This guy was a serious asshole.
Christopher Columbus is known for
discovering the New World, and starting a wave of colonization.
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This is true. But he also did a
lot more than that.
Namely, killing and enslaving
thousands of Indians.
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When he arrived at Hispaniola for
the first time, he immediately seized 6 natives to be used as servants. The
Indians were very peaceful, and didn’t really know how to react to this. They
just kind of let it go, and went along with whatever he did. Columbus gained
power, and eventually became governor of the island.
When he became governor of the
island, things got bad. Really bad.
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Very quickly, he enacted policies
of forced labor, and made the Indians search for gold and work on plantations.
He shipped thousands of them back to Spain to be used as slaves.
When they began to resist his
iron rule, he slaughtered them and paraded their corpses through the streets.
Everyone was starving, disease
ridden, overworked, and dying. He didn’t care. He only cared about making
money.
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Eventually, his actions got
reported to the Spanish Court, who forced him to return home. He wasn’t
punished, and maintained his freedom. He even went back to the New World one
more time.
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Sixty years after Columbus landed
at Hispaniola, the native population had dropped from 250,000 to a few hundred.
He essentially caused genocide.
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So enjoy your day off for Columbus Day, but don’t thank this man. He was a pretty horrible person.
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