psilocybindude
Well-Known Member
In 1492, Christopher Columbus didn't arrive in America, shake off his boots and jump for joy at the sight of Indians as the little song suggests. In 1492, Columbus reached what is now known as the Bahamas, eventually arriving in Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
There, Columbus met people known as the Arawaks, Tainos and Lucayans--all friendly according to the explorer's writings.
When the Arawaks assisted Columbus in repairing the shipwrecked Santa Maria, he realized these hospitable people would do pretty much anything he wanted, including surrendering their land. An empire soon followed.
Seizing the land for Spain, Columbus took the Arawaks as slaves, putting most of them to work in newly "discovered" gold mines. Within a year or two, more than 120,000 Arawaks died in the mines or were murdered by the man America honors every October.
Oh, don't forget that Columbus, and the Catholic Church, led millions to believe the mission was to covert native people to Christianity.
A story which will likely never make into into Little Jimmy's history books involves the year 1500. These events were so poignant, Columbus chronicled them so nobody would forget, writing: "A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."
You guessed it. Columbus also dabbled in the flesh trade, selling girls as young as 9 as sex slaves. Women who were not sold as sexual servants worked in extreme conditions until hundreds dropped dead of exhaustion. Others committed suicide.
http://www.examiner.com/article/christopher-columbus-the-murderous-truth
...shit...talk about taking things too seriously. whew.
