http://www.ldsliving.com/What-Latter-day-Saint-Should-Know-About-Christopher-Columbus-and-the-Restoration/s/77060

I was wondering if the church still held CC in high esteem as a most righteous man. Here is an article from the morg. 2018.

I read in wiki that CC brought home some american captives, so it wasn't all roses for the people / land he discovered.


However, I think it's silly / unfounded to blame CC for the atrocities that were later suffered by the N. American native people/first nations/indigenous americans.

wiki notes that the first Europeans to "discover America" were Norse people (men). GO Scandinavians!!

It's not unfounded. Columbus himself took part in atrocities.

I have profoundly mixed feelings about Columbus.

There is still debate about whether he, himself, was a "hidden Jew" (those Jews of the Iberian Peninsula who were forced to convert to Catholicism, but who kept their Jewish beliefs and, to some extent, their Jewish practices--hidden as well as was possible from the view of those, such as household servants, agricultural workers, and townspeople who were not Jews), there is little doubt that (at minimum) he was from Jewish forebears....and that he took special, and knowing, care to protect from harm those of his crew who were of Jewish ancestry).

On the other hand, once in the New World, Columbus and his crew began extermination efforts immediately on the natives they encountered--often in ghastly horrific ways (in my opinion, more horrific ways than what was "normally" the case during the Holocaust of World War II). (The Spaniards took what they had learned from the Spanish Inquisition, and then went even further.)

At the very moment he achieved his positive, lasting effect on world history by "discovering" the New World, he debased and shamed himself, his crew, and all Jews forever by what he chose to do to those New World human beings he was able to capture, torture, and murder.

It is a very unsettling, mixed bag of historical legacy.

where did U get info that CC was involved with 'extermination'?

I'm not sure I've heard that (or not) before...

It is in the history books--either the history of the New World books, or Jewish history books about the Jewish-related aspects of Columbus's life and achievements.

For the obvious reasons, Jews are deeply unsettled about the atrocities which went on back then, especially since Columbus was of, apparently established, Jewish heritage, and MAY have been "enough" Jewish in his life to qualify, by Jewish standards, as a "hidden Jew." Whether he actually WAS a Jew, or not, is a matter which is revisited frequently in Jewishly-written history books--with each book's "answers" coming down on one or the other side.

For me, the deciding factor was the efforts he made to protect his crew (most or all of whom were of Jewish ancestry, and possibly/probably were at that time actual "hidden Jews"--which means, if true, that each of them was in constant danger of being arrested, tortured, and murdered by the Inquisition--an event which would put their Spanish families in danger, and for the same things as well).

Thinking about Columbus gives me a literal stomach ache, and this is probably true of a great many other contemporary Jews. It's great to have a Jewish hero who will always be an integral part of human history, but what if that person was the equivalent of a 1400s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

No matter what new facts surface, the central problem never seems to change one single bit.

For Henry Abramson's (Jewish history teacher at university level) take:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7lds4afgv0



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2019 02:43PM by Tevai.

Richard the Bad Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> https://www.americanheritage.com/columbus-and-geno
> cide

An excellent article which explains many of the different factors which are important parts of the Columbus story.

Thank you for posting this, Richard the Bad!

Columbus was a tyrant... he and his crew kept good diaries and they did a lot of damage in the Indies among other areas... I just brought him up because I was always taught what an upright and godly man he was... within the last 3 or 4 years a different scenario has emerged about him and his crew... raping and pillaging seemed to be the tall order of the day for this Mormon Saint!

He was only doing that which has been done on other worlds.

could the CC story … as far as Mormonism is concerned... be kinda like the (somewhat hidden) backstory of BY, how he went off on tangents, WAS A RACIST, might have been violent against detractors, instigated the MMM....


to Mormons, we know they often twist history to fit their scenario... BY & CC weren't perfect, but what they did in their time was 'expedient' "for the building of the Kingdom", OF COURSE!

Violence against doubters or "enemies"? NO PROBLEM!!

Yeah, that fits.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2019 04:50PM by GNPE.

And being a technical nevermo, I was never taught to idolize Columbus, but as the 500th anniversary of his discovery approached, it became "politically correct" to vilify him for reasons that still leave me bemused.

Item: Columbus was not first European to discover the New World. He was, however, the last.

Item: In writing objective history, the term "presentism" cannot be over-emphasized. What that means is we must rigorously cross-examine ourselves in order to avoid projecting "modern" values and morals on people from different eras.

Item: Most of the contemporary accounts of Columbus' excesses against Native Americans can be traced to Bartolomé de las Casas,

De las Casas came to this hemisphere and was initially involved in the subjugation and genocide of Native Americans.

He changed his views in that respect, but it probably wasn't because of any great humanitarian views initially; he saw the Indians as "weak" and in need of protection; the reality that they lacked the partial immunity to European diseases the Spanish brought with them was beyond his intellectual grasp. de las Casas advocated that Africans be used as slaves instead of Native Americans.

Item: de las Casas has served "American political interests" as a "propaganda tool"; the Spanish American War comes to mind, for example. The British used him in a similar fashion centuries earlier.

Item: Columbus was an excellent sailor and a competent maritime captain. He wasn't particularly skilled as an administrator for the Spanish Crowd, but even in that area he was more a victim of the "political tides of the times," and he ran afoul of the ambitions of others who resented his "success."

History is about human beings, folks, honest.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2019 11:47AM by SL Cabbie.

Didn't the king of Spain get so fed up with CC's atrocities that he had him brought back to Spain n disgrace and stripped of all his authority?

At the time the BoM was written America was in the process of inventing itself as something other than a former British colony. They needed their own origin myth, and Columbus was their chosen Hero. So they mythologized him to the heavens (as one does with mythological persons). That's why JS included him in his book.

Someone posted a link to a horrific publication repeating long-disproven anti-Semitic lies. I'm glad it was taken down. I'd written an extensive reply, which disappeared into the aether along with the original post, but what matters is that the link was removed.

If we can't get past racist lies, and the attribution of past atrocities (true or false) to people living today, there's little hope for the world.

Things don't 'change' in Mormonism, that would show past leaders as wrong/misguided, etc. Can't have that.

Rather, they 'evolve'

It isn't just Columbus, the Mormon church is stuck with the Book of Mormon. In that same chapter (1 Nephi 13) it describes god's spirit being with Europeans who nearly destroy America's indigenous peoples while god's wrath is on those being destroyed. It is a racist version of historical events, the only scripture in the world that has this.

I disagree in part.

The Biblical account of the conquest of Palestine was similarly racist and imperialist, if that word can be used here. The story of how the Israelites moved into Canaan and slaughtered all the inhabitants was anachronistic and false. It purported to describe events in the second millennium BCE, when the Hebrews emerged from their imaginary captivity in Egypt, but the cities and towns it mentions are those of a much later period--around the time that the YHWH cult got its start. The Pentatuch history, in other words, was a road map for how Hebrews in 800-600 BCE could invade and conquer the Canaan in which they already resided.

What was the purpose of that fabrication of earlier history? To bolster the claim that there had always been an Israelite nation and that God had given Canaan/Palestine to that nation and demanded that it massacre all the non-Israelites living there. The story is clearly untrue: the Hebrews had never been in Egypt but rather were Canaanites who eventually evolved a different faith. But the fraudulent history served a purpose: it justified, even demanded, that the Jews dominate Palestine and subjugate the non-Jews. That mythology remains potent today, having been among the factors that inspired the establishment of modern Israel and still playing a major role in certain forms of Christianity in the United States and elsewhere.

That parallel does not, however, detract from your point: namely, that the BOM endorsed a racist history of the Americas--and even the world--in order to justify a contemporaneously popular American vision of God's will and Manifest Destiny. If there is a significant difference between the Israelite recreation of history and the Mormon one, it may be that whereas the latter used a false past to legitimize the status quo ca 600 BCE the Book of Mormon used a similarly manufactured continental history to celebrate what was, in the early 19th century, a continuing atrocity.

It is surely nothing to be proud of, and nothing that smiling faces and public relations efforts can erase.

Moroni could bring back the sealed portion of the BoM, Rusty could translate it, and we could celebrate today’s atrocities.

The Book of Mormon the only scripture in the world that has this concerning America's indigenous peoples. That is my point.

Yes, with regard to the Americas it is the only such account I've ever encountered. I'll bet other sects taught the same thing then (and now), but they appear not to have left "scriptures" to that effect, which would mean they are freer to disavow such racism.

I have a hard time thinking that CC was a bad man. So it's asserted by above posters that there was raping and pillaging. It's hard to say who was doing the raping and pillaging. I don't think it was CC. It was probably some reprobates on the crew.

See the trouble is that we want to attribute today's morals to those times. Like when Cortes came to the Aztec empire in early 1500s. He describes the human sacrifices and murders, the rivers of blood, it was nauseating. The Aztecs were in a far worse degraded situation than anything going on with the inquisition. The people were practically giving away their gold, just because they were white men. Manifest Destiny from Western Europe is what helped all these Indians. To say otherwise is not to fully appreciate all the good things the Spaniards and Catholics did.

Would anyone want to go back to the way things were?

What good things did the Spaniards and Catholics do?

Please start with the good things they did to the 95% of Native Americans who died from the encounter.

Ummmm. They brought Jebus! Just what they needed in time to die!

What other peoples have experienced similar enlightenment through the agents of European expansion?

Old Pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit. . .

macaRomney Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Would anyone want to go back to the way things
> were?

The problem with this statement is that "the way things WERE" is not, at this present moment--nor has it ever been (throughout recorded history)--in the past tense, but continues on--in different forms, and in different places....

....and regardless of any specific iterations, it is always human beings who are at fault.

Right now, at this moment, we know that similar activities are going on in actions related to North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Russia (regardless of the global locations where those actions take place).

This isn't a problem which is in "the past."

Until we understand the whys, the whats, and the hows, we will never be able to eliminate these CURRENT, very similar, activities from this planet.

Columbus, and the inhumane actions related to his discovery activities, is an object lesson. As we work through the history, we discover more about our current selves--and this (probably ONLY "this") can lead to an improved world for everyone in the future.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2019 04:24PM by Tevai.

It looks like there's a lot of mixing / confusion crossing CC & others; members of his voyages, later immigrants;

Can we stick with CC hisself? Oh, I guess not.

GNPE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It looks like there's a lot of mixing / confusion
> crossing CC & others; members of his voyages,
> later immigrants;
>
> Can we stick with CC hisself? Oh, I guess not.

Columbus was the commander (of the voyage, and of the subsequent "pre-colonization"), operating under the considerable legal authority of the King of Spain, and of the Queen of Spain (both of whom, as individuals, were formidable European heads of state at that time).

Unless Columbus separated himself from what those under his command did (something which never happened), he either authorized, or he condoned after the fact, everything which happened after the ships landed and Columbus took legal [according to European law] possession of those lands on behalf of the Spanish monarchs.

The conflation occurs because the legal authority was unified, and no one has ever made the case that the subordinates acted alone, without their actions (at the very least) being fully acceptable to Columbus himself, and to the Spanish heads of state.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2019 05:27PM by Tevai.

Renamed Macoroni

Never Mo here, but I HAVE seen revisionist history.

For example, Jefferson was a slave owner and overall wanted to free his slaves...until he wasn't and is just as evil as any other slave owner of his day (some revisionist historians today).

Columbus likewise was one who stood by his ideas of navigating around the world to Asia (he didn't even realize he had discovered a different location at first)...until he wasn't...(as others have said, others discovered it first).

OF course, history conveniently IGNORES the fact that for most of the rest of the World, it's prior discovery didn't really matter, they still didn't know about it until Columbus.

Some Revisionist history tends to try to hide that and other things...

...such as that Columbus wasn't even AROUND for much of the enslavement and genocide of the Natives, and when he came back he was facing full scale rebellions. He wasn't a great character in that extreme, and participated in enslavement...but to say that the Natives had blessed lives prior to him...that's ignoring what happened.

The areas were divided into factions among the natives (some of whom were cannibalistic in nature towards other factions and even Columbus's crew...which I'm sure fostered GREAT feelings of welfare and well being between the Europeans and those that ate them) who fought and killed each other.

Those in favor of Columbus lost ground to those that were against him...and in that similar aspect...it was a tribal war that the Europeans walked into...one where the Europeans eventually got VERY brutal at (after having at least one settlement of theirs entirely LOST to it).

It was brutal regardless of how you look at it. The Europeans were fighting for survival of their colonies in the New World, and the Natives were fighting in many ways against the invaders. BOTH would exterminate the other side if it meant meeting their goals.

That's conveniently ignored by many.

In a similar fashion, Cortez did NOT conquer the Aztecs...he didn't have enough men to do that. He DID foster the hostilities between the ruling factions and the lesser factions, basically supporting a revolution among the Native empire which led to a LOT of death and bloodshed...but Cortez didn't do half the killing that brought down the Aztecs. The AZTECS brought down the Aztecs...but only after Cortez encouraged, sided, and fought with the side that over threw the rulers. With the Empire in Chaos it made for FAR better pickings for Cortez afterwards. One could say he sparked a cinder to fan the flames that were already ready to explode.

Trying to put down the European explorers because it's the "in-vogue" thing to do these days is not something that I'm particularly fond of. Those who do so normally ignore the extreme and pure brutality of the civilizations that existed in the Americas at the time of the Europeans coming. Both (Europeans and Natives) were absolutely brutal in their approach...and it could be stated that the Natives were more justified in their Brutality than the Europeans in their reasons (Natives fighting for their way of life vs. that of the Europeans goals which normally was to invade and make a colony, or simply for wealth and power)...but to paint the Europeans as the only side that exercised extreme brutality is trying to rewrite history to a point where we are trying to blame ourselves solely for the excesses of the past, when in reality, there is always more to the story than simply that.

IMO.

It's NOT just a "MORMON" thing to think that Columbus, George Washington, and others that were behind the history that eventually led to the creation of the US (and other nations in the Americas) were important to our history and character of what eventually became our culture and traditions, it's something that MANY Americans from my generation and previously were taught, and in many ways STILL feel. I feel that even if they were not the Saints that many might paint them as, they were VITAL in the establishment of what eventually becomes the United States of America. Do we have a bloody and brutal past..absolutely...but painting it over because were are uncomfortable about it, or trying to paint the Natives as some utopia before we came here is not going to actually help us to learn the lessons of the past to avoid doing these same things in the future.