Happy Columbus Day!

There was nothing to discover.

You had to SUPER bad to go to jail for crimes against natives back then.

• I, for one, am not a fan of judging historical figures by modern standards.
  
• I can't help but admire Columbus' feats of navigation, leadership, and bold exploration.
  
• To choose to go a way that no man has gone before, to achieve it, document it, repeat it  and then profit by it- those are qualities to admire in any explorer in any time.

-->@oromagi

To be clear, you are saying that human trafficking, brutal bullying and degradation, genocide and profiting from slave labour (in the Caribbean that already began during his era, he inspired the concept of slavery amongst the invaders) are things you're fine with.

He also took a much larger degree of credit for the discoveries than he deserved. He accidentally came ashore to the Caribbean islands which he was sure was part of India and later to the shore that he thought was India 'for real' (the US). 

Before you say that I'm twisting your words here, if something is only wrong in 'modern eyes' it means you think at some point that was completely fine to be doing. Do I understand you correctly?

world of difference between acknowledging wrongdoing and claiming the right the judge.

Try being the Captain of that fucking ship when the food went bad.

Christopher Columbus stole credit for discovering America from two Spanish brothers who actually made the voyage possible, a new book has claimed.

In a book called 'The Forgotten Brothers', author Gary Knight has accused Columbus of stealing the credit from the Pinzon brothers, who not only skippered the sister ships on the expedition, but also saved the entire mission.

"In the United States we learned about Columbus making the first voyage to America. That is total bunk and I wanted to set the record straight," Knight told 'The Telegraph'.

Knight, a former aide in the US Congress, studied scores of accounts of the story of the Columbus voyage, some dating back to the late 19th century.

He said the evidence that Columbus stole the glory is compelling.

The voyage, he said, would never have happened but for Vincente and Martin Pinzon providing ships after Columbus's original fleet was destroyed by the people of Palos in Andalucia.

"He approached the Pinzon brothers cap in hand and asked them to help him out and they cut a deal. Columbus may have been a brilliant navigator and politician but he was not a sea captain," Knight said.

"He had never had skippered a ship in his entire life," he said.

The Pinzon brothers, on the other hand, were veteran mariners who had little difficulty in recruiting crew to take part in what was potentially a dangerous voyage.
Pinzons also helped Columbus get back to Europe, even though he cowered in his cabin for much of the voyage, the book claimed.
Eventually Columbus and the brothers fell out, becoming rivals.
Columbus's version of the voyage persisted because he wrote an account.
"He was the only person to keep a journal and that is why Columbus is remembered," Knight said.

Bergreen quotes Michele de Cuneo, who participated in Columbus's second expedition to the Americas (page 143):

While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful woman, whom the Lord Admiral [Columbus] gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked — as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought she had been brought up in a school for whores.

After an attack by more than 2,000 Indians, Columbus had an underling, Alonso de Ojeda, bring him three Indian leaders, whom Columbus then ordered publicly beheaded. Ojeda also ordered his men to grab another Indian, bring him to the middle of his village, and "'cut off his ears' in retribution for the Indians' failing to be helpful to the Spaniards when fording a stream." (Bergreen, 170-171)

Columbus kidnapped and enslaved more than a thousand people on Hispaniola
According to Cuneo, Columbus ordered 1,500 men and women seized, letting 400 go and condemning 500 to be sent to Spain, and another 600 to be enslaved by Spanish men remaining on the island. About 200 of the 500 sent to Spain died on the voyage, and were thrown by the Spanish into the Atlantic. (Bergreen, 196-197)

Bergreen explains, page 204:

The Indians destroyed their stores of bread so that neither they nor the invaders would be able to eat it. They plunged off cliffs, they poisoned themselves with roots, and they starved themselves to death. Oppressed by the impossible requirement to deliver tributes of gold, the Indians were no longer able to tend their fields, or care for their sick, children, and elderly. They had given up and committed mass suicide to avoid being killed or captured by Christians, and to avoid sharing their land with them, their fields, groves, beaches, forests, and women: the future of their people.

Yep.

That's what happened back in the day.

People thought and cared differently.

Some still do.

It was morally abhorrent then as it is now. That doesn't make Columbus other than a monster.