-Caveat Lector-
The white Americans who write our history have made it bunk. Denying the
holocaust perpetrated upon the Indians of North and South America is akin to
denying that of the Nazis. America's history is bunk and will continue to
be so until we are willing as a nation and as a people to face its darker
truths. As long as we choose to believe lies, those in power will continue
to lie to us, with impunity.
>From the Rachel Environmental Newsletter:
COLUMBUS DAY, 1999
This week we take time out from our series on "the meaning of
sustainability" -- or perhaps merely extend it in a new
direction -- to celebrate Columbus Day. I use "celebrate" in the
dictionary sense of "to proclaim or broadcast for the attention
of a wide public." Examining the nation's heroes may tell us
something fundamental about our goals and values. Christopher
Columbus has been a genuine American hero since at least 1792
when the Society of St. Tammany in New York City first held a
dinner to honor the man and his deeds.
Columbus Day -- first observed as a U.S. national holiday in
1892 and declared an annual day of national celebration in 1934
-- commemorates the re-discovery of North America, by
Christopher Columbus and his band of 90 adventurers, who set out
from Palos, Spain just before dawn on August 3, 1492 intending
to find Asia by crossing the Atlantic Ocean in three small
ships.
Columbus made four voyages to the New World.[1] The initial
voyage reveals several important things about the man. First, he
had genuine courage because few ship's captains had ever pointed
their prow toward the open ocean, the complete unknown.
Secondly, from numerous of his letters and reports we learn that
his overarching goal was to seize wealth that belonged to
others, even his own men, by whatever means necessary.
Columbus's royal sponsors (Ferdinand and Isabella) had promised
a lifetime pension to the first man who sighted land. A few
hours after midnight on October 12, 1492, Juan Rodriguez Bermeo,
a lookout on the Pinta, cried out -- in the bright moonlight, he
had spied land ahead. Most likely Bermeo was seeing the white
beaches of Watling Island in the Bahamas.
As they waited impatiently for dawn, Columbus let it be known
that he had spotted land several hours before Bermeo. According
to Columbus's journal of that voyage, his ships were, at the
time, traveling 10 miles per hour. To have spotted land several
hours before Bermeo, Columbus would have had to see more than 30
miles over the horizon, a physical impossibility. Nevertheless
Columbus took the lifetime pension for himself.[1,2]
Columbus installed himself as Governor of the Caribbean islands,
with headquarters on Hispaniola (the large island now shared by
Haiti and the Dominican Republic). He described the people, the
Arawaks (called by some the Tainos) this way:
"The people of this island and of all the other islands which I
have found and seen, or have not seen, all go naked, men and
women, as their mothers bore them, except that some women cover
one place only with the leaf of a plant or with a net of cotton
which they make for that purpose. They have no iron or steel or
weapons, nor are they capable of using them, although they are
well-built people of handsome stature, because they are wondrous
timid.... [T]hey are so artless and free with all they possess,
that no one would believe it without having seen it. Of anything
they have, if you ask them for it, they never say no; rather
they invite the person to share it, and show as
much love as if they were giving their hearts; and whether
the thing be of value or of small price, at once they are
content with whatever little thing of whatever kind may be
given to them."[3,pg.63;1,pg.118]
After Columbus had surveyed the Caribbean region, he returned to
Spain to prepare his invasion of the Americas. From accounts of
his second voyage, we can begin to understand what the New World
represented to Columbus and his men -- it offered them life
without limits, unbridled freedom. Columbus took the title
Admiral of the Ocean Sea and proceeded to unleash a reign of
terror unlike anything seen before or since. When he was
finished, eight million Arawaks -- virtually the entire native
population of Hispaniola -- had been exterminated by torture,
murder, forced labor, starvation, disease and despair.[3,pg.x]
A Spanish missionary, Bartolome de las Casas, described
first-hand how the Spaniards terrorized the natives.[4] Las
Casas gives numerous eye-witness accounts of repeated mass
murder and routine sadistic torture. As Barry Lopez has
accurately summarized it, "One day, in front of Las Casas, the
Spanish dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 people. 'Such
inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight,' he
says, 'as no age can parallel....' The Spanish cut off the legs
of children who ran from them. They poured people full of
boiling soap. They made bets as to who, with one sweep of his
sword, could cut a person in half. They loosed dogs that
'devoured an Indian like a hog, at first sight, in less than a
moment.' They used nursing infants for dog food."[2,pg.4] This
was not occasional violence -- it was a systematic, prolonged
campaign of brutality and sadism, a policy of torture, mass
murder, slavery and forced labor that continued for CENTURIES.
"The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and
away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the
world," writes historian David E. Stannard.[3,pg.x] Eventually
more than 100 million natives fell under European rule. Their
extermination would follow. As the natives died out, they were
replaced by slaves brought from Africa.
To make a long story short, Columbus established a pattern that
held for five centuries -- a "ruthless, angry search for
wealth," as Barry Lopez describes it. "It set a tone in the
Americas. The quest for personal possessions was to be, from the
outset, a series of raids, irresponsible and criminal, a spree,
in which an end to it -- the slaves, the timber, the pearls, the
fur, the precious ores, and, later, arable land, coal, oil, and
iron ore-- was never visible, in which an end to it had no
meaning." Indeed, there WAS no end to it, no limit.
As Hans Koning has observed, "There was no real ending to the
conquest of Latin America. It continued in remote forests and on
far mountainsides. It is still going on in our day when miners
and ranchers invade land belonging to the Amazon Indians and
armed thugs occupy Indian villages in the backwoods of Central
America."[6,pg.46] As recently as the 1980s under Presidents
Ronald Reagan and George Bush the U.S. government knowingly gave
direct aid to genocidal campaigns that killed tens of thousands
Mayan Indian people in Guatemala and elsewhere.[7] The pattern
holds.
Unfortunately, Columbus and the Spaniards were not unique. They
conquered Mexico and what is now the Southwestern U.S., with
forays into Florida, the Carolinas, even into Virginia. From
Virginia northward, the land had been taken by the English who,
if anything, had even less tolerance for the indigenous people.
As Hans Koning says, "From the beginning, the Spaniards saw the
native Americans as natural slaves, beasts of burden, part of
the loot. When working them to death was more economical than
treating them somewhat humanely, they worked them to death. The
English, on the other hand, had no use for the native peoples.
They saw them as devil worshippers, savages who were beyond
salvation by the church, and exterminating them increasingly
became accepted policy."[6,pg.14]
The British arrived in Jamestown in 1607. By 1610 the
intentional extermination of the native population was well
along. As David E. Stannard has written, "Hundreds of Indians
were killed in skirmish after skirmish. Other hundreds were
killed in successful plots of mass poisoning. They were hunted
down by dogs, 'blood-Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives
[mastiffs] to seaze them.' Their canoes and fishing weirs were
smashed, their villages and agricultural fields burned to the
ground. Indian peace offers were accepted by the English only
until their prisoners were returned; then, having lulled the
natives into false security, the colonists returned to the
attack. It was the colonists' expressed desire that the Indians
be exterminated, rooted 'out from being longer a people uppon
the face of the earth.' In a single raid the settlers destroyed
corn sufficient to feed four thousand people for a year.
Starvation and the massacre of non-combatants was becoming the
preferred British approach to dealing with the
natives."[3,pg.106]
In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey extermination was
officially promoted by a "scalp bounty" on dead Indians.
"Indeed, in many areas it [murdering Indians] became an outright
business," writes historian Ward Churchill.[5,pg.182]
Indians were defined as subhumans, lower than animals. George
Washington compared them to wolves, "beasts of prey" and called
for their total destruction.[3,pgs.119-120] Andrew Jackson --
whose portrait appears on the U.S. $20 bill today -- in 1814
"supervised the mutilation of 800 or more Creek Indian corpses
-- the bodies of men, women and children that [his troops] had
massacred -- cutting off their noses to count and preserve a
record of the dead, slicing long strips of flesh from their
bodies to tan and turn into bridle reins."[5,pg.186]
The English policy of extermination -- another name for genocide
-- grew more insistent as settlers pushed westward. In 1851 the
Governor of California officially called for the extermination
of the Indians in his state.[3,pg.144] On March 24, 1863, the
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS in Denver ran an editorial titled,
"Exterminate Them." On April 2, 1863, the SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN
advocated "extermination of the Indians."[5,pg.228] In 1867,
General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "We must act with
vindictive earnestness against the [Lakotas, known to whites as
the Sioux] even to their extermination, men, women and
children."[5,pg.240]
In 1891, Frank L. Baum (gentle author of the WIZARD OF OZ) wrote
in the ABERDEEN (KANSAS) SATURDAY PIONEER that the army should
"finish the job" by the "total annihilation" of the few
remaining Indians. The U.S. did not follow through on Baum's
macabre demand for there really was no need. By then the native
population had been reduced to 2.5% of its original numbers and
97.5% of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated and
renamed the land of the free and the home of the brave. Hundreds
upon hundreds of native tribes with unique languages, learning,
customs, and cultures had simply been erased from the face of the
earth, most often without even the pretense of justice or law.
Today we can see the remnant cultural arrogance of Christopher
Columbus and Captain John Smith shadowed in the cult of the
"global free market" which aims to eradicate indigenous cultures and
traditions world-wide, to force all peoples to adopt the ways of
the U.S. Global free trade is manifest destiny writ large.
But as Barry Lopez says, "This violent corruption needn't define
us.... We can say, yes, this happened, and we are ashamed. We
repudiate the greed. We recognize and condemn the evil. And we
see how the harm has been perpetuated. But, five hundred years
later, we intend to mean something else in the world." If we
chose, we could set limits on ourselves for once. We could
declare enough is enough. So it is always good to celebrate
Columbus on his day.
==============
[1] J.M. Cohen, editor, THE FOUR VOYAGES OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
(London: Penguin Books, 1969). ISBN 0-14-044217-0.
[2] Barry Lopez, THE REDISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA (Lexington,
Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1990. ISBN
0-8131-1742-9.
[3] David E. Stannard, AMERICAN HOLOCAUST; COLUMBUS AND THE
CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD (New York: Oxford University Press,
1992). ISBN 0-19-507581-1.
[4] Bartolome de las Casas, THE DEVASTATION OF THE INDIES: A
BRIEF ACCOUNT (translated by Herma Briffault) (Baltimore,
Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). ISBN
0-8018-4430-4.
[5] Ward Churchill, A LITTLE MATTER OF GENOCIDE; HOLOCAUST AND
DENIAL IN THE AMERICAS, 1492 TO THE PRESENT (San Francisco: City
Lights Books, 1997). ISBN 0-87286-323-9.
[6] Hans Koning, THE CONQUEST OF AMERICA; HOW THE INDIAN NATIONS
LOST THEIR CONTINENT (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1993), pg.
46. ISBN 0-85345-876-6.
[7] For example, see Mireya Navarro, "Guatemalan Army Waged
'Genocide,' New Report Finds," NEW YORK TIMES February 26, 1999,
pg. unknown. The TIMES described "torture, kidnapping and
execution of thousands of civilians" -- most of them Mayan
Indians -- a campaign to which the U.S. government contributed
"money and training." See http://www.nytimes.com/
Descriptor terms: columbus; native people, U.S.; genocide;
spain; england; indian policy;
################################################################
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=======================Electronic Edition========================
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. RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #671 .
. ---October 7, 1999--- .
. HEADLINES: .
. COLUMBUS DAY, 1999 .
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----- Original Message -----
From: Taylor, John (JH) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, October 11, 1999 5:26 AM
Subject: [CTRL] How To Make History Bunk
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> Smithsonian scalps Western values
> by Don Feder
> Wednesday, October 6, 1999
>
> By the shores of the Potomac, near the shining big-sea water, will stand
the
> contentious wigwam of the Smithsonian - its National Museum of the
American
> Indian, to be precise.
>
> Last week, while the Senate was cutting funds for the Brooklyn Museum of
Art
> for its painting of a dung-smeared Virgin Mary, a more far-reaching
assault
> on American values went largely unnoticed.
>
> Construction was begun on the Smithsonian's Indian museum on the Mall in
> Washington, D.C. The $110 million project (two-thirds paid by the
taxpayer)
> is expected to attract 6 million visitors a year.
>
> The New York Times noted that the museum ``will not only celebrate and
> display continuing tribal cultures but work to set the record straight.''
>
> The museum's director, Richard West, said the institution would be
dedicated
> to ``presenting the Indian perspective.'' By ``Indian perspective,'' West
> means the fulminations of activists who think Columbus was the father of
> genocide and the 7th Cavalry was the Nazi S.S. on horseback.
>
> To emphasize the point, those attending the ceremony sang the anthem of
the
> American Indian Movement, a militant gang best known for its terrorist
> action at the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975, which left two FBI agents
> dead.
>
> The Smithsonian has passionately embraced the multiculturalist agenda. It
> sees all of history in the reflected light of the PC trinity - race,
gender
> and class.
>
> This dogmatism was most conspicuous in a 1995 exhibit on the end of World
> War II in the Pacific and the Hiroshima bombing. The original script
> (revised after protests by veterans) described the conflict as ``a war of
> revenge against the Japanese,'' who were ``fighting to preserve their
> culture against imperialism.'' It was as if the rape of Nanking, Pearl
> Harbor, the Bataan Death March, ``comfort women'' and other atrocities by
> the Imperial Army had never happened.
>
> Even art isn't safe from the Smithsonian's revisionists. A 1991 exhibit
> (``The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier,
1820-1920'')
> was described by a writer for The Washington Post as ``reducing the saga
of
> America's Western pioneers to little more than victimization,
> disillusionment and environmental rape.''
>
> Scientists complained that the exhibit ``Science in American Life'' could
> have been scripted by the Unabomber. Joan Shields, a professor of
chemistry
> at Long Island University, called it a ``revisionist historical display of
> science as a litany of moral debacles, environmental catastrophes, social
> injustices and destruction by radiation.''
>
> The Smithsonian's latest editing of history is its book ``Timelines of the
> Ancient World - A Visual Chronology From the Origins of Life to A.D.
1500.''
> While major events in the development of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam are
> meticulously detailed, the book moves from B.C. to A.D. without
> acknowledging the birth of Jesus. The spiritual revolution wrought by the
> Jewish people is similarly ignored.
>
> The Smithsonian was established in 1846 for the ``increase and diffusion
of
> knowledge among men.'' Today, it exists to exhort. History becomes a
> self-criticism session, where the sins of the West, evils of capitalism
and
> the toxicity of the Judeo-Christian tradition are confessed and atoned.
>
> Shortly, the Smithsonian will take to the warpath again. Its National
Museum
> of the American Indian no doubt will attack the legitimacy of our founding
> and westward expansion. From Plymouth Rock to the closing of the frontier,
> it will present the ``Indian perspective.'' But you the taxpayer will get
to
> pay for it.
>
> The complex story of America's native cultures should be told without bias
> or belligerence. Instead, the museum will subject visitors to a sanitized,
> one-sided history and victim-group mythology.
>
> Will this effort to ``set the record straight'' include celebrations of
> ritual cannibalism practiced by the Mohawks and Chippewas, torture
> techniques perfected by the Apaches, the quaint custom of scalping or the
> degraded status of women in most Indian tribes?
>
> America may be the only nation in history to subsidize its own
destruction.
> When the multiculturalists, academic Marxists, perpetually aggrieved
> minorities and sensitivity Gestapo finally succeed in pulling down our
> national house, over the ruins should be erected a sign reading, ``Your
Tax
> Dollars At Work.''
>
> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
> ==========
> CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting
propagandic
> screeds are not allowed. Substance-not soapboxing! These are sordid
matters
> and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and
outright
> frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor
effects
> spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
> gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to
readers;
> be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
> nazi's need not apply.
>
> Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
> ========================================================================
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> Om
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
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To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
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