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NBC12: Christopher Columbus statue torn down, thrown in lake by protesters
- Thread starter cameron
- Start date
US education tends to whitewash Columbus and pass over the horrific shit he did while making it sound like the people he came across were treated well and things were amiable. And of course the whole national holiday thing.
Raleigh is hardly spoken of or glorified, and no one seems to go to bat for Cortés outside of some "both sides" aspect with the Aztecs.
Edit: Pov of the US of course. Can't speak for elsewhere.
He was such an appallingly brutal person that he got investigated and arrested by the 14th/15th century Spanish government for his appalling brutality. That's a fucking accomplishment. Even the smallest amount of education about him reveals that he was one of the worst human beings to ever live.
CC gets the most flack because he's been elevated in American society, mainly as a means of trying to help Italian-American relations. Italians you see, much like the Irish, weren't exactly considered desirables in a country that was primarily dominated by WASPs, or the quintessential whites.
Washington Irving, yes that one, wrote up a biography of Columbus romanticizing his story. Nearly 100 years later with an influx of Italian immigrants into the country, the immigrants latched onto that myth in order to try and make themselves more of a part of the American story, along with Amerigo Vespucci, though he tends to get less credit. And the rest of America ate it up.
Fernando Cortes and Raleigh were also terrible, but they don't get holidays devoted towards the myth of what they accomplished.
This needs to happen everywhere, and soon.
Did a search and couldn't find any noteworthy Confederate or racist statues in Las Vegas. But as soon as word comes out about one, I'm more than game for being there when they tear it down.
Did a search and couldn't find any noteworthy Confederate or racist statues in Las Vegas. But as soon as word comes out about one, I'm more than game for being there when they tear it down.
For what little it's worth, I was listening to a podcast called Explorers, and apparently this did happen with at least one crew member on Jacque Cartier's expedition. As the story goes, Cartier left a member of his crew in Canada after his first voyage to establish relations with the natives while Cartier returned home to report on his findings and come back with a larger party. Over the next two years, this guy was adopted by a local tribe, and fell in love with the land and its people. Upon Cartier's return, this former crew member did act as a broker, but his loyalties were (at best) 50/50. It didn't take long for Cartier to realize that this guy no longer acted as a member of his crew, so the relationship grew awkward and frosty. Eventually, the former crew member just sorta peaced out, history doesn't record what ever became of him. He just interacted less and less frequently with Europeans, and seems to have retired into the Great Lakes Region of Canada to live with his adopted people. He never returned to Europe.
One of the few "happy" stories I've read.
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I don't want to quote the tweet that has been quoted a dozen times already.
But, it is absolute perfection.
But, it is absolute perfection.
Well no, at least not in México, at least not in the books that i've read, the things i read about him were actually sad, like he died poor and forgotten, all his expeditions were a failure and that he lost a battle in the caribbean, but thats it. Only intentionally bad thing that i read about him was that he he led some native americans to the Spanish court, but nothing mentioned if it was forced or something, as i grew older i never bothered reading about Colón again on Wikipedia, Colón is a thing i left at elementary school.
I went to Richmond because of the Lee statue, and you could sense the city has fucking had it with these hateful symbols. I can't wait till they're all gone.
Much like the conversation of addressing police brutality, the conversation of ending the Columbus myth unfortunately ends in fucking New York City.
Columbus Monument (New York City) - Wikipedia
You wanna do real substantial damage, you gotta do it to this big fucking thing, and you're gonna have to get around a lot of pissy New Yorkers to get to it.
Well, this is very interesting, never heard about it and it absolutely makes sense, as i said, Elementary School in México doesnt tell a bad thing about him, but thats a México thing, all the shit our "Heroes" did get overlooked, same thing for the good things that the "Villains" did, Colón myth might be protected by our Catholic past, as Colón worked for the Catholic Crown
