The left has to believe that everyone and everything about this country is evil to keep up their false narrative.

“They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells, They willingly traded everything they owned … They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features …They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron …They would make fine servants … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus, first voyage, making his real intentions known

You sure did do a whole lot of cut and paste and paraphrasing from Columbus's journal didn't you? Or did you just copy that from Progressive.org?

Here. Read his journal. Read how he was telling the king that he didn't need to subjugate them by force because the people were so very willing to please them. The natives believed they were from heaven. Then Columbus told the king that if you have to you can send 50 men.

https://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/01-col.html

I know you love America. It is not Columbus' fault for what happened after he was dead.

It's like the guy in Brazil who hybridized the African honey bee and European honey bee. It was not his fault that a hive escaped and now "Africanized" honey bees have been killing people and animals all over South, Central and North America.

All Columbus wanted to do was find a quicker route to India. All the guy who created "killer bees" did was try to create a bee that produces more honey.

The left has been accusing Columbus of some horrible things. None of which are true. Columbus was a devout Catholic. He instructed his men to do no harm to the indigenous people. He thought he was dealing with Indians and he wanted to establish trade with them. You cannot do that if you and your men kill and rape the people you are trying to establish trade with.

The left only knows how to hate and are not interested in the truth. Not everyone on the left but for those in political power it is 100% who believe the lies.

"I agree, but wouldn't that same logic apply to the people who worked on Covid in the lab in China, where it escaped from?"

Yes. But what if it's release was intentional?

"Yes, but that's no excuse for what he personally did to native people"

He did nothing horrible to the native people other than killing some cannibals who had been eating the indigenous people whom Columbus had established trade with.

"How do you know none of them are true?"

There were records kept by many of his crew and by those who worked with him after he was made governor.

"It's a known fact of history that Spanish Catholics did do some pretty horrible things to native people in California and the Southwest, Central America, South America, etc."

Yes, that is true. But that does not mean that Columbus was one of them. Plus Columbus was Italian and not Spanish. The horrible things that happened are inexcusable and reflect poorly on Christianity.

However, it should not imply that ALL Catholics and other Christians behaved in a similar manner. Most people actually listened to the messages that Jesus taught, even if the Church was drunk with power and did not.

"The Wikipedia article does mention that he was reluctant to convert the native people to Catholicism, because then he wouldn't be able to justify exploiting them for labor, and that upset some of the Catholics in his group. If that's true, then that's horrible."

Wikipedia is wrong. This is not the first time they've been wrong. They have a very left leaning bias and always have. It is the left who has promoted this revisionist history that paints Columbus as a bad man.

"Not even close to everyone on the left"

I wish that was true but it certainly doesn't appear that way from where I and many other conservatives are sitting.

Cristobal Colon was arrested after his thrird voyage for mistreatment of Spanish settlers and Tainos, the latter subject to getting worked to death in mines, getting their hands cut off and their tongues as well simply for speaking disrespectfully of him.
His gallant crew raped and killed Tainos early on - 'justified' because they weren't Christians, not that conversion protected them either.

What planet are you from?

And was he prosecuted for those charges? No. He disputed them. You see there is more to the story then what Howard Zinn lied to you about.

The charges were brought up by Francisco Bobadilla, was Columbus' chief rival for governorship. It was Bobadilla who wrote of Columbus' mistreatment of his men and the indigenous people so that he could have Columbus' job.

What Zinn failed to do (because he was an blithering idiot) was to include the testimonies and documents of EVERYONE ELSE WHO KNEW COLUMBUS in his screed against the man.

Zinn is the greatest source of hatred of all things good about America that the left just eats up so very willingly and without question. So of course you would make your comment because you also hate America and everything good about this nation.

"These people are very unskilled in arms. … With 50 men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished." -- Christopher Columbus, journal, 1492

This is typical of the left. They read a passage that does not say what they want so they change it to make it say what they want. I've seen this done many times by leftists.

"...although I do not see this to be necessary since these people are very naive about weapons, as Your Highnesses will see from seven that I caused to be taken in order to carry them away to you and to learn our language and to return them. Except that, whenever Your Highnesses may command, all of them can be taken to Castile or held captive in this same island; because with 50 men all of them could be held in subjection and can be made to do whatever one might wish."

And if you read what Columbus wrote before and after this section of his journal he explains to the king of the generosity of the natives. They think that Columbus and his men are from heaven and they are more than willing to do anything they ask of them.

Columbus said that you don't have to coerce the natives, by force, they will comply on their own but if you have to then all you need is 50 men. He was making a report to the king.

https://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/01-col.html

Except Christopher Columbus DID impose slavery on the natives, and his journal reflects his early thoughts about doing so.

"They should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly everything that is said to them; and I believe that they would become Christians very easily, for it seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Lord pleasing, at the time of my departure I will take six of them from here to Your Highnesses in order that they may learn to speak..."

The problem with the journal is that it is only what Columbus told the king. We don't know from the journals what the king asked Columbus.

I would tend to believe that for Columbus to bring up the question of slavery in his journal it was only because the king asked about it. Just as the king most likely asked about conversion to Christianity.

No, he did not impose slavery but he did talk about it with the king.

I know it is more convenient to believe that many of the great men of history who lead to the founding of this nation were evil. It makes it easier to destroy what was once the freest nation on the planet and replace it with your tyranny.

“ In an era in which the international slave trade was starting to grow, Columbus and his men enslaved many native inhabitants of the West Indies and subjected them to extreme violence and brutality.”

“ On his first day in the New World, he ordered six of the natives to be seized, writing in his journal that he believed they would be good servants. Throughout his years in the New World, Columbus enacted policies of forced labor in which natives were put to work for the sake of profits. Later, Columbus sent thousands of peaceful Taino “Indians” from the island of Hispaniola to Spain to be sold. Many died en route.”

https://www.history.com/news/columbus-day-controversy

It’s a shame people like you only get your history from college dropouts like Rush Limbaugh, and not actual historians.

I’m also not looking to establish tyranny. Not from the left, nor from the right. I want everyone set free. Unlike Christopher Columbus, I won’t enslave indigenous or force Christianity upon them, I will demand institutions like the state and the church be abolished and the days of colonial terror be a thing of the past.

"Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dealt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? Wars in which you have destroyed such an infinite number of them by homicides and slaughters never heard of before. Why do you keep them so oppressed and exhausted, without giving them enough to eat or curing them of the sicknesses they incur from the excessive labor you give them, and they die, or rather you kill them, in order to extract and acquire gold every day."

Friar Antonio de Montesinos

These comments were NOT directed at Columbus. Columbus died in 1506 and Montesinos delivered this sermon in 1511.

These comments were directed at the Spaniards living in Hispaniola AFTER Columbus was long gone from Hispaniola and after Columbus had died. Not to mention Montesinos was accusing Spaniards of committing these crimes, Columbus was Italian.

The accusatons were directed at him in Spain.

Oh, and Cristobal Colon - who was never witnessed to have read, written, or spoken a single word of Italian - was Spanish, hence the name.

How would you know anything about Columbus. You can't read more than 3 words without your brain melting. You can type a whole bunch of nonsense.

That is why you are so utterly and completely wrong about Columbus.

Columbus is believed to have grown up speaking a Genoese dialect because he was born in the Republic of Genoa on the northwest coast of where..... wait for it.... wait for it.....Italy. Columbus learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian.

His birth name was Cristoffa Corombo. His name in Italian was Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.

In the event that you might be able to get past more than just 2 words just read what Wikipedia says about him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

Retard, shut up.

Columbus set all that in motion. He was as responsible as anybody.

So are you saying that if you rob a bank and murder 5 people in the process then your parents should go do prison for what you did?

What kind of drugs are you on, moron?

Originally I had replied with another insult but I have decided that this has to stop and I deleted that comment. You might enjoy this banter but I don't. I'm tired of it and so no more insults.

I apologize for everything thing that I have said in the past that may or may not have caused emotional harm to you.

From now on I will not say another derogatory or insulting thing to you.

I didn't say that at all.

Ahh, so you're saying that Pteradactyls stole your Twinkies so no one else can have them while singing Helter Skelter backwards and causing you to nap all day instead of paying your credit card bills which they used as napkins?

Yes you did. You want to blame Columbus for the bad things that were done after him.

I mean if you really want to extrapolate it out that way then the next time you stub your toe you can blame it on Columbus. Because Columbus set in motion the means by which your ancestors came to America and eventually you were born. Had that never happened then you would have been born in probably Europe and so you would never have been in America and neither would that couch and you would not have stubbed your toe.