Reconsider Columbus Day

Yeah, we all know the real story of columbus. No one celebrates this holiday. So lets tell the real story of this holiday. It is as useless, and pointless as the rest, but a good excuse to not get any depressing mail.

Regardless, western civilization brought stability.

I'm wondering how it is a Native American's posted this Three days ago. And then An American Girl from who knows, maybe Italian decent, is the one who is the all and knowing of our culture? Oh I forgot, Knowledge is where you come from and who acknowledges it. Same story different day. Well knowledge is knowing how America is all about looks and who you know! Huh Life is full of surprises and then we have to find another road to conquer. Is this how current works. I have been here over four years and still amazed by the mass media that is in control of our destiny! Peace to all who cross paths in Knowledge and wisdom. One day we will learn to just give up to the pressing beauty and vanity for this is America and who else would you want to know if they don't have something you need. Discover this! Miss Columbus! We are not here for your convenience! We are here for our future generation of roots and respect.

North America was never discovered by anybody.

America was invaded.

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html
Here's one perspective.

Just another bit of history.

Columbus' ships first sighted land in the Bahamas in 1492, though he did not reach the mainland until 1498, when he landed in the future Venezuela.
It was not until much later that ships landed in what is now America, which is named after Amerigo Vespucci . Somehow an account of a 1497 voyage was published, Vespucci had commanded the expedition and had reached the New World before Christopher Columbus, who found the mainland in 1498.
North and South America were named after him.

Neither was responsible for the intentional demise of the American Indians. They brought with them measles, cholera and a host of nasty bugs the indigenous people were never exposed to before.

Who the fuck celebrates Columbus Day?

Most native people aren't looking for pity. They want the truth to be told, and they want to live their lives without being told they are worth less, or that they know less. I find the truth to be more interesting than the false hero story, so here are some truths for perspective.

1. Columbus was lost. He thought he was in southeast Asia. Columbus was likely thinking that the people he forcibly took were Muslim, or Muslim-dominated. More than 500 years later the question of whether the mistreatment of Muslims is good or bad is still treated as an issue for debate by the popular media.

2. Native people did not simply cross a land bridge once to come to America. Likely, if there were a land bridge, people were crossing to and from Asia for a long time. If you go back far enough everyone everywhere is from somewhere else.

4. Colonial America was not English-American. Colonial America was a result of Europeans and Native Americans sharing cultures. Much of the early economic trade was from the tobacco which originally came from native Americans. Tobacco paid for much of the Revolutionary War.

If you want to blame someone for awful massacres Columbus was a much more smaller devil than Andrew Jackson.

Reconsider reconsidering Columbus Day. Lighten up, every holiday has a body count (sometimes that is what makes it a holiday). This day is a celebration of human exploration and inquisitive science, jeez.

Columbus didn't discover shit, he was just the beginning of the end for all the Native Americans.

it is true that the discovery by Columbus was of great lands in a new world. Lands of great resource and riches. Yes, there were peoples living here prior to 'his' discovery; however, the peoples were not as technologically advanced as the Spaniards, [under whose flag Columbus sailed], consequently they were conquered, deaths and eggregious resource depletions occurred. That is the way the world worked at that time.

because of this i believe that Columbus should still be recognized for accomplishing the herculean task of changing world perspectives; the world was proven to be no longer flat!

to detract from this accomplishment so callously, blaming present woes on his actions would be detrimental to our collective knowldege base. all should be taught of the atrocities that had taken place, not from the perspective of Columbus being a power mad demon, but in the context of the times.

now that we have supposedly grown as a 'civilization', it would be most prudent to still celebrate the 'discovery' of a new world.

but now is also the time for America, the people, to come to realize that our teachers did indeed lie to us. It is the victors that write history and we should change that to reflect the 'facts' as seen by both sides. America's strength lies in our abiities to see past the falsehoods and propaganda of the past.

the aboriginal peoples of America, most specifically and dare i say exclusively the Native "Indian", [Cloumbus apparently learned of his mistake in naming the people he met], tribes throughout the United States of America deserve more than just recognition of a National Holiday.

since much of our constitution and even the declaration of our independence were based on teachings learned from the Haudenosaunee Nation of New York, through their Great Law Of Peace, we should honor their teachings by giving Native Tribes positions of power within all governments levels to guard and protect our enviroment for the health , safety and general welfare of all peoples within this great nation.

Living in harmony with the earth, and not conquering or exploiting our environment, is the native way of life and that, we all need to learn.....

When I was much younger and I suppose more fervent in my idiology I used to get on board the entire argument of how screwed the native inhabitants were until the day that my logics professor asked if i were willing to quit claim my house to the Navajo tribe... that is when my strongly held convictions ran head first into the wall of reality. The answer was of course, no...Whatever issues the original occupants of this hemisphere had with the Europeans who "discovered" them are just as dead and gone as the people who had them..not the "and they all lived happily ever after" ending that would exist in a perfect world but as imperfect as it is, it is the world we live in.

Forget that he discovered the land . He conquered that shit. If any of you internet tough guys even conquer your mothers basements you would have a blog about it . He risked his life and He took over a huge slice of the earth. I believe the man deserves a day.

If anyone here has kids, I'm curious about what modern history textbooks say about Columbus, Magellan, and the rest of the people who "discovered" this land that already had people in it.

I hope that it is more of a honest representation, instead of pretending these men were noble and kind like when I was a kid.

Boo fuckin Hoo... go back to your casino and drink yourself back to sleep until Thanksgiving when you start crying again. Damn injuns

Today's reading: Indian Removal, by Heidler
Why is this man on our $20 bill?

I never celebrated this day...I got into trouble when i was younger and discussions as i got older ; fuck columbus
http://current.com/groups/indigenous/

Yup. Columbus was a huge dick, who, upon meeting the indigenous peoples of the Americas, wrote this in his journal:

"They... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... they were well built, with good bodies and handsome feature... 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... They are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would not believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone... As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts."

Pretty fucked up. He (his people) then went on to essentially destroy their entire culture and race.

Many native tribes, like the Iroquois... were true participatory democratic collectives of people who actually enjoyed a real form of democracy, unlike what we experience in America now. This is actually not a democracy... and we wiped out their entire culture because we wanted the loot. Check this:

"The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois [1] Confederacy, call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a Long House. Located in the northeastern region of North America, originally the Six Nations was five and included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. The sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, migrated into Iroquois country in the early eighteenth century. Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history. The original United States representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of nations. In our present day, we can benefit immensely, in our quest to establish anew a government truly dedicated to all life's liberty and happiness much as has been practiced by the Six Nations for over 800 hundred years."

and...

"...the idea that Native American confederacies are an important early form of democracy has become established in general discourse. History is made in many ways, by many people; the spread of the idea that Native American confederacies (especially the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) helped shape the intellectual development of democracy m the United States and Europe is an example of how our notions of history have been changing with the infusion of multicultural voices."

Fuck Columbus.