It was early October 1492, and thirty-three days since he and his crew had left the Canary Islands, off the Atlantic coast of Africa. Now they saw branches and sticks floating in the water. They saw flocks of birds. These were signs of land. Then, on October 12, a sailor called Rodrigo saw the early morning moon shining on white sands, and cried out. It was an island in the Bahamas, the Caribbean sea. The first man to sight land was supposed to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He got the reward.
Happy Columbus Day, Rodrigo!
And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.Happy Columbus Day everyone! (By the way if you don't think Columbus Day should be celebrated, keep it to yourself, bitch.)
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down like dogs, and were killed.
Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arwaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arwaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.
When it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island.
Quotes from:
5 comments:
Great post! What is even sadder is that there are statues and memorial sites in Puerto Rico (where my parents were born and raised) honoring him. Some very near Taino cermonial sites (Tainos were also Arawaks). There have been some DNA studies that claim that not all the Arawaks died out and that most Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, have Arawak blood running through their veins. Still, its all very sad and definitely not an honorable day in my book. Again, great post.
Karla
We were discussing this today, and we drifted to the side issue that we call the guy "Christopher Columbus" when in fact he was Italian/Spanish/Portugese/whatever and his name should be Colombo/Colon/whatever. Similarly, we call Germany "Germany" instead of "Deutschland." We call China "China" instead of "Zhongguo" -- or even "Middle Land/Country/Kingdom" which is what the translation into English would be. Wtf does "China" mean? When and why did we start calling people and places by the things we wanted to instead of the things they themselves go by?
i'm opposed to most holidays, mostly because i never get off of work for them.
if we had a any sense of decency, we would have national days of remembrance for the people we've fucked over rather than celebrate a bunch of douches like columbus, but a "we killed a bunch of iraqis day" wouldn't get much political support. as a nation, we have a giant sense of pride with no sense of shame, which just makes everyone feel really good about anything we've done without any consideration whatsoever for the costs.
so, every year us white males get to jerk each other off over how great we are and have always been, with absolutely no feelings of remorse for the swath of destruction we've cut along the way. it's what i assume being an alcoholic would be like if there were no such thing as a hangover.
Columbus is covered pretty heavily in "Lies my teacher told me and ...". That first block quote you used is pretty dubious, though. Who wouldn't claim they saw first sight of land when $10,000 bucks was on the line? I think the mass slaughter and enslavement of a island populace is plenty evidence against.
And, hey, who wouldn't kill a few worthless island savages when immense wealth is on the line?
Post a Comment