretty tenuous. All explorers & conquistadors were, for the most part, pretty brutal bounty hunters.
- xref 3y ago> All explorers & conquistadors were, for the most part, pretty brutal bounty hunters. It seems like you’re continually answering your own question about why we should no longer hold these people up on pedestals. And revisiting horrible actions of historical figures that has taken the shine off them is hardly confined to Columbus, or even focused on him. I’d say the increased visibility of owning, raping, and murdering slaves by the American founding fathers has been more prominent.
- BigCryo 3y agoThe war against the American working class I think is something that was waged by Capital against the majority American working class starting centuries ago.. Capital was always been opposed to the majority of the working class in America because there's always been a conflict between Capital versus labor over the use of cheap labor.. the war waged by Capital extended to propaganda war, and all things associated with the culture of the European American working class came under attack by capital.. including Columbus
- eesmith 3y agoOr as the article put it: > Of course, his “discovery” wasn’t new either as the Americas had been known to indigenous people for thousands of years, and Vikings since the 11th century
- timonoko 3y agoVikings did not discover America either. It was Finns. http://www.paabo.ca/uirala/uini-seagoingskinboats.html http://www.paabo.ca/uirala/uini-seagoingskinboats.html Short Summary: Global Nomadic sea-going nation on Arctic Ocean.