re: columbusday protest
cscheiner@igc.org
Mon, 30 Sep 1991 17:58:00 PDT
For those who haven't the time (or yet developed the interest) to read
several entire books, I highly recommend the first chapter (about 20 pages)
of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." Zinn points
out that Columbus's people, from their base in Haiti, began exploring the
interior in 1495. "They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships
returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495 they went on
a great slave raid, rounded up 1500 Arawak men, women, and children, put
them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the 500 best specimens
to load onto ships. Of those 500, 200 died en route", and the rest were
sold into slavery in Spain. "Columbus later wrote: 'Let us in the name of
the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.'"
Zinn continues to describe how the 250,000 people living in Haiti were killed,
more than half within two years, "through murder, mutilitation, or suicide."
By 1515 there were perhaps 50,000 Indians left, by 1550 500, and none by 1650.
So, it didn't take very long for the European invasion to set a pattern of
slavery and genocide, and Columbus bears more personal responsibility than
being the mere symbol of the invasion. Of course, his atrocities don't
exonerate those who came later; they're part of a pattern which began earlier
in Spain (the inquisition, crusades, etc) and continues to this day.
........ Charlie Scheiner