• eddstarr88
    • 1 month 25 days ago
    • Posts: 6883
    		 By vote of the Seattle City Council, Columbus Day will be replaced by Indigenous Peoples' Day on October 13, 2014. This is not a new idea, the move away from Columbus Day is gaining traction in several states.

    To some members of the Seattle City Council, Christopher Columbus is not someone to honor. The truth is Columbus Day has never had the significance in the Pacific Northwest it has in older parts of the United States.

    Personally I find this all a little silly.

    The United States has plenty of room on the calendar for additional holidays to honor all sorts of events and people. I say make a new holiday or have Indigenous Peoples' Day as the third Monday in October.

    And does anyone remember 2008 when the day after Thanksgiving officially became Native American Heritage Day? We can afford other days as well to honor the first Americans.

    Trashing Christopher Columbus seems so trivial to me.
    The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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    • bassman21
      • 1 month 25 days ago
      • Posts: 4553
      		 There are a lot of myths about Columbus being spread. They all come from a couple of books written by anti American Liberals that had "new details" that painted Columbus as a horrible person. These accusations are refuted in 100s of other books and documents before Indian activist groups pushed for these changes in history. Some of his noble actions are taken out of context and some are just flat out lies. Many facts today are omitted because they paint the Indigenous people in a negative light. They destroyed La Navidad (a fort Columbus established) and murdered several of the settlers Columbus had left behind a year or so before. As payback Columbus ordered the Taino people to hand over gold or spun cotton. If they didn't deliver he killed them by cutting of their arms. He shipped around 500 of them to Europe where they were used as slaves, several died on the way from disease. Columbus never received any money for them. As for disease and there being some type of conspiracy. In the 1400 they had absolutely no understanding of disease or how it was spread. Sanitation back then was horrible and death by disease was a problem for everyone. It was worst for the Indigenous people because they had no immunity.

      So the Seattle City Council are a bunch of idiots buying into this. Yes Columbus was brutal to those that stole and murdered, but he wasn't the cold blooded, slave master people are making him out to be.
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      • vkimo
        • 1 month 25 days ago
        • Posts: 2321
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        		 I'm currently reading A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn which I'm pretty sure is one of the books Bassman is referring to. I wasn't there in 1492 but I'm pretty sure with all the pressure from Spain, Columbus didn't hesitate in plundering.

        I think the name change is kind of silly and the new holiday sounds absurd. Am I supposed to hug a Native American on that day? But in all seriousness Native Americans, no matter how you slice it, got screwed a thousand times over thanks to the discovery of America.
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        • eddstarr88
          • 1 month 25 days ago
          • Posts: 6883
          		 Some members of the City Council said some awful things about Columbus. Renaming a holiday is of little value and most people in Seattle want to create new ways to honor the 1st people of America.
          The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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          • Derk
            • 1 month 24 days ago
            • Posts: 1469
            vkimo wrote:
            But in all seriousness Native Americans, no matter how you slice it, got screwed a thousand times over thanks to the discovery of America.

            Most definitely. Celebrating someone like Christopher Columbus is (to me) pretty gross. I'd rather not eliminate the day in general due to it being a holiday, but I think you could find a lot more people that deserve the praise more.
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            • bassman21
              • 1 month 24 days ago
              • Posts: 4553
              		 You guys are right, Columbus wasn't a great guy and the white man in general had many flaws. However the Indians were not that great either. I used to believe all this propaganda until I did my own research.

              We are lead to beleive that the Indians lives in a utobia before the white man came along and stole their land. That they were nice to the settlers and the evil Europeans just started exterminating them for no reason. The reliability is the Indians were very primitive and were constantly at war with other tribes. Their quality of life was very poor. Many of the deaths of Indians were not from European settlers, but other Indians and sickness. White settlers were also not met at shore with gifts. They never wanted them around much like people today don't want outsider moving into their neighborhoods.

              The truth is there was some very savage tribes that drew first blood. Eventually they went at war with each other. While many Indians were slaughtered, many whites including women and children were too. There are many stories of Indians killing whole families for no reason other than because they were not them. Many tribes were also known to torture and even sometimes eat those they captured (look up Iroquois tribe). It was horrible on both side. People like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson saw them much like we see Isis today and they had reason to based on their experience. It was a war the the Indians lost.

              There is much more to be told. I recommend checking out some older books before the truth started being censored. Like all history this is debatable, but it's pretty clear from my research that the Indians were far from peaceful.
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              • Derk
                • 1 month 24 days ago
                • Posts: 1469
                		 Yeah, that whole Native American genocide thing was just a tool to hold the poor white man down.

                I mean, it's not like they were forced to relocate and embark on some sort of 'Trail of Tears' or anything.

                ...Oh.
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                • ebola chan
                  • 1 month 24 days ago
                  • Posts: 2
                  		 Who cares?
                  As long as I get the day off lol
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                  • bassman21
                    • 1 month 24 days ago
                    • Posts: 4553
                    Derk wrote:
                    Yeah, that whole Native American genocide thing was just a tool to hold the poor white man down.

                    I mean, it's not like they were forced to relocate and embark on some sort of 'Trail of Tears' or anything.

                    ...Oh.

                    You're missing my point. The reason for those things was because of wars between them. They saw all Indians the same (as the enemy). You remember how narrow minded people were 20 years ago? Imagine 500+ years ago. It was a different time and a different mindset. Also there was no genocide against the Indians. I could find no reliable documentation that the Indians were systematically murdered. There were some invasions where they lived, but again this was part of war (retaliation). Finally the actions of a few should not be held against a whole country and again actions like the Trail of Tears had nothing to do with Columbus.

                    ebola chan wrote:
                    Who cares?
                    As long as I get the day off lol


                    Here in Texas only a few schools give the day off and it's usually a teacher in-service day for the ones that do. The none federal government employees here don't get paid for it. It's pretty much business as usual.
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                    • eddstarr88
                      • 1 month 24 days ago
                      • Posts: 6883
                      		 Yes, it looks like a lot of people are taking another look at Columbus and our common history as well.

                      I still prefer the creation of more holidays to honor the original Americans. The country would benefit from more days off . . . like I need encouragement, lol.
                      The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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                      • stake n sheak
                        • 1 month 21 days ago
                        • Posts: 1769
                        		 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/aug/07/books.spain

                        "Christopher Columbus...was a greedy and vindictive tyrant who saved some of his most violent punishments for his own followers, according to a document uncovered by Spanish historians."
                        tangspot2 wrote:
                        Mrs. stake you say some nasty on my threads. Dirty bitch
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                        • vkimo
                          • 1 month 21 days ago
                          • Posts: 2321
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                          		 I just don't see how entire books can be written defending him and others condemning him.
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                          • bassman21
                            • 1 month 20 days ago
                            • Posts: 4553
                            		 The problem is when people look at history they look at it through the mindset of the 21st century.

                            His punishments on his own people has been well know for a long time and was common during that period of time
                            .
                            Like I said he wasn't a great guy, but still accomplished some great things. He lived shortly after the Middle Ages and people as a whole were pretty brutal back then.

                            If this time period was about to end and I had a choice of traveling back in time to the 1400s or dying, I would take death.
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                            • stake n sheak
                              • 1 month 20 days ago
                              • Posts: 1769
                              		 Yeah, I have read about the insane punishments they used to do in the dark ages...I don't know, I get relativism but it's still a little problematic. I think people point to Columbus as an asshole because of the extended effect of his actions, like the way US treated native americans all the way up til what, the 1930s? And even right now, everybody can't agree that what's basically blackface depiction for NAs is demeaning. I think the renaming Columbus Day movement is about recognizing that that stuff isn't right, more than it is just about one guy. (As much as it is specifically about Columbus is to say that he does not deserve a day just for him.) Regardless of how people felt then. Like turning the firehose on people or lynching them, sure the mindset at the time said that was OK to do to black people, but really now.
                              tangspot2 wrote:
                              Mrs. stake you say some nasty on my threads. Dirty bitch
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                              • eddstarr88
                                • 1 month 20 days ago
                                • Posts: 6883
                                		 I don't remember learning much about Columbus in grade school, just that he discovered America.

                                You guys have told me more about Columbus than I knew even 10 years ago. If you think about it, a lot of people have taken a second look at history just in this century. And beyond Columbus too.
                                The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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                                • foxfan
                                  • 1 month 10 days ago
                                  • Posts: 45
                                  • Globally Banned
                                  		 Yes
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                                  • Dyzfunk7ional
                                    • 1 month 8 days ago
                                    • Posts: 3942
                                    bassman21 wrote:
                                    The problem is when people look at history they look at it through the mindset of the 21st century.


                                    I absolutely agree. This mostly happens for instance when talking about Dark Age/Middle Age Europe. I cringe whenever I heard about all people been filthy/same shaggy colorless clothing/mindless brutes and last but not least Vikings wearing horns.
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                                    • Derk
                                      • 1 month 8 days ago
                                      • Posts: 1469
                                      stake n sheak wrote:
                                      Yeah, I have read about the insane punishments they used to do in the dark ages...I don't know, I get relativism but it's still a little problematic. I think people point to Columbus as an asshole because of the extended effect of his actions, like the way US treated native americans all the way up til what, the 1930s? And even right now, everybody can't agree that what's basically blackface depiction for NAs is demeaning. I think the renaming Columbus Day movement is about recognizing that that stuff isn't right, more than it is just about one guy. (As much as it is specifically about Columbus is to say that he does not deserve a day just for him.) Regardless of how people felt then. Like turning the firehose on people or lynching them, sure the mindset at the time said that was OK to do to black people, but really now.

                                      Let's just be honest here: This is the best post in this thread.
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                                      • eddstarr88
                                        • 1 month 6 days ago
                                        • Posts: 6883
                                        		 Let me state for the record, I spent Indigenous Peoples' Day/Columbus Day, (October 13th), being completely indigenous. Even now I am indigenous and I will remain so for a lifetime, cuz Eddie is a native-born All American.

                                        My complements to America and all the peoples of Planet Earth.
                                        The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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