Columbus Day

The famous voyages of Christopher Columbus that we celebrate today:
On his very first encounter with the Arawak Indians in the Bahamas Columbus captured some of them by force. As they wore small earrings of gold he wanted them to show him the source of that much desired treasure. Then, on another encounter, when the Indians refused to do what he wished, two of them were run through with swords and left to bleed to death. Then on Haiti, where Columbus believed there would be gold fields, he ordered everyone older than fourteen to collect so much gold every three months. If they brought it in they were given a copper token. As there were no gold fields as such, merely bits of gold dust, the Indians could not comply. No matter, when they did not have a copper Columbus had their hands cut off and let them bleed to death. If they tried to run away they were hunted down with dogs and killed. Failing to find the gold he wanted Columbus loaded his ships with slaves to be sold in Spain (Zinn 1980:2-4).
The cutting off of hands was widespread under the Spanish, as was the cutting off of ears, the deliberate slicing of Indian flesh to test the Spanish blades, the brutal flogging of Indian slaves, rape, the killing of helpless infants, burning people alive, and brutality of all kinds too outrageous to believe (de las Casas 1971).
Columbus gave such a glowing account of the islands he had discovered that on his second voyage he was in charge of seventeen ships and twelve hundred men. Their mission was to acquire gold and slaves. Columbus had left 39 men on Hispaniola (the island that is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) to find and store gold. Upon his return he learned they had been killed by the natives, murdered because they had roamed the island taking slaves for labor and sex. Columbus sent many expeditions around the islands searching for gold. When they did not find it they filled the ships with slaves, picking the best 500 from the 1500 they had rounded up and penned. Two hundred died on the voyage to Spain. The Arawaks tried to resist but they were no match for the muskets and swords and horses of the Spanish. When the Spanish took prisoners they either burned them alive or hanged them. The Indians began mass suicides using poison made from the cassava plant. They killed their infants to save them from the Invaders. Within two years half of the original population of Haiti, 250,000 individuals, were dead. Then, when it was known there was no more gold to be taken the Indians were taken as slaves and forced to work on huge estates which became known as encomiendas. They were forced to work so hard that many thousands died. By 1515 there were perhaps 50,000 Indians left, in 1550 there were only five hundred. By 1650 there were none.
“The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties, the more cruel the better, with which to spill human blood. They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen of them at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles. When the Indians were thus still alive and hanging, the Spaniards tested their strength and their blades against them, ripping chests open with one blow and exposing entrails, and there were those who did worse. Then straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive…My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write, not believing them myself, afraid that perhaps I was dreaming. But truly, this sort of thing has happened all over the Indies, and more cruelly too sometimes, and I am quite sure that I have not forgotten” (de las Casas 1971:121).

Happy Columbus Day!

The right reverend(?) Dobson of the family whoosit something or other claimed the other day that he had knowledge of Miers that perhaps he shouldn't have had and that is why he would support her nomination to the Supreme Court. This led Arnold Specter, who is supposed to be in charge of things, to say something to the effect that if any promises were made or deals were cut in advance that would be enough to sink the nomination. And, of course, he was going to find out if any such thing transpired. If any assurances were given about how she might vote that would in effect kill the nomination. But what in hell does he think Bush has already done? Bush already said he knows what she thinks, knows her character, knows whe will not change, and that she will be a fine candidate and will be confirmed. Now, if he knows all that about her, do you think he means she will vote against his wishes (she has stated already she believes he is the most brilliant man she ever knew). Of all the words I can think of to describe George W. Bush, brilliant is not among them. Not even last. Not at all. Bush has basically assured his base that she will vote the way they want her to but they are still not satisfied. Interesting that even his base no longer believes him (how could anyone believe him). I guess they think Miers can be moved to the left, in spite of her switch from Catholicism to Evangelical Christian. If someone had written this as a screenplay it would have been considered so absurd as to be immediately tossed in the garbage. If Bush can pull this off he deserves to be described as brilliant and the rest of us can be described as stupid beyond belief.

To think, I used to believe in reality.