Senate Christopher Columbus - legacy and separating facts from fiction

It's been discussed a lot recently in the US Politics thread, so I figured it might deserve its own thread.

To get us started, thoughts on this video?

 

Any thoughts?

 

That’s it, really.

 

Despite popular rumor he did not in fact direct the Goonies.

 

Ghost thread

 

No matter how you square it he isn’t the first European to visit the continent. Best you can say is he was the first person to be hired by the Spanish government to lead an expedition to the Americas. Something he thought was Asia as he thought the earth was much smaller than it was. All around he was an idiot. He was a monster. If you really have to celebrate a white European who landed on land he wasn’t the first to touch by like a dozen millennia. Celebrate Erickson. But even that’s just so stupid. There is no reason to celebrate the arrival of any European to the Americas.

Was it historically significant? Yes. As it did change the world. But there is no reason to celebrate a man who would kill or in-slave thousands

 

What do you think of the evidence in the video?

 

Haven’t watched it. I’ll have to give it a go tomorrow. Will say then.

 

Mam, this is a Wendy’s.

 

Ah, the fine JCC tradition of a 'first-time' poster who comes to a board where 99% of the posts are about Star Wars to post about anything but that.

Pro tip: At least go through the motions of posting meaningless Star Wars posts like "Boy, people have a lot of opinions about the Prequels! I just don't know" or "I thought some of the plot twists in a Force Awakens were interesting" so you build up at least 8 or 9 posts looking like you're an actual new user who is very interested in Star Wars, that then just stumbles across this off-topic section and decides to post something.
I mean, it won't convince anyone, but at least you won't look profoundly lazy.

 

Ghost, it feels a little ridiculous to ask people to watch a 30 minute video as a preamble to a discussion. An article would have been preferable, as at least then one can move at their own pace.

Regardless, I'll just say that this all seems silly. Columbus has always been sort of an avatar for European explorers in the Americas. When they were hailed as heroes, he was praised for his perseverance, ingenuity, and adaptability. One can make the case that he didn't really best embody these traits. But he was the one person most children in the US learned about, and that made him a convenient stand-in for all the broader issues people wanted to highlight in that period. Now these people have undergone a major reassessment. We are more willing to note their immorality, cruelness, and moments of incompetence. Columbus isn't the best embodiment of any of these traits, either. But he's still the guy that everyone learns about, and whom all their parents remember learning about. Many of the basic critiques still apply, so in common parlance he just gets credited with everything, good and bad.

It seems disingenuous to only complain when he is absorbing the critiques that belong to others, instead of just the praise.

 

Oh, I was wondering why I didn't recognize the book. It's Mormon. Gee, I wonder who the new user is.

 

Back Words?

 

So... did someone just try to go with a variant of "No, Jesus discovered America"?


A thing I don't get (and this is more a Columbus Day thing than a Columbus thing) is not only people both defending Columbus and saying Columbus day is really about Italian-Americans and not Columbus (which makes it a weird name choice if Columbus isn't relevant to this) but also why Italian-Americans should have a federal holiday in the first place

 

I mean, that last part is fine to me. Why do Irish Americans have a whole holiday? What relevance does St. Patrick's Day necessarily have to anyone? It's just one ethnic group sharing something about their culture with everyone else. I'm fine with that, provided other groups are provided similar opportunity. That did not used to be the case, but that is changing more in recent decades.

 

Yeah they shouldn't. I know Italian-Americans originally claimed Columbus, and Columbus Day, to "prove" they're American enough and belong here and stop anti-Italian hared and prejudice. But that's really not a thing anymore.

 

What state are you in that Irish Americans have a state holiday?

I'm also not sure why you're bringing up St Patrick's Day, when it's not a federal holiday and I explicitly said I was talking about federal holidays.

 

Only in this day and age can Columbus Day get everyone so worked up. And over nothing. The federal and school system employees get a paid day off. The guy came here and did some good stuff. Just get back to your regularly scheduled program and relax, people.

 

Define 'good stuff'.

 

Like with almost every historical figure, there is good and bad. But the good can’t be tossed aside. This snippet is a good summary of some positive and negative highlights.

From Wikipedia:
The voyages of Columbus are considered a turning point in world history, marking the beginning of globalizationand accompanying demographic, commercial, economic, social, and political changes.[150] His explorations resulted in permanent contact between the two hemispheres, and the term "pre-Columbian" is used to refer to the culture of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors. The ensuing Columbian exchange saw the massive exchange of animals, plants, fungi, diseases, technologies, mineral wealth and ideas.[151]

Until the 1990s, Columbus was portrayed as a heroic explorer. More recently, however, the narrative has featured the negative effects of the conquest on native populations.[152] Exposed to Old World diseases, the indigenous populations of the New World collapsed and were largely replaced by Europeans and Africans who brought with them new methods of farming, business, governance, and religious worship

 

None of that stuff is, by definition, 'good' though, that's the point I was making. The man led directly to the colonialism of the new world, ignoring all the personal evil stuff he did. He was a genocidal slave-owner, who didn't even discover the mainland continent of America (even if he had been the first European there). I don't know why we have to think highly of the man simply because he was ignorant enough to chart a course that everyone at the time knew would lead him to the West Indies due to the distances involved. His big discovery was largely a fluke anyway.

 

Define 'good stuff'