Christopher Columbus's True Origin

[Extinction]

I am confused by his significance? He got to the United States and people were already here..so what did he discover? It's not like US was Gilligan's Island. People were already all over the country. Chris Columbus didn't discover anything..

He discovered the "new world" Americas, subsequently given that name by a Renaissance Italian voyager and map maker, Americo Vespucci, by the way, for Europeans. The US would not exist for another three centuries. The Vikings reaching an island off the coast of Greenland in the ninth century was not a diffuse memory on the Continent. From the European perspective, therefore, Columbus made a sensational discovery. And on that fateful day the native Caribbeans woke up, observing three Spanish vessels anchored of the coast, and suddenly find out they were living in the New World.

 

[Unchained]

He discovered the "new world" Americas, subsequently given that name by a Renaissance Italian voyager and map maker, Americo Vespucci, by the way, for Europeans. The US would not exist for another three centuries. The Vikings reaching an island off the coast of Greenland in the ninth century was not a diffuse memory on the Continent. From the European perspective, therefore, Columbus made a sensational discovery. And on that fateful day the native Caribbeans woke up, observing three Spanish vessels anchored of the coast, and suddenly find out they were living in the New World.

. North America would not be renamed without Europeans but there was no divine event were the landmass known as America, United States suddenly appeared.
There was no discovery only lack of recognition of indigenous people who were on shore, lived on the landmass known now as North America. Another ugly example of winner writes history. Indigenous people are cataloged as unimportant to non existent and Columbus and others are written with roles as liberators or pioneers, which is thousand years out of date.
Were is the interactive history with people like the Mogollon. I have traveled extensively in territory that they lived in in US and Mexico and it's clear that they lived in both places long before Chris Columbus was born.
Most Columbus history is about as valid as All Gore invented the Internet.
Even the name Mogollon was invented for convenience the people pre dated Columbus and others by thousands of years, but were, are marginalized by European largesse
There are many that debate if Vikings forgot to update their travel agent and were before Columbus and others but just didn't have Wikipedia updates..
Current North American population marvel at seeing buffalo and other wildlife as a similar consequence of selective history.

Mogollon culture - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My displeasure is not so much with the invention of Christopher Columbus's role and responsibility, but the ridiculous notion of pre historic anything or anyone. It's like saying because history is so difficult with fractured, scattered, sparse populations, we need a clean easy baseline to start keeping track.
It would have been sort of cool if they just got to the Caribbean and said, wow, this place is great, let's stay here for a few hundred years. Let's just use these ships for local sightseeing and weddings.
I get bummed by seeing lots of SW American history with European starting line and what happened the thousands of years before seen as a footnote. If I met Columbus I would probably buy him a beer and would decline any gifts like blankets.

 

[aphronesis]

Probably less discovery than getting the venture means together as part of all the destructive tendencies that constituted modernity. Most which can’t be enumerated here. And are still happening, but apparently also too big for “polite” discussion.

The cliff dwellings and that whole area are incredible.

 

[Potomac]

Be it for good or for evil, it was a pivotal moment in world history.

If it wasn't Columbus, it would have been somebody else fairly soon.

 

[Red Rick]

Be it for good or for evil, it was a pivotal moment in world history.

If it wasn't Columbus, it would have been somebody else fairly soon.

It blows my mind actually that Leif Eriksson discovered America about 500 years earlier and that somehow got missed/forgotten completely

 

[Unchained]

It blows my mind actually that Leif Eriksson discovered America about 500 years earlier and that somehow got missed/forgotten completely

Leif Garrett, Leif Erikson, Christopher Columbus or Christopher Walken didn't discover anything, they came to a place where people were living for thousands of years before they booked a ticket.
In San Diego they had some group of craftsmen that built a Viking ship replica.. Don't know the year.. @10-15+ before.
This is our big guy

Cabrillo National Monument - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[aphronesis]

Be it for good or for evil, it was a pivotal moment in world history.

If it wasn't Columbus, it would have been somebody else fairly soon.

This is arguable. The “arrival”? No. Why didn’t the indigenous invade other continents?

 

[Extinction]

. North America would not be renamed without Europeans but there was no divine event were the landmass known as America, United States suddenly appeared.
There was no discovery only lack of recognition of indigenous people who were on shore, lived on the landmass known now as North America. Another ugly example of winner writes history. Indigenous people are cataloged as unimportant to non existent and Columbus and others are written with roles as liberators or pioneers, which is thousand years out of date.
Were is the interactive history with people like the Mogollon. I have traveled extensively in territory that they lived in in US and Mexico and it's clear that they lived in both places long before Chris Columbus was born.
Most Columbus history is about as valid as All Gore invented the Internet.
Even the name Mogollon was invented for convenience the people pre dated Columbus and others by thousands of years, but were, are marginalized by European largesse
There are many that debate if Vikings forgot to update their travel agent and were before Columbus and others but just didn't have Wikipedia updates..
Current North American population marvel at seeing buffalo and other wildlife as a similar consequence of selective history.

Mogollon culture - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My displeasure is not so much with the invention of Christopher Columbus's role and responsibility, but the ridiculous notion of pre historic anything or anyone. It's like saying because history is so difficult with fractured, scattered, sparse populations, we need a clean easy baseline to start keeping track.
It would have been sort of cool if they just got to the Caribbean and said, wow, this place is great, let's stay here for a few hundred years. Let's just use these ships for local sightseeing and weddings.
I get bummed by seeing lots of SW American history with European starting line and what happened the thousands of years before seen as a footnote. If I met Columbus I would probably buy him a beer and would decline any gifts like blankets.

Ok, but the European colonizers subjugated the native populations, founded new nations and wrote history from their perspective. In that sense Columbus made a discovery unknown to them. The people of what came to be known as the Americas, didn't sail across the ocean to "discover" Europe, even if the arrival of the Europeans was a discovery to them. The thousands of years of indigenous history, while important, didn't shape the world in which we live today. Like it or not, the Europeans did that, for whom the indigenous populations were savages (some meek, some brutal), peoples to be proselytized or be driven out, which is generally what happened.

 

[Potomac]

It blows my mind actually that Leif Eriksson discovered America about 500 years earlier and that somehow got missed/forgotten completely

That's because the world didn't change.

 

[aphronesis]

Then maybe his “origins” are irrelevant. And there’s been mention recently that post Levant genetics aren’t stable anyway.

Aside from that claims about a “changed world” as more than histories of the victor are somewhat dubious to much of the global south.

edit: comma

 

[hrotha]

I think it would be extremely hard to argue that the event didn't result in a "changed world" from the point of view of much of the global south

 

[aphronesis]

“Histories of the victor” was synonym for the positives of progressive modernity that the narrative generally carries. Saying that the world changed can be fatuous at its least.

 

[Extinction]

The world changed in so far as the Europeans arrived where not even Roman Mars had reached.

 

[hrotha]

“Histories of the victor” was synonym for the positives of progressive modernity that the narrative generally carries. Saying that the world changed can be fatuous at its least.

Then that's irrelevant to the point being made about Leifr Eiríksson

 

[aphronesis]

I didn’t mention Eriksson and I don’t believe the posts that did claimed that the “world changed”. I could be confused but I don’t think he came from or reached the global south.And I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t contest claims about Eriksson with critiques of early “venture” outcomes.

 

[aphronesis]

The world changed in so far as the Europeans arrived where not even Roman Mars had reached.

Wait until that proposed triumphal arch goes up in DC.