Self-serving Mormonism (what other kind is there?) declares that Christopher Columbus was led by the LDS God to discover the so-called "New World."
As an article in the LDS propaganda organ aimed at its vulnerable and easily-swayed youth, the “Friend,” claims:
“. . . On August 3, 1492, Christopher set sail from Palos, Spain, with three ships: the ‘Nina,’ the ‘Pinta, ‘ and the ‘Santa Maria.’ It was only after a long and difficult journey that land was sighted. October 12, 1492, was the happy day when he set foot on dry ground—not in Japan or China or India, but on an island in what is now called the Bahamas, in the western hemisphere.
“It has now been five hundred years since Christopher Columbus made that trip, and modern history books all give an account of the famous journey. But long before Columbus was born, another historian wrote of this navigator’s future travels. The prophet Nephi, son of Lehi, had a vision of Columbus. He recorded the vision in 1 Nephi: ‘And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.’ (1 Ne. 13:12).
“The scriptures indicate that Columbus’ voyages to the lands of North and South America were not made by chance but were directed by the Spirit. Columbus himself acknowledged several times that he was motivated by divine influence. In a letter to the king and queen of Spain, he wrote, ‘Our Lord unlocked my mind, sent me upon the sea, and gave me fire for the deed. Those who heard of my emprise [enterprise] called it foolish, mocked me, and laughed. But who can doubt but the Holy Ghost inspired me?’
“Weeks into their voyage, the crews that were with Columbus grew restless and fearful, and the captains of the ‘Nina’ and the ‘Pinta’ both wanted to turn back. Columbus would not give up, however, and he finally promised that if land was not sighted in forty-eight hours, they would turn back. That night in his cabin, Columbus ‘prayed mightily to the Lord,’ and on the very next day, October 12, land was sighted.
“Because of his strong determination, courage, and faith, Christopher Columbus was able to make his dream of adventure and travel to distant lands come true. He didn’t discover a new route to the Indies, as he had hoped to, but his discovery of America was inspired by God.”
(Wendy Seal Manzanares, “Heroes and Heroines: Christopher Columbus, Inspired Seaman,” in the “Friend,” October 1992, pp. 38–39, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website, under “Gospel Library Magazines,” at:
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=e74d55faa5cab010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD)
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Arnold K. Garr of BYU’s Religious Studies Center, in ”Christopher Columbus: A Latter-day Saint Perspective,” continues the Mormon anti-truth propaganda blitz on the “adult” level:
“For Latter-day Saints, the story of Christopher Columbus begins long before he was born in 1451. In fact, what he would do was known in prophecy at least 600 years before the birth of Christ, when the ancient American prophet, Nephi, foresaw Columbus’ coming to the New World in a vision and recorded what he saw on metal plates. Joseph Smith later translated that account as a part of the Book of Mormon. The record of the vision is found in the 1 Nephi 13:12. Nephi declared: ‘I looked and beheld a man among the gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many water; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.’
“Elder Mark E. Petersen, a modern-day apostle, explained that ‘the many waters were the Atlantic Ocean,’ and that ‘the seed of [Nephi’s] brethren were the American Indians.’ He also affirmed that ‘it was Christopher Columbus whom [Nephi] saw, and he observed further that the discoverer was guided by divine power on his journey.’
“Several modern-day prophets have testified that Columbus was guided to the New World by the Spirit of God, fulfilling Book of Mormon prophecy. In 1976, President Ezra Taft Benson stated, ‘God inspired “a man among the Gentiles”. . . who, by the Spirit of God was led to rediscover the land of America and bring this rich new land to the attention of the people in Europe. That man, of course, was Christopher Columbus, who testified that he was inspired in what he did.’
“In 1950, Elder Spencer W. Kimball testified that God ‘inspired a little boy, Christopher Columbus, to stand on the quays in Genoa, Italy, and yearn for the sea. He was filled with the desire to sail the seas, and he fulfilled a great prophecy made long, long ago that this land, chosen above all other lands, should be discovered. And so when he was mature, opportunity was granted to him to brave the unknown seas, to find this land . . . and to open the door, as it were.’
“In 1907, President Joseph F. Smith also confirmed his conviction that the Lord guided Columbus in much the same way as He did Adam and Abraham in the Old Testament .
“Church leaders’ statements about Columbus are not restricted to those of the 20th Century, as the apostles and prophets from the beginning of this dispensation also boldly testified that the Lord guided the great discoverer.
“In 1869, Elder George Q. Cannon delivered an address in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in which he stated: ‘Columbus was inspired to penetrate the ocean and discover this Western continent, for the set time for its discovery had come; and the consequences which God desired to follow its discovery have taken place.’ (“Journal of Discourses” ["JD"] 14:55)
“At the 1854 Fourth of July celebration in Salt Lake City, President Brigham Young spoke of the Lord’s direction of the events that led to the modern discovery of America: ‘The Almighty . . . moved upon Columbus to launch forth upon the trackless deep to discover the American Continent’ (“JD” 7:13).
“Elder Orson Hyde, speaking at the same celebration as President Young, made perhaps the most intriguing reference to this theme, connecting Columbus’ voyage and discoveries with the ministry of Moroni, the ancient American prophet and divine messenger and caretaker of the records of the Book of Mormon. Referring to him as the ‘Prince of America,’ Elder Hyde noted that Moroni ‘presides over the destinies of America, and feels a lively interest in all or doing. . . . This same angel was with Columbus and gave him deep impressions, by dreams and by visions, respecting this New World.” He continued, “The angel of God helped him—was with him on the stormy deep, calmed the troubled elements, and guided his frail vessel to the desired haven.’ (“JD” 6:368).
“It is abundantly clear from these and other statements that Church leaders from early on have taught that the Lord was very interested in the success of Columbus’ voyages to and from the Americas.
“Columbus left many statements in his journals and other personal writings in which he boldly declared that he believed the Lord directed him in his great undertaking. Referring to his first voyage to America, he once stated, ‘With a hand that could be felt, the Lord opened my mind to the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. . . . This was the fire that burned within me. . . . Who can doubt that this fire was not merely mine, but also of the Holy Spirit.’ (. . . Columbus most often referred to the New World as the Indies).
“'Forerunner of the Restoration of the Gospel'
“One might ask why the Lord was so concerned with Columbus that He guided the discoverer in his preparation for the journey and inspired him along the way. The answer to this question can also be found in the writings of modern-day apostles and prophets. Several have clearly stated that Columbus and also the Founding Fathers of the United States of America were instruments in the Lord’s hands in preparing America to become the seat of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this last dispensation of time.
“In 1903, President Joseph F. Smith spoke of the divine destiny of America: ‘This great American nation the Almighty raised up by the power of his omnipotent hand, that is might be possible in the latter days for the kingdom of God to be established in the earth.’ President Smith further explained that ‘if the Lord had not prepared the way by laying the foundations of this glorious nation, it would have been impossible (under the stringent laws and bigotry of the monarchical governments of the world) to have laid the foundations of his great kingdom. The Lord has done this’.’
“Echoing the same idea, Elder Mark E. Petersen said: ‘The true gospel . . . could not be given to Israel of today until it was restored, and the restoration could come only under favorable conditions, in a free country, where men could worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience.’ Speaking specifically about the work that Columbus and the Founding Father performed, Elder Petersen declared: ‘These events were preliminary steps leading up to the gospel being restored and taken to the entire house of Israel.’ He emphasized that ‘few people think of the discovery of America, the Revolutionary War, and the establishment of a constitutional form of government here as being steps toward the fulfillment of the Lord’s ancient covenant with Abraham. But it is a fact that they were.
“Finally, George Q. Cannon specifically named Columbus, along with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin as men who were inspired to do the work they did. He declared that ‘it was a preparatory work for the establishment of the kingdom of God. This Church and kingdom could not have been established on the earth if their work had not been performed.’ (“JD” 14:55)
“Latter-day Saints conclude that the Lord inspired Columbus to be a forerunner in preparing the way for the establishment of the kingdom of God on the American continent in this last dispensation.
“As Elder Petersen explained, ‘The restoration of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in these latter days, together with the advance preparation of conditions which made it possible, was indeed a divine drama which had many stages and many scenes, some of which were world shaking.’ [Christopher Columbus was] a man who truly changed the world as he played out his part in this divine drama . . [in] . . . the Age of Discovery.”
(Arnold K. Garr, "Christopher Columbus: A Latter-Day Saint Perspective," Chapter One, “Columbus: Fulfillment of Book of Mormon Prophecy”[Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1992], pp. 1–5, under “Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center,” at:
http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/christopher-columbus-latter-day-saint-perspective/chapter-one-columbus-fulfillment-book-mor)
******
--Now, What the Mormon Church Doesn't Want You to Hear about Christopher Columbus: The Inconvenient Rest of the Story--
Writer Daniel N. Paul buries once and for all the White-Man Mormon Myth that Columbus was a foreordained instrument of the LDS Savior, led by directions beamed from Kolob that were designed to assist Columbus in uncovering America.
To the contrary, as Paul points out to brainwashed true-believing Mormons and others among the similarly hoodwinked, Columbus was a on-the-payroll imperialist deployed by the Spanish government of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to, in the name of God and country, ruthlessly seize territory and greedily grab booty--and, in the process, to murderously eliminate, eagerly enslave and brutally repress any and all native inhabitants who dared stand in his way.
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--Columbus: Trafficker in Young Girls--
In dismantling the dishonestly-concocted reputation of Columbus, Paul quotes from Columbus’ own words:
”In 1500, Columbus wrote to a friend: ’A hundred castellanoes (a Spanish coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten (years old) are now in demand.’”
We've only just begun, folks.
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--Columbus: Accidental "Discoverer"/Purposeful Slave Trader--
Paul notes that Columbus' arrival in the "New World" was actually an accident, not an Liahona-like act of God:
"The event that led European Nations to destroy many of the civilizations of two continents, and drastically diminish the remainder, resulted from what was an almost impossible accident of fate. If it had not already occurred, it would be virtually impossible to envision.
“In 1492, Christopher Columbus, on a sea voyage to chart a shortcut to the Indies, funded by Queen Isabella of Spain, set the stage for the rape of American civilizations by going astray at sea.
“By chance he eventually landed on a small island in the Caribbean sea populated by a defenseless and friendly pacifist race of people, the Taino. These people were ripe for picking by unscrupulous men, and Columbus and his crew pillaged with impunity. The blind luck that led him to land on this small defenseless island instead of somewhere else along the thousands of miles of North and South American coastline-where people wouldn't have been so complacent-is akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
“In retrospect, if he had instead landed in a non-pacifist country, such as that of the Iroquois or Maya, history would have turned out differently. Their Warriors would have fought back ferociously, very probably ending his voyage on the American side of the Atlantic. If this had happened, and no Europeans had appeared for another century, population growth and technology development would have reduced the possibility of European colonization considerably. However, history turned out the way it did and no amount of fantasizing can change that.
“Columbus, thinking he was in the Indies, did not waste time paying lip service to the pretense that he was importing ‘shining’ European ideals to the people he mistakenly labeled Indians.
“Instead he wrote in his journal: ‘We can send from here, in the name of the Holy Trinity, all the slaves and Brazil wood which could be sold.’
“True to the intent of these words, he initiated the Amerindian slave harvest on his first voyage. When he embarked from the Americas for Spain, it was with a cargo of five hundred Native Americans . . . crammed into three ships to be sold on the continental slave markets. Upon landing at Seville, only about three hundred of these unfortunate souls were still alive. These and booty were turned over to Queen Isabella. . . .
“The news of the riches offered by Hispaniola and surrounding islands soon spread across Europe. The notion of fabulous wealth for the picking was like a magnet for other European Nations. Within a few years, harvesters from Spain and other European countries were traveling from island to island seeking artifacts, precious metals, spices, and human beings for enslavement.
"The cruel assault mounted by these people against the defenseless and non-aggressive Taino, who had numbered in the millions in 1492, was so effective that forty years later they were virtually extinct. . . .
“The following incident set a precedent for European powers to forgive Caucasian barbarians who mass murdered American Indians. It is rare, indeed, to find an instance where one of them was imprisoned, or executed, for the horrors he committed.
“On August 23, 1500, Christopher Columbus and his brothers were sent back to Spain in chains by Spanish Governor Francesco de Bobadilla for mistreating Natives in the section of Hispaniola now known as Haiti. When they arrived in Spain, they were immediately released and graciously received at the royal court.”
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--Columbus: Supposed Great Man of Exploration and Science Who Was Actually Beaten to the Punch Far Earlier by Others--
Paul cites an essay by Jack Weatherford, entitled “Examining the Reputation of Columbus,” published in the “Baltimore Sun, “ 6 October 1989. Weatherford, notes Paul, enjoys impressive credentials: “[He] is Professor of Anthropology at Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is author of “Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World” and several other books, and he has appeared on ‘The Today Show,’ ‘ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings,’ ‘Larry King,’ ‘All Things Considered’ [National Public Radio], and other TV and radio programs.”
Weatherford thoroughly debunks the commonly Mormon Church-perpetrated myth that Columbus was supposedly some uniquely-called, God-inspired discoverer.
The real record indicates quite the opposite:
“Christopher Columbus' reputation has not survived the scrutiny of history, and today we know that he was no more the discoverer of America than Pocahontas was the discoverer of Great Britain.
"Native Americans had built great civilizations with many millions of people long before Columbus wandered lost into the Caribbean.
“Columbus' voyage has even less meaning for North Americans than for South Americans because Columbus never set foot on our continent, nor did he open it to European trade.
“Scandinavian Vikings already had settlements here in the eleventh century, and British fisherman probably fished the shores of Canada for decades before Columbus.
“The first European explorer to thoroughly document his visit to North America was the Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto, who sailed for England's King Henry VII and became known by his anglicized name, John Cabot. Caboto arrived in 1497 and claimed North America for the English sovereign while Columbus was still searching for India in the Caribbean.
“After three voyages to America and more than a decade of study, Columbus still believed that Cuba was a part of Asia, South America was only an island, and the coast of Central America was near the Ganges River.
“Unable to celebrate Columbus' exploration as a great discovery, some apologists now want to commemorate it as a great ‘cultural encounter.’ Under this interpretation, Columbus becomes a sensitive genius thinking beyond his time in the passionate pursuit of knowledge and understanding. The historical record refutes this, too.
“Contrary to popular legend, Columbus did not prove that the world was round; educated people had known that for centuries.
The Egyptian-Greek scientist Erastosthenes, working for Alexandria and Aswan, already had measured the circumference and diameter of the world in the third century B.C. Arab scientists had developed a whole discipline of geography and measurement, and in the tenth century A.D., Al Maqdisi described the earth with 360 degrees of longitude and 180 degrees of latitude. The Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai still has an icon--painted 500 years before Columbus --which shows Jesus ruling over a spherical earth.
“Nevertheless, Americans have embroidered many such legends around Columbus, and he has become part of a secular mythology for school children. Autumn would hardly be complete in U.S. elementary schools without construction-paper replicas of the three ships that Columbus sailed to America, or without drawings of Queen Isabella pawning her jewels to finance Columbus' trip.
“This myth of the pawned jewels obscures the true and more sinister story of how Columbus financed his trip. The Spanish monarch invested in his excursion, but only on the condition that Columbus would repay this investment with profit by bringing back gold, spices, and other tribute from Asia. This pressing need to repay his debt underlies the frantic tone of Columbus' diaries as he raced from one Caribbean island to the next, stealing anything of value."
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--Columbus: Failed Navigator and Lost Traveler Who Made Up for His Fantastic Flops By Becoming a Successful Human Trafficker--
“After he failed to contact the emperor of China, the traders of India, or the merchants of Japan, Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in the one important commodity he had found in ample supply--human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would fit, and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets of Seville and sold as slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their parents, husbands from wives. On board Columbus' slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the Indian bodies into the Atlantic.
“Because Columbus captured more Indian slaves than he could transport to Spain in his small ships, he put them to work in mines and plantations which he, his family, and followers created throughout the Caribbean. His marauding band hunted Indians for sport and profit — beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies as food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of Columbus' arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one-third of the original Indian population of 300,000.
“This was the great cultural encounter initiated by Christopher Columbus. This is the event celebrated each year on Columbus Day. The United States honors only two men with federal holidays bearing their names. In January we commemorate the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., who struggled to lift the blinders of racial prejudice and to cut the remaining bonds of slavery in America. In October, we honor Christopher Columbus, who opened the Atlantic slave trade and launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history.”
Andre Cramblit, in his article, “It's Columbus Day--What Are We Celebrating For?,” continues the well-deserved de-mythologization of Columbus:
"’We shall take you and your wives, and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and we shall take away your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault .’ (Christopher Columbus)
“Each October children in classrooms around the nation will dutifully recite their Columbus Day ‘facts’: the ships (‘the Ni[n]a, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria’), the year (‘In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue . . . ‘), and even the fruit that the explorer thought best resembled the Earth (that would be the orange ). Our national leaders take time out of their busy schedules--raising money and covering up scandals - to commemorate the man who ‘found’ America.
“Of course, by now many of us know that Columbus was not the first European to sail to North America--a Viking did that nearly 500 years earlier--and that the arrival of the Spanish empire wasn't exactly a blessing to the hemisphere.
“What many of us don't know, and what many more of us willfully ignore, is what Columbus really was the first to do on our side of the pond.
“Christopher Columbus, you see, was a slave trader, a gold digger, a missionary, and even a war profiteer in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella.
“The arrival of Columbus's small fleet on what is now San Salvador (that's Spanish for ‘Holy Savior’) was greeted by the ‘decorous and praiseworthy’ Taino Indians (Columbus's words) and was followed almost immediately by mass enslavement, amputation for sport, and a genocide that claimed over four million people in four years. That's quite a saving.
“His arrival also marked the beginning of 500 years of imperialism, enslavement, disease, genocide, and a legacy of impoverishment and discrimination that our nation is only beginning to come to terms with. Today American Indians lack adequate healthcare and housing, receive pitiful education, face daunting barriers to economic opportunity, and see their lands (that would be the whole of the continent) overrun with pollution and big business.
“Columbus Day has been celebrated as a federal holiday since 1971, making it the first of only two federal holidays to honor a person by name. The other celebrates the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It isn't Christopher Columbus and the conquistadors, though, that resemble the selflessness of the Rev. King and the best traditions of the American ideal. From the hospitality of the Taino Indians toward Columbus's crew, on which he remarked at length in his diaries, to the generosity of the Wampanoag in sharing their traditional feast with the Pilgrims, the history and tradition of Indian cultures have characterized the values of a plural and welcoming community. Even today American Indians proudly serve a country that has given them so little and taken so much.”
(Andre Cramblit, “It's Columbus Day--What Are We Celebrating For?,” 9 October 2006, “ provided by “INDN's List,” 406 S. Boulder, Mezzanine Ste 200, Tulsa, OK 74103)
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--Columbus: White Supremacist (No Wonder the Mormons Have Reverently Baptized Him for the Dead)--
Paul goes on to expose the LDS-familiar White supremacist mindset of this ruthless slave trader and land-grabber:
“White supremacist mentalities guide the actions of whites who idolize individuals such as Columbus as heroes. How could any descent human being say otherwise?
“For example, Columbus's staunch supporters steadfastly ignore the fact that he, by landing on a small Caribbean Island and capturing people to be sold as slaves, began what would be the world's most horrendous human tragedy, the complete destruction of a great many of the civilizations of two continents, and the near destruction of the remainder, a process that included the massacre of tens of millions of First Nations Peoples.
“The number of our Peoples who died, and in many cases who are still dying, because of the European invasion he initiated, is incalculable. The closest number one can estimate, when taking into consideration that the slaughter started in 1492 has continued to a certain degree to this day, is several hundred millions. And, the vast majority of the millions who are the remnant of the original great civilizations that once prospered across the two continents, live a poverty stricken existence.
“This is something that should instill in the people whose ancestors begot the horror shame, not pride.”
(Daniel M. Paul, “White Supremacists Mentality: Columbus Day,” 26 September 2003)
Paul cites Dahr Jamail's and Jason Coppola’s critique of Columbus, “The Myth of America”:
“To mark Columbus Day In 2004, the Medieval and Renaissance Center in UCLA published the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents.
“Its general editor, Geoffrey Symcox, leaves little room for ambivalence when he says, ‘This is not your grandfather's Columbus. . . . . While giving the brilliant mariner his due, the collection portrays Columbus as an unrelenting social climber and self-promoter who stopped at nothing--not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting biblical scripture--to advance his ambitions. . . . Many of the unflattering documents have been known for the last century or more, but nobody paid much attention to them until recently. The fact that Columbus brought slavery, enormous exploitation or devastating diseases to the Americas used to be seen as a minor detail--if it was recognized at all--in light of his role as the great bringer of white man's civilization to the benighted idolatrous American continent. But to historians today this information is very important. It changes our whole view of the enterprise . . . .’”
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--Columbus: Cunning Deceiver and Greedy Advantage-Taker, from His Own Diaries and Eyewitness Accounts of Spanish Atrocities--
Again quoting Columbus, Paul observes:
"’They . . . brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells,’ Christopher Columbus wrote in his logbook in 1495. ‘They willingly traded everything they owned. . . . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features. . . . They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. . . . They would make fine servants. . . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.’
“Catholic priest Bartolome de las Casas, in the multi-volume ‘History of the Indies’ published in 1875, wrote, ‘ . . . Slaves were the primary source of income for the Admiral (Columbus) with that income he intended to repay the money the Kings were spending in support of Spaniards on the Island. They provide profit and income to the Kings. (The Spaniards were driven by) insatiable greed . . . killing, terrorizing, afflicting, and torturing the native peoples . . . with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty.’
“This systematic violence was aimed at preventing ‘Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings. (The Spaniards) thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades. . . . My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write.’
“Father Fray Antonio de Montesino, a Dominican preacher, in December 1511 said this in a sermon that implicated Christopher Columbus and the colonists in the genocide of the native peoples: ‘Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dealt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? Wars in which you have destroyed such an infinite number of them by homicides and slaughters never heard of before . . . .’
“In 1892, the National Council of Churches, the largest ecumenical body in the United States, is known to have exhorted Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, ‘What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others. . . . ‘
“Yet America continues to celebrate ‘Columbus Day.’ That Americans do so in the face of all evidence that there is little in the Columbian legacy that merits applause makes it easier for them to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions, or the actions of their government. Perhaps there is good reason.”
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--Columbus: Beneficary of Myth-Makers in Mega-Denial--
Notes Paul:
“In "Columbus Day: A Clash of Myth and History,’ journalist and media critic Norman Solomon discusses how historians who deal with recorded evidence are frequently depicted as ‘politically correct’ revisionists while the general populace is manipulated into holding onto myths that brazenly applaud inconceivable acts of violence of men against fellow humans:
“’For those of us who are willing to ask how it becomes possible to manipulate the population of a country into accepting atrocity, the answer is not hard to find. It requires normalizing the inconceivable and drumming it in via the socio-cultural environment until it is internalized and embedded in the individual and collective consciousness. The combined or singular deployment of the media, the entertainment industry, mainstream education or any other agency, can achieve the desired result of convincing people that wars can be just, and strikes can be surgical, as long as it is the US that is doing it. . . .
“’How might this become accepted as "Policy" and remain unquestioned by almost an entire population? The one word key to that is: Myths. The explanation is that the myths the United States is built upon have paved the way for the perpetuation of all manner of violations. Among the first of these is that of Christopher Columbus. In school we were taught of his bravery, courage and perseverance. In a speech in 1989, [the American president] proclaimed: "Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith."
“’Never mind that the monumental feats mainly comprised part butchery, part exploitation and the largest part betrayal of host populations of the ‘New World.’”
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--Columbus: Ruthless Enslaver, as Recorded by Members of His Own Crew--
“On their second arrival in Hispaniola, Haiti,” Paul writes, “Columbus's crew took captive roughly two thousand local villagers who had arrived to greet them. Miguel Cuneo, a literate crew member, wrote, ‘When our caravels . . . were to leave for Spain, we gathered . . . one thousand six hundred male and female persons of those Indians, and these we embarked in our caravels on February 17, 1495. . . . For those who remained, we let it be known (to the Spaniards who manned the island's fort) in the vicinity that anyone who wanted to take some of them could do so, to the amount desired, which was done.’”
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--Columbus: Mutilating, Frustrated Gold-Seeker--
Continues Paul:
“Such original ‘monumental feats’ as were accomplished by our nation's heroes and role models were somewhat primitive. Local inhabitants who resisted Columbus and his crew had their ears or nose cut off, were attacked by dogs, skewered with pikes and shot.
“Reprisals were so severe that many of the natives committed mass suicide and women began practicing abortions in order not to leave children enslaved. The population of Haiti at the time of Columbus's arrival was between 1.5 million and 3 million. Sixty years later, every single native had been murdered.
“In ‘A People's History of the United States,’ celebrated historian Howard Zinn describes how Arawak men and women emerged from their villages to greet their guests with food, water and gifts when Columbus landed at the Bahamas. But Columbus wanted something else. ‘Gold is most excellent; gold constitutes treasure; and he who has it does all he wants in the world, and can even lift souls up to Paradise,’ he wrote to the king and queen of Spain in 1503.
“Rather than gold, however, Columbus only found slaves when he arrived on his second visit with seventeen ships and over 1,200 men. Ravaging various Caribbean islands, Columbus took natives as captives as he sailed. Of these he picked 500 of the best specimens and shipped them back to Spain. Two hundred of these died en route, while the survivors were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town where they landed.
“Columbus needed more than mere slaves to sell, and Zinn's account informs us: ‘ . . . [D]esperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, (he) 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.
"’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 with dogs, and were killed.’
“As a younger priest, the aforementioned De las Casas had participated in the conquest of Cuba and owned a plantation where natives worked as slaves before he found his conscience and gave it up.
“His first-person accounts reveal that the Spaniards ‘thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades. They forced their way into native settlements, slaughtering everyone they found there, including small children, old men, pregnant women, and even women who had just given birth. They hacked them to pieces, slicing open their bellies with their swords as though they were sheep herded into a pen. They even laid wagers on whether they could manage to slice a man in two at a stroke, or cut an individual's head from his body, or disembowel him with a single blow of their axes. They grabbed suckling infants by the feet and, ripping them from their mothers' breasts, dashed them headlong against the rocks. Others, laughing and joking all the while, threw them over their shoulders into a river, shouting: “Wriggle, you litle perisher.” They slaughtered anyone on their path . . . ‘”
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--Columbus: Bloody Conqueror Bent on “Full Spectrum Dominance” in the Name of the Christian God--
Writes Paul:
“In a letter to the Spanish court dated February 15, 1492, Columbus presented his version of full spectrum dominance: ‘to conquer the world, spread the Christian faith and regain the Holy Land and the Temple Mount.’
“With this radical ideology, Las Casas records, ‘They spared no one, erecting especially wide gibbets on which they could string their victims up with their feet just off the ground and then burned them alive thirteen at a time, in honor of our Savior and the twelve Apostles.’
“About incorporating these accounts in his book, Zinn explained . . . : ‘My point is not to grieve for the victims and denounce the executioners. Those tears, that anger, cast into the past, deplete our moral energy for the present . . . but I do remember a statement I once read: “The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.”’
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--Columbus: Vehicle for Sustaining Self-Justifying Nationalistic Illusions--
Paul observes how, as others have also noted, the “glorification of (the atrocities of) Columbus is one of several myths that sustain the illusions that justify . . . imperial visions . . . . .”
(Daniel N. Paul and Bhaswati Sengupta, “Christopher Columbus, 1451-1506, Opens the Door to European Invasion of the Americas,” under “We Were Not the Savages: First Nation History,” at:
http://www.danielnpaul.com/ChristopherColumbus.html)
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Columbus: Predator Led Not by the Mormon Holy Ghost but by Lunar Eclipses to Frighten His Victims Into Compliance--
In February of 1504, it was Columbus’ knowledge of lunar astronomy, not his supposed guidance by the Mormon Holy Ghost, that helped him continue his raping, pillaging and oppression in his not-so-new "New World."
As writer John Stanley reports of the circumstances facing Columbus at that time:
“[In] February 1504 . . . Christopher Columbus was in a bad way. In the course of his fourth visit to the New World, badly leaking ships left him stranded on what is now Jamaica. The inhabitants, initially hospitable, had grown hostile at the crew's transgressions and had threatened to cut off the crew's food supply.
“While consulting his ephemeredes--charts that give the positions of astronomical objects at given times--Columbus realized that astronomers had predicted that a lunar eclipse would be visible in a couple of days.
“The day before the eclipse, he told the local leaders that if they didn't change their minds, the moon would disappear from the sky. They scoffed, but after the eclipse occurred, as predicted on Feb. 29, they relented.
“Four months later, Columbus and his crew were rescued. He returned to Spain in November, never to return to the New World.
"’The story sounds too good to be true,’ said Alan MacRobert, a senior editor at 'Sky & Telescope' magazine. ‘But it really happened.’’”
(“How a Lunar Eclipse Helped Columbus' Crew Avoid Hunger,” by John Stanley, “Arizona Republic,” 20 December 2010, at:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/12/20/20101220lunar-total-eclipse.html)
*****
--Christopher Columbus: Inspired by the Mormon God to "Discover" Mormon America?--
The historical record emphatically disproves that quaint and cruel LDS notion--but what do you expect from a Mormon Church that, as a matter of fundamental belief and practice, denies history?
Edited 16 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2011 05:09AM by steve benson.