Christopher Columbus’ Treatment of Women
Today is Columbus Day here in the US. I can’t help but wonder, though, why we continue to celebrate it. Columbus did not discover the North American continent. In fact, he never even set foot on it. The closest he came to it was the islands of the Bahamas. At most, he managed to land on islands that were already “discovered” and inhabited, and proceeded with his own agenda of genocide in the name of his king and queen. Are we Americans so entrenched in our own delusion of superiority that we will continue to celebrate a mass murderer, rapist, and child abuser who never even set foot on our own soil? We may as well celebrate Jim Jones for leading 900 people to commit suicide. At least the adults in his cult had a choice.
On Columbus’ first two voyages, there were no women on board the ships. It does not take much imagination to guess what happened when these hardened men landed. Women were enslaved and used for sex. Columbus rewarded his officers for good deeds by giving them local women to rape. On his third trip, Columbus did recruit one woman for every ten men. But you can bet the other nine men were not celibate.
On each of his voyages, Christopher Columbus rounded up hundreds of men, women and children from the islands and shipped them back to Spain for the slave markets. It is estimated that by the end of his travels, he had enslaved 1,400 indigenous people and shipped them to Spain. Many of those died on the way.
There are at least 19 places in the Western Hemisphere named for Christopher Columbus. Perhaps instead of celebrating Columbus Day, you could visit Columbus, Ohio, and hold a seance with the weeping Lady in Gray.
Image from Transform Columbus Day Alliance.
Columbus Day, protest Columbus, Christopher Columbus, women
October 8th, 2007 at 11:22 am
For the reasons why we should celebrate Columbus Day, you may want to consider the following article:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_columbus
Do we really want to celebrate the kind of women’s rights practiced by “indigenous” people like the Aztecs?
October 8th, 2007 at 11:35 am
It is not an either-or choice. Celebration of the torture of women is never okay. Only if they begin teaching ALL of Columbus’ legacy to our children can a rational reflection on our heritage be made. My son’s 5th grade history book mentions nothing about Columbus’ enslavement, torture, and genocide. They do, however, teach about the Native American uprisings against the Europeans. I don’t believe a distorted view of history should ever be celebrated.
October 8th, 2007 at 11:53 am
I think the problem is that when they do teach about how horrible Columbus was, they don’t teach about how horrible the natives could be. We need to have a complete history teaching how horrible everyone was equally.
October 8th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I’m glad we agree on the fact that we shouldn’t celebrate the torture of women.
But, to say that we are celebrating Columbus Day to honor the torture of women is like saying we’re celebrating Washington’s Birthday to honor wooden teeth. It is missing the point of both the reason for the celebration and the reason why “multiculturalists” would have us feel guilty about it.
Neither the European culture or the indigenous cultures of the time were fault free, but the European culture - with its greater emphasis on reason, science and individual rights - was demonstrably better.
October 9th, 2007 at 2:12 am
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