• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

In Defense of Columbus: An Exaggerated Evil.

Captain Adverse

Classical Liberal Sage
DP Veteran
Joined
Jun 22, 2013
Messages
20,230
Reaction score
28,000
Location
Mid-West USA
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Other
"In Defense of Columbus: An Exaggerated Evil" from Knowing Better 12/10/17.






Columbus is a controversial historical figure who is widely viewed as terrible. Every year we question whether we should continue to have a day to celebrate his discovery. But as with most stories, his bad deeds have been exaggerated to make him fit the role of a villain.

Someone posted a different video on a political topic from this Vlogger "Knowing Better" which I found interesting (if not actually agreeing with him).

However, I've subsequently watched a few others since then from time to time. I just discovered this one today, and found myself more in agreement with this historical analysis than I was by the first politcal video I encountered. ;)

Essentially he debunks many of the denigrating assertions about Columbus' ignorance, lack of math/sailing/map reading skills, brutality, and also the allegations of responsibility for the genocide of Amerinidians. I especially enjoyed how he tore apart the "Adam Ruins Everything - Columbus" video.

I offer it for the Forum's education and entertainment.
 
Last edited:
My impression is that the problem is/was not Columbus, but the brutality of those who followed him, to say nothing of the germs they brought. As I remember Mexico some years ago, Columbus was not considered the villain, Cortes was.
 
If you’d read, “ lies my teacher told me “ you’d realize he bragged about how virgin 8 year old native girls sell for the price of a small estate.
 
Anyone defending and trying to whitewash the evil cretin that was Columbus is a slavery-loving piece of crap, in my book.

Sadly the truth about Columbus does not tend to get taught in school (at least not until recent years)

From his journal the very DAY that they first encountered the natives of the islands: "They should be good servants .... I, our Lord being pleased, will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses."

two days later he wrote: "with fifty men they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them."

(here's what came before that quote to show just how effed up a "catholic" he was:
"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things ... They willingly traded everything they owned ... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features .... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. ... They would make fine servants. ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want"....... Yup, they were friendly strong folks who were willing to trade and help them, so hey, let's enslave them!)


And in a letter to one of his patrons the next year he wrote :"their Highnesses may see that I shall give them as much gold as they need .... and slaves as many as they shall order to be shipped."

And his second voyage he did just that, taking far more (hundreds) than the 6 he took his first voyage..

Sure sounds like a slave trader too me...


And yeah between his first contact and the end of his stint as Governor he and his men had exterminated at LEAST several hundred thousand (some estimates are at a million or more) of the native peoples through war and forced labor camps. Thats genocide.

So y'all trying to make him into an okay guy can go eff yourselves.
 
My impression is that the problem is/was not Columbus, but the brutality of those who followed him, to say nothing of the germs they brought. As I remember Mexico some years ago, Columbus was not considered the villain, Cortes was.

Nope, Columbus was pretty bad himself, taking slaves, putting natives into forced labor camps that killed thousands upon thousands of them, etc.
 
Nope, Columbus was pretty bad himself, taking slaves, putting natives into forced labor camps that killed thousands upon thousands of them, etc.

Columbus was "pretty bad" by the standards of the future, some 500 hence. And 500 years from now all of us will might be judged by values unknown, even idiotic, to our way of thinking . But the past can never please the future, and moral judgement of its role players must be understood within the context of their times. In a land where Democracy and individual rights were unknown, where Kings and Queens ruled empires, where the enlightenment had yet to be known, was Columbus "pretty bad"?

Probably not. He was a poor governor, often short-sighted and religiously blindered. He was also quite talented, a good navigator, and a materialist dreamer - as were most men of his times. His world view was simple and unsophisticated: he sought glory, gold, religion, and wealth for crown and his family.

Perhaps the only thing that set Columbus apart from his contemporaries was his obsessive and relentless faith in himself and his vision - to the west was a route to the Indies and wealth.
 
Nope, Columbus was pretty bad himself, taking slaves, putting natives into forced labor camps that killed thousands upon thousands of them, etc.

The video suggests that is not true. Do you have sources that indicate otherwise? Mexico is pretty proud of it's Indian heritage, indicated in murals and the name they give Oct 12, "Dia de la Raza," which obviously celebrates their mixture of Spanish and indigenous heritage.
 
The video suggests that is not true. Do you have sources that indicate otherwise? Mexico is pretty proud of it's Indian heritage, indicated in murals and the name they give Oct 12, "Dia de la Raza," which obviously celebrates their mixture of Spanish and indigenous heritage.

Ahem:
Sadly the truth about Columbus does not tend to get taught in school (at least not until recent years)

From his journal the very DAY that they first encountered the natives of the islands: "They should be good servants .... I, our Lord being pleased, will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses."

two days later he wrote: "with fifty men they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them."

(here's what came before that quote to show just how effed up a "catholic" he was:
"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things ... They willingly traded everything they owned ... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features .... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. ... They would make fine servants. ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want"....... Yup, they were friendly strong folks who were willing to trade and help them, so hey, let's enslave them!)


And in a letter to one of his patrons the next year he wrote :"their Highnesses may see that I shall give them as much gold as they need .... and slaves as many as they shall order to be shipped."

And his second voyage he did just that, taking far more (hundreds) than the 6 he took his first voyage..

Sure sounds like a slave trader too me...


And yeah between his first contact and the end of his stint as Governor he and his men had exterminated at LEAST several hundred thousand (some estimates are at a million or more) of the native peoples through war and forced labor camps. Thats genocide.

So y'all trying to make him into an okay guy can go eff yourselves.
 
Ahem:
Sadly the truth about Columbus does not tend to get taught in school (at least not until recent years)

From his journal the very DAY that they first encountered the natives of the islands: "They should be good servants .... I, our Lord being pleased, will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses."

two days later he wrote: "with fifty men they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them."

(here's what came before that quote to show just how effed up a "catholic" he was:
"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things ... They willingly traded everything they owned ... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features .... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. ... They would make fine servants. ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want"....... Yup, they were friendly strong folks who were willing to trade and help them, so hey, let's enslave them!)


And in a letter to one of his patrons the next year he wrote :"their Highnesses may see that I shall give them as much gold as they need .... and slaves as many as they shall order to be shipped."

And his second voyage he did just that, taking far more (hundreds) than the 6 he took his first voyage..

Sure sounds like a slave trader too me...


And yeah between his first contact and the end of his stint as Governor he and his men had exterminated at LEAST several hundred thousand (some estimates are at a million or more) of the native peoples through war and forced labor camps. Thats genocide.

So y'all trying to make him into an okay guy can go eff yourselves.

I am not trying to make him an ok guy, just responding to the video that was posted, which suggests that calling him genocidal was inaccurate based on the shaky sources used, some of which you referred to. The video suggests that the truth about Chris is hard to come by, based on language and syntax in documents and lack of original sources. “Servants”, for example may be “servants of God” a common name for Christians even recently, as the Pope is referred to as “the servant of the servants of God” (Servus servorum Dei) The only thing we know for sure was that he was a decent navigator. None of this undermines the notion of the “discovery” as anything but a catastrophe for native peoples brought about by Europeans.

Please understand, I have read of the Spanish bastards hanging indigenous people in the Caribbean 12 at a time to honor the apostles. The atrocities are plentiful. Columbus may not have been as atrocious, which is why things are named for him and not for Cortes or Pizarro in Latin America.

And what is interesting in this tragic history is that officially anti-clerical Mexico still honors someone like Vasco de Quiroga, one of the priests sent by Madrid to undo some of the brutalities of the conquerors— albeit far too late. I lived there on a street bearing his name.
 
Last edited:
"In Defense of Columbus: An Exaggerated Evil" from Knowing Better 12/10/17.








Someone posted a different video on a political topic from this Vlogger "Knowing Better" which I found interesting (if not actually agreeing with him).

However, I've subsequently watched a few others since then from time to time. I just discovered this one today, and found myself more in agreement with this historical analysis than I was by the first politcal video I encountered. ;)

Essentially he debunks many of the denigrating assertions about Columbus' ignorance, lack of math/sailing/map reading skills, brutality, and also the allegations of responsibility for the genocide of Amerinidians. I especially enjoyed how he tore apart the "Adam Ruins Everything - Columbus" video.

I offer it for the Forum's education and entertainment.


Besides everything else, Columbus was so far off in his estimate of the size of the world that every educated person in Europe knew he couldn't have sailed to Asia and back in the time of his voyage. Yet he went to his grave convinced he'd gone to the Indies.
 
Besides everything else, Columbus was so far off in his estimate of the size of the world that every educated person in Europe knew he couldn't have sailed to Asia and back in the time of his voyage. Yet he went to his grave convinced he'd gone to the Indies.

Aaannd, apparently you didn't watch the video. :coffeepap:
 
Aaannd, apparently you didn't watch the video. :coffeepap:

I'm rural and on a satellite hookup. I pay for bandwidth and don't open video links. Care to summarize it?
 
Anyone defending and trying to whitewash the evil cretin that was Columbus is a slavery-loving piece of crap, in my book.

Sadly the truth about Columbus does not tend to get taught in school (at least not until recent years)

From his journal the very DAY that they first encountered the natives of the islands: "They should be good servants .... I, our Lord being pleased, will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses."

two days later he wrote: "with fifty men they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them."

This is also the late Feudal era. Where most people on the planet were rulers, or ruled. Where pretty much every country on the planet (including almost every Indian tribe) held slaves.

Hell, at least Columbus did not go to war with other empire, in order to capture slaves to sacrifice by the thousands to his God. The Aztecs typically sacrificed between 20,000 to 250,000 people every year to their gods. And the majority were slaves, captured in battles against their neighbors.

And you talk about whitewashing? Seems like you have a very selective concept about slavery in the 15th century, and what the Indians did with their captives.

As an FYI, one of the tribes that regularly practiced slavery in the Pre-Columbian era was the Seneca tribe of the Iroquoian peoples. You could always tell their slaves, they amputated one of their feet. This was both to keep them from escaping, as well as to identify them for life as a slave.
 
Aaannd, apparently you didn't watch the video. :coffeepap:

A lot of us do not bother to watch videos.

I for one find it a lazy way to try and make a point.

"Hey, I do not have to prove anything. Just waste 30+ minutes watching this.". And a video can literally say anything.

There are a great many videos that prove the world is flat, that humans lived with dinosaurs, and that Hitler is alive and well and runs a taco stand in Buenos Aires.

Don't believe me? Here, watch this YouTube video....
 
Anyone defending and trying to whitewash the evil cretin that was Columbus is a slavery-loving piece of crap, in my book.

Sadly the truth about Columbus does not tend to get taught in school (at least not until recent years)

From his journal the very DAY that they first encountered the natives of the islands: "They should be good servants .... I, our Lord being pleased, will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses."

two days later he wrote: "with fifty men they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them."

(here's what came before that quote to show just how effed up a "catholic" he was:
"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things ... They willingly traded everything they owned ... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features .... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. ... They would make fine servants. ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want"....... Yup, they were friendly strong folks who were willing to trade and help them, so hey, let's enslave them!)


And in a letter to one of his patrons the next year he wrote :"their Highnesses may see that I shall give them as much gold as they need .... and slaves as many as they shall order to be shipped."

And his second voyage he did just that, taking far more (hundreds) than the 6 he took his first voyage..

Sure sounds like a slave trader too me...


And yeah between his first contact and the end of his stint as Governor he and his men had exterminated at LEAST several hundred thousand (some estimates are at a million or more) of the native peoples through war and forced labor camps. Thats genocide.

So y'all trying to make him into an okay guy can go eff yourselves.
Besides being wrong, apparently you didn't watch the video.
 
Besides being wrong, apparently you didn't watch the video.

You know in 200 years from once eating meat has been outlawed for generations. People will look back at Obama and say “Obama was an evil man. He had animals killed so he could eat them. Anyone who defends him is a species piece of crap in my book.” If we judge historical figures by today’s standards it’s not only unfair. But also it inaccurately portrays their character.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
"In Defense of Columbus: An Exaggerated Evil" from Knowing Better 12/10/17.








Someone posted a different video on a political topic from this Vlogger "Knowing Better" which I found interesting (if not actually agreeing with him).

However, I've subsequently watched a few others since then from time to time. I just discovered this one today, and found myself more in agreement with this historical analysis than I was by the first politcal video I encountered. ;)

Essentially he debunks many of the denigrating assertions about Columbus' ignorance, lack of math/sailing/map reading skills, brutality, and also the allegations of responsibility for the genocide of Amerinidians. I especially enjoyed how he tore apart the "Adam Ruins Everything - Columbus" video.

I offer it for the Forum's education and entertainment.


Columbus was credited with discovering America, at least the first European to do so, hence Columbus Day. But we've known since 1960 the Vikings beat him here in around the year 1000. L’Anse aux Meadows proves that. Columbus Day doesn't have the same meaning it did when I was a kid growing up. Now it's basically just another work day with some Columbus Day sales along with government workers getting the day off. There's been speculation that Columbus had access or stolen some maps that had America on them prior to ever setting sail. Who knows? Regardless, it still took a brave man to do what he did when most Europeans thought he'd be falling off the edge of the world.


I don't look on Columbus as being a bad or evil man. Perhaps one who got credit for being the first, when he was the second. But at the time, no one knew about the Vikings. There may have been other Europeans make it to America even before the Vikings.
 
Besides everything else, Columbus was so far off in his estimate of the size of the world that every educated person in Europe knew he couldn't have sailed to Asia and back in the time of his voyage. Yet he went to his grave convinced he'd gone to the Indies.

Basically that Adam Ruins Everything was wrong about everything in that video (as they usually are). Columbus has surviving correspondence with Toscanelli that really explains the whole thing. Toscanelli was one of the greatest cartographers of his day, but his maps overestimated the length of Asia by about 5,000 miles. Columbus did go with a smaller circumference, but that's not why he was wrong; Toscanelli's map (the sort of projection used by 'every educated person in Europe') had Asia stretching to where NA currently is, and Japan where the Mexico actually is. Toscanelli didn't think that Columbus was stupid, he wrote letters to him and sent him maps and encouraged his journey. Columbus did not go to his grave thinking he'd gone to the Indies, it was clear rather quickly that he hadn't.

Here's Toscanelli's map, used by Columbus, laid over the actual world:toscanelli.jpg
 
Last edited:
Columbus was credited with discovering America, at least the first European to do so, hence Columbus Day. But we've known since 1960 the Vikings beat him here in around the year 1000. L’Anse aux Meadows proves that.

The biggest problem with the Vikings discovery of Vinland is that they did not stay.

The Vinland colonies were only occupied for around 100 years, from around 1000 CE to 1100 CE. Then they were abandoned. The last verified reports of Nordic occupation of Vinland was around 1120. The biggest difference with Columbus is that he started a multi-national wave of exploration and colonization that continued into the modern era without a break.

The same of any possible other pre-Columbian discovery possibilities. Phoenicians, Japanese, Chinese, Polynesian, there are many other theories that they might have also "discovered" America. But none of them either established long-term trade and connections, or made lasting impressions on the local culture to have been considered significant even if they did happen.

That is what makes all the difference in the world.
 
Basically that Adam Ruins Everything was wrong about everything in that video (as they usually are). Columbus has surviving correspondence with Toscanelli that really explains the whole thing. Toscanelli was one of the greatest cartographers of his day, but his maps overestimated the length of Asia by about 5,000 miles. Columbus did go with a smaller circumference, but that's not why he was wrong; Toscanelli's map (the sort of projection used by 'every educated person in Europe') had Asia stretching to where NA currently is, and Japan where the Mexico actually is. Toscanelli didn't think that Columbus was stupid, he wrote letters to him and sent him maps and encouraged his journey. Columbus did not go to his grave thinking he'd gone to the Indies, it was clear rather quickly that he hadn't.

Here's Toscanelli's map, used by Columbus, laid over the actual world:View attachment 67254650

Actually, Toscanelli was not a cartographer. He was an astrologer, mathematician, and Cosmographer. He spent years studying the Greek mathematical works, and the Greeks had known since the 6th century BCE that the Earth was round. Even Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle described the planet as a sphere.

The first to be known to have calculated the circumference is Eratosthenes in around 180 BCE. And he came up with 44,000 km. That is off by being 15% to large (actual is 40,075 km). And further confusion came into play because over the centuries the unit of measurement he used (the "stade") changed length, so by 100 CE this was translating to 46,100 km.

Columbus was using the then commonly accepted circumference of around 30,000 km, which combined with the inaccuracies of Toscanelli ended up having an entire continent appearing on the way. His miscalculation on the size of Asia is believed to have come from the limited information in Europe of the actual size of Asia. That dates all the way back to Strabo (64 BCE to 24 CE), which had Asia-Africa-Europe being more like a large ellipsis. And when Toscanelli tried to update this with more modern measurements he way over-estimated the size of Asia.

Strabo-the-geographer.jpg
 
Actually, Toscanelli was not a cartographer. He was an astrologer, mathematician, and Cosmographer. He spent years studying the Greek mathematical works, and the Greeks had known since the 6th century BCE that the Earth was round. Even Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle described the planet as a sphere.

The first to be known to have calculated the circumference is Eratosthenes in around 180 BCE. And he came up with 44,000 km. That is off by being 15% to large (actual is 40,075 km). And further confusion came into play because over the centuries the unit of measurement he used (the "stade") changed length, so by 100 CE this was translating to 46,100 km.

Columbus was using the then commonly accepted circumference of around 30,000 km, which combined with the inaccuracies of Toscanelli ended up having an entire continent appearing on the way. His miscalculation on the size of Asia is believed to have come from the limited information in Europe of the actual size of Asia. That dates all the way back to Strabo (64 BCE to 24 CE), which had Asia-Africa-Europe being more like a large ellipsis. And when Toscanelli tried to update this with more modern measurements he way over-estimated the size of Asia.

Strabo-the-geographer.jpg

Thanks; I find these old maps really interesting, and it's really fascinating how often people overexaggerate the ignorance of the past.

Unrelated aside: Libya T H I C C
 
Actually, Toscanelli was not a cartographer. He was an astrologer, mathematician, and Cosmographer. He spent years studying the Greek mathematical works, and the Greeks had known since the 6th century BCE that the Earth was round. Even Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle described the planet as a sphere.

The first to be known to have calculated the circumference is Eratosthenes in around 180 BCE. And he came up with 44,000 km. That is off by being 15% to large (actual is 40,075 km). And further confusion came into play because over the centuries the unit of measurement he used (the "stade") changed length, so by 100 CE this was translating to 46,100 km.

Columbus was using the then commonly accepted circumference of around 30,000 km, which combined with the inaccuracies of Toscanelli ended up having an entire continent appearing on the way. His miscalculation on the size of Asia is believed to have come from the limited information in Europe of the actual size of Asia. That dates all the way back to Strabo (64 BCE to 24 CE), which had Asia-Africa-Europe being more like a large ellipsis. And when Toscanelli tried to update this with more modern measurements he way over-estimated the size of Asia.

Strabo-the-geographer.jpg

Eratosthenes was actually off closer to 8.9% not 15%.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The biggest problem with the Vikings discovery of Vinland is that they did not stay.

The Vinland colonies were only occupied for around 100 years, from around 1000 CE to 1100 CE. Then they were abandoned. The last verified reports of Nordic occupation of Vinland was around 1120. The biggest difference with Columbus is that he started a multi-national wave of exploration and colonization that continued into the modern era without a break.

The same of any possible other pre-Columbian discovery possibilities. Phoenicians, Japanese, Chinese, Polynesian, there are many other theories that they might have also "discovered" America. But none of them either established long-term trade and connections, or made lasting impressions on the local culture to have been considered significant even if they did happen.

That is what makes all the difference in the world.

Depends on how you define the word discovery? Does discovery mean the first one to find it or does it mean the first one to find it that leads to permanent settlements?

Another interesting subject that interests me is the missing copper from around the Great Lakes area. Mined from around 3-4000 years ago. The American Indian didn't mine or use copper. Also Great Lakes copper from that time period has been found in the Mediterranean area. There's so much we don't know or refuse to acknowledge as not to upset the current theories of history.
 
Thanks; I find these old maps really interesting, and it's really fascinating how often people overexaggerate the ignorance of the past.

Unrelated aside: Libya T H I C C

I liked the old maps that had sea serpents on them
 
I liked the old maps that had sea serpents on them

I also liked it when they were they were actually old; are we to believe modern English such as "Atlantic Ocean" and "Caspian Sea" were also on this map?
 
Back
Top Bottom