“With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
in journal
so said columbus, on meeting the arawak indians. how disgraceful that this man, and what he began, is celebrated all over the u.s. today. it shows a lot of what this country stands for. ugh.
“..But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, 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.” – an excerpt from howard zinn’s a people’s history of the united states
~ first-hand account by bartolome de las casas, from a short account of the destruction of the indies
~ history not taught is history forgot: columbus’ legacy of genocide, an excerpt from the book indians are us by ward churchill.
~ the truth about columbus by james loewen, available as a pdf
~ many more links on this page
it makes me angry that my little nieces and nephew are still being taught the idiotic “in 1492, columbus sailed the ocean blue..” blah blah, perpetuating the lies and brain washing that’s been going on for centuries. you better believe i’m going to be reading them other histories all together when i get back.
“…so we have to ask the very simple question: why does the holiday even exist? And it exists in part to advance a national ideology of celebrating invasion, conquest and colonialism.” – from a recent democracy now! segment
