Anyone else still pissed at Christopher Columbus?

[milestogo]

He didn't even know where the hell he was. The only things he cared about were gold and slaves. All in all, his influence on the continent was pretty negative. And yet- he got a holiday named after him. Schoolchildren were brainwashed into thinking he was a hero.

How fair is that?

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. I am pissed a Columbus's navigator

If he wasn’t such a milquetoast, he would have told Columbus the truth, that they hadn’t reached India yet and should keep going.

Instead, they stopped and it’s all this now.

The navigator was the real villain of the story.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. It's my understanding that

Columbus himself thought the Earth was considerably smaller than it actually is, and that he had arrived in the vicinity of India.

[Fiendish Thingy]

19. But his milquetoast navigator could have told him to keep going

It’s Merricko Garlando’s (Columbus’s navigator) fault that the Native American Holocaust, American slave trade and the heartbreak of psoriasis ever happened.

I bet all of his descendants were milquetoast incompetents too.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

23. WHAT milquetoast navigator??

Columbus, and pretty much everyone else around him thought the earth was half the size it is. So when he sailed what he thought was the correct distance and found land and inhabitants there, he understandably thought he'd reached the Indies.

If not Columbus, some other Europeans would have shown up very soon thereafter and things would have happened much the same as they did.

[Fiendish Thingy]

24. Shhh...

Today is “announce who you’re pissed off at” day, and you’re spoiling a perfectly good recreational outrage session.

(Browse DU for the numerous “anyone else pissed at xxx” threads)

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I am asserting that Columbus should not get the blame for his crimes against humanity; instead, the blame should be directed placed squarely on the shoulders of his navigator, one Merricko Garlando.

I will not listen to facts or reason on this issue, as it might diminish my hatred of Mr. Garlando.

[RoseTrellis]

2. Who would have been next?

It’s nieve to think that the continent would have not been eventually exploited, given the state of the world at the time.
England, Spain, France and the Ottoman empire were all looking to expand their influence over the globe and all were more than capable of exerting their will by force on the native Americans.
If it wasn’t Columbus, we would be celebrating a German, a Frenchman, etc who did exactly what Columbus did.

[milestogo]

4. Leif Erickson came to Newfoundland in the 11th century

but the Vikings didn't create a settlement at that time because there were too many native peoples and not enough vikings to defend it.

[Vogon_Glory]

10. There's also speculation that far-ranging French and English fishermen were

fishing near Canada and Newfoundland off-the-books in the late 15th century. Since the English fishermen had to worry about the Hanseatic League as well as English royal officials, they didn’t go out of their way to say where their catches were actually coming from.

The point is that word about the Americas would have gotten around, even if Ferdinand and Isabella had given Columbus the bum’s rush in the early 1490’s and threatened to behead him if he was found anywhere in Iberia ever again.

[milestogo]

16. Well, that's really way "off-the-books" when you cross an Ocean and then pretend you didn't.

Seems like a lot of trouble.

[Vogon_Glory]

20. A lot of trouble for high returns

Cod used to be a valuable commodity, something like Tuna is today. John Cabot, an Italian navigator working for England’s King Henry VII (Not the guy with all the wives),, found the Grand Banks in 1497. There’s no reason to disbelieve that some European fishermen might not have gone there sooner.

Whether one condemns or approves of European maritime colonialism, the fact is that what with driving factors like the fishing industry, European contact with North America was inevitable.

[Srkdqltr]

3. Anyone else pissed at people who are wasting pisses on long dead people?

[CTyankee]

8. We need to learn from the past so we don't repeat it. And each new generation needs to learn from the older one.

[betsuni]

5. I blame ships.

[electricmonk]

11. I blame

the first stupid fish to crawl up on to land. What a jerk starting all of this. I'd be perfectly happy flopping around in the ocean eating shrimp until something bigger comes along and eats me.

[MorbidButterflyTat]

14. .

[Torchlight]

6. When I told my coworker I discovered the Beatles in 1982

she replied that they existed long before that and I wasn't the first one to listen to them. Bless her heart.

[AStern]

7. Columbus isn't Italian and didn't land in the continental USA

nt

[aurora the great]

12. Say what?

Columbus was most certainly Italian born in Genoa and lived most of his young years until he starting sailing as a teen He sailed until his boat was attacked by pirates. His boat sank and drifted on a piece of wood and made his way to Lisbon. He died in Spain. Did he discover America absolutely not but he is most certainly Italian.

[AStern]

15. That part of Italy was part of Spain in his day.

Not Italian.

[wishstar]

22. Latest reporting on his DNA results claims he was not Italian

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2049ezpko

His remains buried in Seville were confirmed a few years ago by DNA comparisons with his son and grandson and further DNA tests were conducted on his ancestral origins.

"Famed explorer Christopher Columbus was likely Spanish and Jewish, according to a new genetic study conducted by Spanish scientists that aimed to shed light on a centuries-old mystery.
Scientists believe the explorer, whose expedition across the Atlantic in 1492 changed the course of world history, was probably born in western Europe, possibly in the city of Valencia.
They think he concealed his Jewish identity, or converted to Catholicism, to escape religious persecution.
The study of DNA contradicts the traditional theory, which many historians had questioned, that the explorer was an Italian from Genoa."

[Ping Tung]

9. All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. Voltaire

[BannonsLiver]

13. Yes, of course.

He was as worthless as Comey, Garland, Nader and the Roberts court could ever be.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. Because without him this continent would have

remained undiscovered until the inhabitants developed a technological civilization? Really??

It was just a matter of time before Europeans got here. The first thing that would have happened is what did happen, that very many of them died from diseases they had zero immunity or resistance to. The next would have been the taking over of the land.

If some other European had been the first here, it would have been very much the same.

[Vogon_Glory]

21. I agree. European contact with the Americas wasinevitable

European fishermen ranging from France and England would have eventually found Newfoundland’s Grand Banks fishing grounds. I suspect that Portuguese mariners would have eventually bumped into Brazil.

The thought that European colonization of the Americas can all be blamed on Christopher Columbus is uninformed and mistaken.