Every year in October, Columbus Day is celebrated in several countries
in The Americas as well as in Spain and Italy. However, in more recent decades there’s
been increasing opposition to Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
According to the Left’s narrative, Christopher Columbus arrival in the New
World marked the beginning of one the largest genocides in human history. But
was it really? The major problem with this assertion is that the vast majority of
natives, some 75 to 95 percent, were killed by Old World diseases to which they
had no immunity. While no less a tragedy, it does not qualify as a genocide. A
genocide requires a calculated deliberate intent to exterminate a whole group
of people. The Europeans were unaware that the natives had no immunity to Old
World diseases, let alone how infectious diseases even worked. Germ Theory was
not fully understood until the late nineteenth century. It should also be noted
that in the United States, at least, there was never a government policy for extermination.
On the contrary, you don’t set up reservations and inoculate the people you are
trying to exterminate.
With the call to abolish Columbus Day in favor Indigenous People’s Day,
there is an implication that Native Americans are more virtuous, deserving, and
noble than their European counterparts. But is that true? The Left tends to
romanticize Native Americans when highlighting acts of barbarism committed by Europeans.
It’s true there were atrocities done to Native Americans, but that is only one
side of the story. Guess what? Nothing the Europeans did was any different from
what the natives themselves did. For instance, Native Americans conquered and
enslaved other native peoples. Slavery was widely practiced in pre-Columbian
America, just as it was universally practiced everywhere at the time. According
to the Standard Cross-Cultural Files, at least thirty-nine pre-Columbian societies
in North America alone practiced slavery, and it was no different from slavery practiced
elsewhere. Indian slave masters had complete control to kill their slaves if
they desired. A little known fact is that in the nineteenth century Native
Americas also began to acquire black slaves. In fact, the Cherokee Indians took
a number of black slaves with them when they were forcibly relocated to
Oklahoma “Indian” Territory. In short, Native Americans had the same sins and vices
as the Europeans, and even some they didn’t have. None more highlights this than
the Aztec Indians.
The Aztecs had an occultic bloodlust that was unparalleled. Some
historians estimate the Aztecs ritually sacrificed 50,000 people per year in a
population area of four to five million. That equates to sacrificing one percent
of their total population annually. These people were usually captives taken
from neighboring Indian tribes. The manner in which these human sacrifices were
done were particularly barbaric. Captives were taken to the top of a temple and
laid upon a stone slab. The priest would then take a knife, plunge it into
their chest, and pull out their still-beating heart. The bodies would then be
dismembered, the torso kicked down the temple steps, and the limbs eaten. Their
heads would be placed on a pole, and their skulls kept as trophies. Bernal Díaz
del Castillo, who accompanied Cortés, witnessed more than one hundred thousand
skulls stacked meticulously on top of each other, to which Aztec texts, frescoes,
and archeology have confirmed. Most of the victims were men, but women and
children were also sacrificed. Women would also have their hearts ripped out,
but more often they were slowly beheaded and then skinned. The priests would
often wear the skins while the sacrifices continued. In one event, during the
coronation of a new temple, an estimated 20,000 to 80,000 people were
sacrificed over a four-day period.
After the arrival of the Spanish and the ensuing conflicts, the Spanish
witnessed some of their own being taken captive by the Aztecs. The Spanish
prisoners were stripped naked, brought to the temple, and forced to dance naked
for an hour. Afterwards, the Aztec high priest sacrificed them alive, ripped
out their hearts and dismembered them. Up until that point the Spanish had been
fairly mercifully towards the Aztecs, but after witnessing those horrific events
the gloves came off. When Cortés finally conquered the Aztecs, much of the
slaughter that ensued was done by their Indian allies who hated the Aztecs. Say
what you will about the conquistadors, but not even the worst among them
engaged in human sacrifice and cannibalism. If there ever were a civilization
that deserved to be conquered, it was the Aztecs. The Aztecs were not alone
when it came to human sacrifice. The Mayans, Incas, and other tribes also
practiced cannibalism and human sacrifice, including sacrificing children and
infants.
When Columbus discovered The Americas he encountered good natives, but
he also encountered bad natives. Upon his second trip to The Americans, he
encountered the Caribs (from which the word “cannibal” is derived, as in
Caribbean). According to historian Samuel Eliot Morison, in deserted huts the
Spaniards found human limbs and cuts of human flesh partly consumed, as well as
young boys who were being fattened to eat. The French explorer Florentine
Giovanni da Verrazzano was said to have been eaten on the beaches of Guadeloupe
by Caribs while his companions looked on from their ship in horror.
To preface, not all Native Americans were cannibals and practiced human
sacrifice. There were good and bad natives just like there are good and bad
people in every society. The purpose of this article is not to vilify Native
Americans, but to point out the one-sided arguments made by the Left. They paint
with a broad bush when vilifying Europeans of that era. Meanwhile, they ignore
atrocities committed by the Native Americans themselves. Not once will you hear
about the genocides committed by the Aztecs or a condemnation of the Mayans for
their human sacrifices. These details do not fit their narratives. Nor will you
hear about attacks upon white civilian settlers. During Pontiac’s War, for example,
Indian warriors entered a schoolhouse, killed the schoolmaster then tomahawked
and scalped eight children. Contrary to popular belief, Europeans did not teach
scalping to the Native Americans. Archeological evidence indicates that
scalping existed in pre-Columbian America.
Ultimately, the attack on Columbus Day is by association an attack on
Western civilization. But rather anyone likes it or not, Columbus did discover
America and it did change the course of world history. Ignoring this fact will
not change events, nor does it make it any less of an historic event. But let’s
suppose Columbus never discovered America. It would be naïve to believe it
would remain undiscovered forever. Sooner or later it would be discovered, if
not by the Europeans then by somebody else, probably the Chinese. And the
outcome would have been the same. The Native Americans would still have died by
the scores from diseases which they had no immunity to, there still would have
been conflicts, and they still would have lost. It is an unfortunate outcome,
but a predicable one. When a more technologically advanced civilization comes
into contact with a primitive stone-aged civilization, it never fares well for
the latter.
