Follow - Up To "A Tribute To Chris"

I know, I know. It's over. The day is passed, the post is written. I just can't, CAN'T, let Chris get off that easy. At the end of my "tribute" I made the comment "Thank you Chris. I never knew you, but I appreciate you. Happy Columbus Day."

I take it back.

Today while Jenn was at Best Buy de-installing car cameras for work, I walked over to Borders and picked up a book to go beyond the reach of Wikipedia's expert history on Mr. Columbus. I read about 15 pages and left the store feeling a little sick. In fact, I wasn't so sure we should be celebrating a day under this man's name.

I have always felt somewhat shameful for what happened to the original inhabitants of this hemisphere. Maybe, at least, if we are going to have a Columbus Day - we should also have an "Arawak Day" or something. You know, a time to remember and acknowledge those who's lives were brutally taken by Mr. Columbus and his fellow pirates.

Well, if not, I will be thinking of them on Columbus Day - not Columbus. If you are interested in history and would like to know yourself what happened - read the first few pages of this book here.

I have pasted some comments, below, from a Spanish dissenter who disapproved of the treatment of the Arawak.

"Endless testimonies...prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives...But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill,mangle and destroy"

"two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot;they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys."

"Thus (Arawak) husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides...they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them...7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation...My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write..."

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue...