That Atheist Blog

Monday was Columbus Day here in the States. I don't celebrate it because the man was a barbarian. Read what he really did to the indigenous people he encountered and see if you think this guy should really be celebrated.

As an atheist, I’m no big fan of holidays. In fact, we have far too many of them in this country. Luckily, Groundhog’s Day doesn’t interrupt the mail service, Valentine’s Day is a paean to lovers everywhere (even though it’s allegedly based on secret Christian weddings in the bad old days of pagan Rome), Saint Patrick’s day is an excuse to get hammered, wear green and sport buttons that say “kiss me, I’m Irish”, and one of them is even a fun holiday to play pranks on people.

But Christopher Columbus? You gotta be f*cking kidding me.

I grew up (as most of you probably did also) hearing about how this cat set out to discover the Far East, only to get somewhat hampered by the intervening continent in his way. Hell, I’ll bet you even remember that old mnemonic, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”

For the most part, very little was ever mentioned about these voyages except that they were harsh (scurvy was a constant threat), and that some crewmen died en route. When I was a kid, there was absolutely no mention of this ass-clown’s subsequent behavior.

So let’s recap, for those of you familiar, and for those of you who aren’t, be prepared to be horrified.

Good old Chris, on his first voyage:

Columbus called the island (in what is now The Bahamas) San Salvador; the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is an unresolved topic; prime candidates are Samana Cay, Plana Cays, or San Salvador Island (so named in 1925 in the belief that it was Columbus’s San Salvador). The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. From the 12 October 1492 entry in his journal he wrote of them, “Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language.” He remarked that their lack of modern weaponry and even metal-forged swords or pikes was a tactical vulnerability, writing, “I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased.”

And then:

Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba (landed on 28 October) and the northern coast of Hispaniola, by 5 December. Here, the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned. He was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men and founded the settlement of La Navidad at the site of present-day Môle-Saint-Nicolas, Haiti. On 13 January 1493 Columbus made his last stop in the New World. He landed on the Samaná Peninsula where he met the hostile Ciguayos who presented him with his only violent resistance during his first voyage to the Americas. Because of this, and the Ciguayos’ use of arrows, he called the inlet where he met them the Bay of Arrows (or Gulf of Arrows). Today the place is called the Bay of Rincon, in Samaná, the Dominican Republic. Columbus kidnapped about 10 to 25 natives and took them back with him (only seven or eight of the native Indians arrived in Spain alive, but they made quite an impression on Seville).

He just took people against their will. Whatta sweetheart, ey?

Buckle up kids, it gets worse:

On 22 November Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit Fuerte de la Navidad (Christmas Fort), built during his first voyage, and located on the northern coast of