Re: What Columbus Day Really Means

> "Kispoko2/Justin Coen" wrote in message news:
> 
> With Columbus Day approaching, it's apropos to offer a primer on 
> history, reminding folks what all the "celebrating" is really 
> about.
> 
> At the outset of the invasion, the Caribbean Islands were perhaps 
> the most densely populated region in the world, most of those 
> there being Arawak (Taino), a people Columbus referred to as 'the 
> best [people] under the sun' prior to their subjugation and 
> eventual extermination. Hispaniola alone held upwards of eight 
> million. This number quickly atrophied to three million by 1496. 
> The decline is often blamed on inadvertent spread of disease, as 
> if the loss of population were entirely unintentional. This 
> belies evidence to the contrary, and also the more obvious aspect 
> - the systematic and intentional destruction of the West Indies 
> through Columbus' own policies.
> 
> Many hundreds of thousands did perish from disease, though, the 
> conditions which caused these pandemics arose mainly because of 
> situations (famine, dispersal, slavery, unhygienic conditions) 
> the conquistadors created. The natives were so plentiful, as to 
> be considered expendable - and that's how they were treated, as 
> the unfathomable decline indicates. 
> 
> All males over fourteen were ordered to pay a tribute, usually 
> of gold, at certain intervals, or they had their hands (or some 
> other part) cut off and bled to death. Villagers were gathered 
> into buildings and burned alive in scores. Slaves were made of 
> all who were found, with many sent to Spain - the work so 
> punishing oftentimes that they may only last a few months before 
> they died. (Columbus was one of the most prodigious slavers in 
> history, responsible for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, first 
> of Amerindians, then of Africans).
> 
> Women were routinely raped, with Columbus remarking that girls 
> of nine and ten were the most desirable among them. People were 
> hanged in thirteens, "honoring" Christ and the apostles. Others 
> were simply tortured and burned at the stake. The Spaniards also 
> had contests among them, seeing who could cut someone's head off, 
> or other body area, with their swords. Or, they may gather up 
> several dozen people, men, women, children, and chase after and 
> kill them, for "fun". 
> 
> They would also sic large dogs on people and watch them be torn 
> apart for entertainment. So horrifying was this life under 
> Columbus' rule that many committed suicide in any manner they 
> could. Women were aborting fetuses, even killing their infant 
> children rather than let them grow and be hunted. Entire 
> villages fled at the site of a single Spaniard. 
> 
> Within a generation, virtually all of the natives were gone, 
> including an aggregate population of around twelve million plus 
> in the rest of the Caribbean. These numbers are difficult to 
> grasp in their entirety, as are the horrors which created them. 
> It's like the populations of Ohio and West Virginia, gone. 
> Imagine the city of Parkersburg, invaded and destroyed, its 
> denizens victims of a genocidal extirpation, itself perhaps only 
> 1/400 of the sum of the destruction in the Caribbean. Think of 
> your neighbors, friends, people you know, yourself. Enslaved, 
> knowing no peace, being physically and mentally tortured until 
> you died. Then imagine people celebrating it. 
> 
> Unconscionable, right? Yes, it is.

Thank you very much, Justin, for an excellent and timely letter. 

Please forgive my crossposting, but I felt that it needed to be 
distributed as widely as possible.  

Keep fighting the good fight.  

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TODD TAMANEND CLARK
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