Why Do We Teach Our Kids That Columbus Discovered America?

This.

Fuck it if they fail a flawed question on a test too... they'll def be hearing from me then.

 

^mhm!

 

Just wondering: Is this mainly about the hero thing or that he did discover America? Because he did the latter wether we like it or not He just wasn't the first one..

 

More about the genocide, rape, and all the other reasons this guy shouldn't be celebrated as a hero.

 

I'm not sure he raped people himself. But yeah, he did exploit a lot of natives until they died. I just hope when kids get told he's not a hero (which seems ok ) they don't get some distorted picture of Columbus in comparison to his peers as he was most likely not exceptionally worse than them. I do understand the urge to set the picture that seems to be painted of him straight if your kids get indoctrinated with such a thing as heroism.

 

In addition to putting the Natives to work as slaves in his gold mines, Columbus also sold sex slaves to his men—some as young as 9. Columbus and his men also raided villages for sex and sport.
In the year 1500, Columbus wrote: “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.”
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/10/14/8-myths-and-atrocities-about-christopher-columbus-and-columbus-day-151653

How's being the leader of an organized serial raping spree, any different from being an actual rapist?

 

One question still remains,


As children, we've all been taught Columbus is the hero who proved the world was round, discovered America, and was the first person to make contact between the old and new worlds.
Yet as we grew older, the same schooling systems teach us that none of this is accurate. We learn of the ancient astronomers who learned the earth was round. We learn of seabound explorers who pre-dated Columbus.

Why teach something, only to un-teach it later?

 

The Columbus myth.

People compare him to the likes of Capt.Cook, Vasco de Gamma, and other great European navigators and explorers.

Vikings on the other hand are generally regarded as brutal warrior types - berserkers sacking Christian monasteries

Most people couldn't give a fuck about Indians..

These, along with other cultural prejudices may partly answer your question - which is a good question to ask,

 

The most devastating effect on the native populations was the introduction of European diseases. Before European contact approximately 100 million natives throughout North & South America; 100 years later just a few million – Smallpox along with many other diseases did their job.

Europeans were like the 3rd horsemen of the Apocalypse; a pestilence to those they came in contact with.


Hotwater

 

Look I am not saying those things don't hold any truth but I really would not put so much trust in that these articles are all factual. The title of the link already shows this article has an agenda/is set out to discredit him. I'm sure the author based this on real original sources but they are easily distorted when set out to discredit one man that has been proclaimed a hero but by todays standards can't be one anymore.

Even if the difference between granting his men sex with native women and girls and raping them himself is subtile why not acknowledge the difference? Because he's an immoral bastard anyway? In your and the author of your link's hurry to get rid of his hero status it is alright to simply call him a rapist. There is a subtile difference, I don't think I seriously have to explain that to you.

This is how history gets fucked. By the eagerness to set one thing straight people make unnuanced assumptions because hey, the important thing is people get to understand he was not a hero... Well happily this is just another internet article that consists of a lame list, but if you take that as fact while it obviously is a secundary source slightly distorting the original source so you can make another slightly distorted conclusion and post it on this forum you understand how we stray away from the actual picture. If you care so much about this matter I urge you to read the sources the author of the link you posted used. I plan to as well, because these recent threads have triggered my interest in his travels again