Started this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain on a mission to discover a new trade route to what was known back then as the Far East (India and China). He would land in what are known today as the Bahamas and what they, the Europeans would call the "New World".
Now being part Native American I do not look upon this day or the actual holiday celebrated as Columbus Day (12 October) as a good thing. Anyone that knows the real truth about "American" history knows that there was a flourishing civilization here in the America's (both North and South) that did not need "Discovery". In North America alone it is estimated that there were between 5 and 20 million Natives liveing here when Columbus stepped ashore on El Salvador (here is a link that tries to explain the large split in numbers). In a short 308 years that population would be as few as only 260,000.
That's right, an actual Genocide occurred here in the "New World" at the hands of the many Europeans that would come here. Now to be fair, not all of this was the evil killing of those who would not convert to Christianity (and there was plenty of that) or even those who would not leave a particularly nice area and were killed off for those lands (re. the Pequot War). No the majority were killed by disease brought here from the "Old World" that the Natives had no immunity to. Measles, Influenza, Small Pox, Whooping Cough, bubonic plague and several others did the dirty work but end result was the same.
The few to survive the genocide today live in abject poverty; they have been completely debased having no power to speak of and a future as bleak as the last 200 years have been.
And "they" celebrate the arrival as if it was a good thing. Not me.
BT: Jimmy T sends.
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