Ferdinand II and Isabella I by Alonso de Mena, 1632
Columbus gets the nod tomorrow, but let’s give some “saved Western Civilization” props to Ferdinand and Isabella for kicking the Muslims the hell out of Spain and sponsoring Columbus thereby spreading Western civilization. “Indigenous peoples” should be thankful Europeans brought religion, law, philosophy, and science with them. Yeah it wasn’t an unalloyed positive — (what is?), but celebration (it’s called gratitude) is called for.
And I’d hate to forget Bugs Bunny’s role in the whole episode.
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Don’t forget Charles Martel to!
but tomorrow is not Charlemagne Day.
This is why I love to play Medieval 2 Total War.
+JMJ+
Ferdinand and Isabella also sponsored Ferdinand Magellan!
Magellan?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM-igYjn6E4
+JMJ+
I hadn’t seen that one! =)
Who needs textbooks when you have the Animaniacs, aye?
I do have to quibble about what the natives of the Philippines were wearing, though . . .
My favorite explorer, Enbrethilel (hmmm, maybe Marco Polo). Goon that I am, still think of Magellan every time I make a trip to the coast and look out across the Pacific. I’m Euro-centric like that.
Charlemange was Charles Marte’s Grandson. Charles Martel won the Battle of Tours and stopped Islamic encroachment into France.
Stephanie, You got it all wrong, dudette. You see, the Muslims had previously held all of France before they were like kicked out by the uh, like, Christians, like. The Muslims were like attempting to reclaim France from the Christians, man . . . ette (sorry, forgot you were a chick). Then Charles Martel like stopped them from taking something that was, like, rightfully theirs.
I learned it in college.
RIGHTEOUS!
I know that Stephanie…. Battle of Poitiers or Tours, 732 AD etc… but tomorrow is Columbus Day therefore the point of the open thread is Ferdinand and Isabella. I don’t these “just because” — there’s almost always some point — even if it’s merely “funny”.
If tomorrow were Charlemagne Day then today I would post a pic of Charles “the Hammer” Martel so we would not lose sight of him in light of his more famous grandson.
THats Charles Martel…not Marte…we need an edit button! Please.
I knew that Floyd. I was merely pointing out another figure who helped save Europe from Muslims.
Here is an article on the 2012 lunacy -and what the Mayans think about it (nothing)
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091011/D9B8P09O0.html
Here is my opinion on 21 December 2012: Nothing.
I will wake up. I will do something. I will look online. Eat breakfast, Eat Lunch, and Eat supper. Watch some tv. Read something. Maybe play a video game. It will be near Christmas so I will might reading something like A CHRISTMAS CAROL or some other Christmas-oriented book. I might help with some decorations. Then I will go to sleep at one point.
Same as usually happens.
There might be some wacky cultic suicides that day, however. (see Heaven’s Gate)
Don’t forget that in South Dakota Monday is Native American Day, not Columbus Day.
“Native American Day”??? How come nobody told me I had my own very special day?
Columbus was a punk. Leif Ericson did the same thing with less 500 years earlier, and didn’t brag about it. St. Brendan did it 400 years before Ericson, and did brag about it, but no one listend.
Just to be fair, Ferdinand and Isabella came at the end of a very LONG process of reclaiming Spain from the Moors (711-1491), so claims that they did it themselves always ring a bit disingenuous, kind of like claiming that Harry Truman won World War II all by himself. Not that anyone claims that, but we’re Americans, we’re traditionally not very good with history, so I just have to sort of point that out for people who might have actually taken Kit’s bit of comedy above seriously.
Columbus was a punk? HUH?
Plus, we got to thank Columbo for inventing chocolate, tomatoes, and corn. If he had left Portugal sooner he would have got a chance to see some pre-Columbian art.
‘bot, I think you mean Leif Garrett.
SUCK IT SOX — ANGELS WIN, ANGELS WIN!!!!
Three and out! And they came back big in front of the most obnoxious fans in the major leagues in that AA dump the Sux play in. Now if LosAngelheim can do the same to those Damnyankees.
As for the Evil Colombus… The Stone Age savages of the Americas were going to lose out to invaders at some point in the next few centuries. If not Western Europe, Muslims and the Chinese had the capabilities to find “the new world” (the Muslims finding Brazil, or the Chinese going great circle and encountering Alaska.) Would they have treated the natives of their new lands any better?
The better manager won.
+JMJ+
I know a man who wanted to trace his family’s roots all the way back to their region in Spain. This was easy because his family, the Cuervos, had records of their ancestors going back centuries. Anyway, when he got to Spain, he learned that his family/ancestors didn’t become the Cuervos until after the Moors had been beaten out of Spain–and it was all thanks to five brothers who had fought valiantly for the Christian cause.
“Cuervo” actually means raven, which wasn’t a very popular bird because it was a scavenger. After one big, victorious battle, which gave the ravens a feast like they had never had before, the king told the brothers that ravens had become noble Spanish birds because their stomachs were full with the flesh of Spain’s enemies. Then he told them they would take the name Raven–or “Cuervo”–from then on.
I’ve never found another source for this story (probably because I’ve never looked!), but the man who told it to me is a good family friend and I trust him.
We traced our ancestry in Norway all the way back to King Harald, Haarfarge, the first Viking King of Norway. Yes my family is descended from him. The farm they own dates all the way back to 800. Harald united all of Norway during the Viking hey days. Very cool stuff. We are related to a McCleoud clan in Scotland to, through Harald’s wanderings.
Lucky Stephanie and Enbrethiliel. You actually have ancestries you can trace. I could perhaps trace my own family’s history (and figure out which part of Ireland my grandmother’s family came from), but as I’m adopted it seems a rather meaningless exercise — it tells me absolutely nothing about the blood that runs in my veins.
Arizona’s not an open-adoption state, either, so I know nothing about the subject either way.
Speaking as a guy who’s married in to one of the Five Civilized Tribes, having a kid who’s part-indian, and having spent some not-insubstantial time with some Sioux, I’ve learned to be less reactionary about the whole “Hey, you lost! Deal with it!” aspect of race relations with indians. That doesn’t make me a namby-pamby liberal, it doesn’t make me a tree-hugger, it doesn’t make me anything other than what I am, but I think it’s important to note that the indians did get well and truely screwed. Saying “It would have happened eventually, anyway” doesn’t make it any better. It’s like saying “Well, all those Jews, Catholics, Gypsies, and Gays that Hitler killed would have eventually died of old age, so what’s the diff?”
I’m not a guilty white liberal who’s prone to apologizing for being on the winning half of history, and I’m certainly not saying that the ‘winning side’ hasn’t made some genuine attempts to make it right in the last 40 years or so. I’m not even saying that things couldn’t have gone *worse* if the Arabs or Chinese had gotten here first. What I *am* saying is that terrible things were done, and *we* the winners, need to face up to that, and deal with it.
It doesn’t help that every time they got involved in intra-European disputes, they picked the losing side, and usually enthusiastically joining in on the fun. (They continued this up to the War Between the States, with the slaveholding “Civilized Tribes” siding with southern secessionists.) After a few centuries of having the Indians side with your enemies, and take every opportunity to side with your enemies, it becomes hard to not think of them as wanting to be your enemies.
So I’ve stopped caring about who did what to whom. That’s the way it was back then.
Stephanie, is that Connor or Duncan MacCleoud? Doesn’t matter really, there can only be one.
Both.
Yeah, that makes sense. I forgot they were cousins.
According to my friend Dr. John Eidsmoe, Columbus has gotten a bad rap, genocide-wise. What he actually did was take sides, and with good cause. He found the friendly and peaceful Arawaks in the Caribbean, and made friends with them. He forbade anyone to molest them. He also found the aggressive, cannibalistic Caribs, and he made war on them to protect the Arawaks. He felt justified in enslaving the Caribs he caught, because they’d been enslaving the Arawak for generations.
Unfortunately, after he was recalled to Spain, Columbus was succeeded by governors who thought all natives looked alike, and enslaved one and all.
I’m not a guilty white liberal who’s prone to apologizing for being on the winning half of history, and I’m certainly not saying that the ‘winning side’ hasn’t made some genuine attempts to make it right in the last 40 years or so. I’m not even saying that things couldn’t have gone *worse* if the Arabs or Chinese had gotten here first. What I *am* saying is that terrible things were done, and *we* the winners, need to face up to that, and deal with it.
There’s a gravestone in a graveyard near where I live that marks the grave of a 10 year-old girl. Written across that stone is the world MURDER is capital letters and informs us that she died in an Indian attack.
I start with this detail to make clear that if we fess up to something, we need to know what we’re fessing up to. Revisionist historians would have us believe that we were solely the aggressors and that Indian tribes were wholly innocent, which is far from true. The Comanche and Apache were particularly savage, to other tribes as much as other settlers. The Comanche practice of kidnapping family members for ransom, tolerated by the earlier Spanish settlers, didn’t sit well with Texans.
In some cases, we were blatantly in the wrong. In others, native tribes were clearly the aggressors. In other cases, trbies and settlers existed in relative peace. In many local situations, it was just a roll of the dice.
But the great sin we were guilty of was indifference; indifference to the power that we wielded and Indifference to the rights of native tribes; a violation of our own organic law and moral principles. This indifference meant that the corruption, incompetence, greed, and violence that were almost inveitable from the collision of cultures was never rectified. The Trail of Tears was caused by a President who violated states’ rights and overroad the Supreme Court. Wounded knee was caused by people panicking, but the quality of the men posted at reservations was uneven and contributed to the incident. The travesty of the reservation system was a result of incompetence, but that was caused by a unwillingness to understand what we were doing. The failed enforcement of treaties was understandable, when it would’ve meant turning your guns on your own people, but the government never posted enough forces to deter violations.
In short, it was this great Sin of Omission that allowed all the smaller and local sins to go uncorrected. That collision of cultures would’ve happen, but instead of redressing it, it was allowed to happen over generations, wearing native tribes down.
I remember FORT APACHE dealing with the corruption of Indian Agents.
Exactly David. The problem with the Reservation System was that blatantly corrupt people were put in charge. If you read any books about Quanah Parker, he understood very well what the issues were. It wasn’t with the whites in general, but in certain nefarious characters. As far as Columbus is concerned, R3 hate to tell you this but Erickson didn’t stay here did he? Columbus started a shift in population. Erickson did not change the world or change the way people thought about the world, Columbus did. And really there is nothing wrong with being number one…I kinda like it. Its precisley the attitude at saying Christopher Columbus being a punk that is so wrong right now in the education in schools. Columbus was an explorer. He expanded the reach of Western Civilization. And to me I say GOD BLESS HIM!
My pilgrim ancestors fought my indian ancestors in King Phillip’s War (aka Metacom’s Rebellion). I have to side with those who didn’t draw first blood and wanted to coexist in peace … the pilgrims. And since then, throughout the east and the west, it was the white man avenging murders committed upon children, women, and men. This Thanksgiving, yet again, the Wampanoags will protest in Plymouth, MA. They claim their land was stolen. Their chief, Massasoit, sold land to the pilgrims bits at a time. He certainly didn’t feel cheated by the price he was paid (demanded), or he wouldn’t have continued to do business with the pilgrims. If they want to blame anyone, blame him.
I’m conflicted in bringing this up because I think the idea is so incredibly stupid and counterproductive. On the one hand, I would hope that ignoring the fools behind would mean that they’d eventually get bored and go away. On the other hand, taking them on from the get go might diminish attempts by the Left to hang this foolishness around the neck of any conservative on the national scene.
What I’m talking about is the self-promoting Floyd “the Birther” Brown’s latest project, http://www.ImpeachObamaCampaign.com. I’ve tried to take on a dimwit who posted & endorsed it at Facebook (with about as much success as anyone who takes on conspiracy theory nutroots). This is the next phase of the Birther stupidity, and it is going to do nothing but give people a reason to get back on board the Obama train.
You just know Olbermann, Mahler, Madow & and the rest of the usual suspects are going to have a field day with this idiocy.
Daniel, it’ll have about as much effect as the Birther stuff did previously. It’ll provide some fodder for a week or two, whip the Left up into a frenzy and then die out for lack of anything else that can be said about it.
I do know one thing. The Comanches were so powerful and scary that the Spanierds never really ventured into Comancheria after being hounded, harrassed, killed and pillaged mercilessly. If the Taliban had a warrior tribe appearing out of nowhere and leaving ravaged, denuded, cooked remains of their fighters and the women raped and stolen and they couldn’t catch the culprits they’d think Allah himself had forsaken them.
The Comanche were the reason the Mexicans allowed Stephen F Austin to settle in Tejas, they wanted a buffer against raiding parties…they got more than they bargained for.
Hoorah Outlaw!
@ Lars: I didn’t blame Columbus for the genocide, did I? Didn’t say a word about that. All I said was that he was a punk, which was a semi-humorous way of pointing out that he never really figured out where he was, nor that where he was wasn’t where he wanted to be.
@ David: Not sure I agree with – or comprehend – the ‘sin of omission’ thing that you’re getting at. I will tell an interesting story that I’ve picked up over the years that might illustrat how the issue is more complex than either “they were noble savages we killed” or “they were cannibals that we civilized:” We all know of the Trail of Tears. What isn’t commonly known is the situation that led to it: Gold was found on Cherokee lands, and after generations of white encroachment, it became apparent to all that they were doomed. The “Five Civilized Tribes” are called that because, unlike most other Indian peoples, they decided to adopt white ways insofar as possible. For all intents and purpsoes, the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickisaw, and Seminole lived not much differently than the Southerners around them, though they generally spoke a different language. Most of them were even Christian to a greater or lesser extent. They recognized the advantages of European life, and were quick to adopt it as much as possible. This is what many revisionists on the Conservative side – our side – claim the Indians didn’t want to do, and yet here’s tens of thousands who were only to happy to do just that.
It wasn’t enough, because of course White people of that era still didn’t see them as human per se, and just wanted their land. The Cherokee, who were probably the most ‘europeanized’ of the tribes recognized this, eventually (After the Supreme Court debacle), and decided to do something about it. The one thing they realized the could count on was that whites wanted the land, and would eventually get it by hook or by crook, and then they’d be left with nothing, so they decided to plan for this. When the Federal Government made an offer for the Cherokee lands, the Cherokee agreed to it, took the money and the promises of land out west, and assistance in traveling.
As we all know, they were screwed. And yet these guys weren’t simple victims, they were opportunistic victims: Because they VOLUNTEERED to be removed west, they came out of it with some money, and of course they ended up in Oklahoma a full two years before the Federal Government just said “Screw it, let’s move the rest out and give ‘em nothing!” Thus, the Choctaw, Creek, Chickisaw, and such Seminole as didn’t escape in to the swamps, were moved west against their will, with no real money.
By this point, the Cherokee were already well-established, and had gobbled up all the best land, and the other tribes got dick, and had to scrabble over what little was left over.
Interesting, huh? Incidentally, the agreement to sell Cherokee lands to the Feds was at that point illegal under tribal law, and carried a death sentence. Both sides in the deal knew this, but on ‘our’ side, we didn’t care, and the Indians did it with the full knowledge that they’d be executed by their own people. They still did it, though, because they felt it was for the best for their people, giving them a slight advantage when faced with a lot of terrible situations. Only one of them died of old age, but his is another story.
Republibot… “the whites” is a bit broad…. Roger Williams of Rhode Island, the Dutch in general (buying Manhattan and other lands) (and Hugo Grotius) and many Jesuit lawyers in Spain argued for treating the Indians with dignity and paying them for land, labor, etc.
The other argument was using Western definitions of “ownership”. A nomad had a hard time convincing a European coming from a land of permanent cities, etc. that because he hunted on a spot 6 weeks a year he “owned the land”. Also Roman ideas of terra nullus — empty land — belongs to the finder were commonly held. “Finder’s keepers” — the original legal principle!
While modern forms of racism were no doubt present and even prevalent, Mr. Darwin’s grand idea made those views even greater — because they were backed by science! (Lombroso, et al.)
Interesting tidbit about Roger Williams (and his wife) … there was an exhumation of their graves years ago and they were empty. It seems the roots of an apple tree nearby had plucked them from their graves … or rather, swallowed them. So anyone who had eaten an apple from that tree, had eaten a part of Roger Williams.
Not sure I agree with – or comprehend – the ’sin of omission’ thing that you’re getting at. I will tell an interesting story that I’ve picked up over the years that might illustrat how the issue is more complex than either “they were noble savages we killed” or “they were cannibals that we civilized:”
A land-rush happens, settlers pour into an area and a treaty is broken. There was never an intention to actively break the treaty, but there was never much effort put into enforcing it. Travesties happen in a broken reservation system, riddled with corruption and incompetence. We weren’t trying to herd them into death camps, but there never enough political will to rid the system of abuse.
What I’m getting at is this: The collision of cultures was going to happen and tragedy was going to be a result, but those are more localized issues. The great collective “sin” on the part of the country as a whole was never doing much of anything to correct it, to restrain itself, or adopt a systematic policy that would create a firm boundary. Does that make sense?
R3 I had a Chippewa tell me sh*t happens when we were discussing this. You’d be surprised at how not very concerned most Native Americans are. Its us white folk who keep beating the tom tom. My advice, be happy. You are an American and that makes you better off than the rest of the planet. Be proud. We are the best. Nothing wrong with that. You come off with some guilt that makes no sense to me. Why?
I was just watching David Cameron speak on C-SPAN. Pretty interesting. Britain deserves a better Conservative Leader but, hey, he seems better than Brown.
I don’t think “The Whites” is particularly broad. We’re dealing with two groups here, “The Indians” and “The people who aren’t indians.” I don’t see the need to be politically correct, particularly when we’re talking about our own people. And, yes, when discussing historical situations, it is neccisary to speak in generalizations. Saying “The whites, excepting Joe Fledermaus, who lived at 326 W. Hunterblossom St, and a guy named “Bennie” in Moscow” makes things needlessly tedious. The bottom line here was that “We” wanted “Their” land, and “We” were determined to take it. “We” even agreed that it was illegal (You’ll recall the Supreme Court took the Cherokee side), but “We” ignored them.
And again, the “Civilized Tribes” were not wandering hunter-gatherers. They were (mostly) tied to a particular region before colonization began, and they had adopted European ways. They lived in towns, they had a government, they had Newspapers for God’s sake – they’re not savages grubbing at the ground with sticks and dancing around naked.
@ Stephanie: Yes, stuff happens. This was a long time ago. I’m not saying it’s any more relevant in the daily life of an Indian than the Civil War is in the daily life of a Southerner, or the War of the Roses is in the daily life of a Brit. What I am saying is that it’s a complex situation which “We” were on the wrong side of, and “We” need to recognize that. I’ll also point out that one of the root aspects of Conservatism is taking responsibility for our actions, both good and bad, and accepting the consequences of them, rather than saying “It’s not my fault, it was those bad people who did it” like the liberals do. If we can’t own up to a bad thing done 160 years ago, how can we hope to transform culture today?
@ David: Yeah, I get you now. Thanks.
R3… point taken, but there was a significant minority of White elites in the various countries (and probably more if common-folk back then had worried or thought much about it).
“Civilized tribes” no doubt, but the sacrifice of Aztec, etc. made many tribes welcome the Spaniards as allies (great choice — to live free until you’re kidnapped and have your heart cut out by a whack-job or be forced into a lifetime of hacienda work and a campesino future for your generations… )
Yes not all tribes were hunter-gatherer nomads, but without the contributions of the West (I believe) Mayans still would’ve overfarmed their lands and outgrown their cities. They might have had a Socrates, Aristotle-type figures arise and help with the rationalism, etc., but that’s obviously a moot point.
That’s why I always think Christians and our redemptive view of history is the better view. Regardless of what I “think” I fall back on Joseph’s exhortation to his brother… “You meant it for evil; God meant it for good. Regardless of Spanish intent or English intent or motives… larger things were afoot and no evil has to be rationalized as “good”.
“Own up” when does that stop? There is also a concept called “getting over it”. Making whites wear the hair shirt for generations is counterproductive to “transforming culture” (which is not conservative, but radical) and to Indian productivity. The past can be a lesson, but it is just as likely to be an anchor to those who can’t let it go.
Interesting discussion. I can’t read the Trail of Tears stuff without crying, specifically because of what R3 pointed out. I love my kids history book for that reason. Even though(or maybe because) it was written in the 1930′s, it really just reports what happened without making any judgment calls. The North are not automatically the good guys, the South fought for more than slavery, some Native Americans really tried and were really screwed over, some were fighting for their way of life, and some were just mean. The White people were not always doing the right thing either, and we were often aggressors, but not always.
I guess that’s mostly what I’d like to see, just the story told. Good and bad. I love the Bible for that reason, it’s the whole story, beauty,warts and all, and what God can use of the mess we make. And not just use, but allow and ordain, for salvation. The ultimate recycling program
. My favorite CS Lewis quote is from Perelandra ” God makes good use of all that happens. But the loss is real”. There’s room for the grief and the redemptive joy.
Thank you, Tracy, thank you thank you thank you thank you! Yes! That is EXACTLY what I was trying to get across!
Mistakes were made, some of them malicious, some of them just stupid. The bottom line is that the motivating factor for the Trail of Tears was a combination of greed and racism. There was no significant difference between the Cherokee and the whites around them, it simply boiled down to them not being white, so therefore they got screwed.
I think we can *ALL* agree that that kind of thing is not what America stands for, and that it’s a dark chapter in our history – one of a number of dark chapters. It’s really easy for the folks who won to say “Get over it” to the folks who lost. It’s much harder for the folks who lost to do that, though. This is why we, as conservatives, still grouse over the hippie political victories that cost us Vietnam, presumably why the Southerners still like to haul out the Civil War, though it’s not of any real relevance to anyone anymore.
If we’re conservatives, I thin that we need to accept a ‘warts and all’ view of history, and not a propagandistic, ‘my people are always right’ view like the Democrats tend to favor. Does that make any sense?