Columbus: Voyageur, adventurer, oh, and also mass murderer

Remember back when you were a wee elementary school child and you learned about this beautiful man named Christopher Columbus? Yeah, he was the best. I mean, he founded all these would-be unknown countries and made people civil and just formed the world into a better place.

Bullshit.

When Columbus got to the Americas (“The New World” – apparently what it was already named wasn’t good enough for ole Columbo) he found a nice group of people already living there (as if that wasn’t a clue  that you should move on) and decided to make friends with them. He wrote in his journal about meeting them for the first time, explaining that they had scars on their bodies. When he asked them about the scars, they said it was from defending themselves against capture by other civilizations. Columbus wrote that he assumed the other civilizations came to capture them as slaves.

He went on to write that he thought they would make excellent servants.

Because they repeated what he said to them.

He also thought they would make great Christians.

Because Columbus didn’t see any evidence of a formed religion.

I’m going to let you take a moment and think that over.

I lied. REALLY, Columbus?

If you take a look on Wikipedia (don’t tell my English professors I sent you there), you will find absolutely diddly squat on Columbus’ crimes. Yeah, they tell you that he kidnapped some Native Americans and that only a few survived the trip back to Spain, but they really stress the point that it was a big deal for Spain and basically convinced the king to fund Columbus’ second voyage back to the Americas (probably for more “colonizing”).

So, Columbus took some people for slaves. So what?

(I’m going to ignore the socially-just side of me for a moment and answer that.)

Columbus took some slaves on his first voyage.

On his second, he took lives.

Columbus got pissed that the precious settlement (La Navidad) was destroyed by the native Taino people (and who wouldn’t? It’s not like they were already inhabiting the land when Columbus came the first time). He told the Taino that if they didn’t give him a shitload of cotton that he would saw off all their hands. And he did. Over his other awesome voyages, Columbus and his crew took the natives for slaves, forced them to learn a new religion, gave them smallpox-infested blankets and when that got old, he killed them.

Simply because they were, in Columbus’ opinion, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And here we are, every year on October 12, celebrating the massacres that happened as a direct result of Christopher Columbus. We even get rewarded for this. My mom gets a day off of work. My sister gets to stay home from school. My dad gets free snacks in the break room.

I just get pissed.