r/MurderedByWords • u/MrFenric • 1d ago
He discovered it, then asked the locals for directions
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u/aaronite 1d ago
He's not hated for sailing a big ol' ship. He's hated because he was so evil that Spanish Crown arrested him for being too cruel and had him shipped across the Atlantic in chains.
But his defenders probably don't understand why cruelty is a problem.
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u/megamoze 1d ago
He was considered too cruel FOR THE SLAVE COLONIES. He was removed from his governorship of a slave colony. Think about what a shitbag you'd have to be.
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u/The_Blip 1d ago
He was also fucking stupid. He was convinced the world's circumference was smaller than it actually was, which was scientifically proven to be wrong since the ancient Greeks.
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u/TheDungeonCrawler 1d ago
Yep. He had a confusion over different units and, if America weren't there, his whole crew would have died at sea.
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u/Quickfix30 1d ago
If anything his defenders staunchly support the cruelty he imposed.
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u/SeonaidMacSaicais 1d ago
Or “well, the natives were already being cruel to each other and taking over land…”
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u/aaronite 1d ago
He was cruel to the colonists too, he was that awful. He couldn't even hide behind racism or religious fervor. He was just sadistic.
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u/Zer0323 1d ago
I don't defend the Trail of Tears but I want it to be a historically relevant subject.
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u/aaronite 1d ago
Sure. Let's just not treat it like a fun holiday.
Canada has Truth and Reconciliation Day. It's not a day for mattress sales.
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u/U_L_Uus 1d ago
*Castillian Crown
At the time of his travels there was no such thing as "Spain" in terms of political organization. There were two crowns, Castille and Aragon, and as such there were two monarchs (a.k.a. Ysabel and Fernando). De-facto unification happened under Carlos I and it was not until the Borbon era that it was actually unified
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u/LastWave 1d ago
He wrote a letter openly talking about how profitable selling 9 year old girls was. Claimed they were as valuable as farm hands.
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u/ecafyelims 1d ago
It's a mindset of "the ends justify the means" to such an extreme that many would hide the bad things they did for the results.
A lot of "heroes" did bad things, especially when considering that the meter for "bad" changes over time. Fans tend to excuse or outright dismiss the negative acts while exaggerating the benefits. Actually, you can see this happening live in politics, today.
Your comment was right. Columbus was already known for being a bad person in his own time. There are a lot of better people who should be venerated before Columbus.
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u/Slight-Hedgehog259 1d ago
Ironic how the side thats whitewashing history in the US as we speak is talking about historical accuracy
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u/8rustystaples 1d ago
I still can’t figure out why it matters to anyone so much. Is Mike Johnson’s life in any way affected by Columbus not having discovered North America?
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u/pm_me_flowers_please 1d ago
Mike Johnsons wife is married to Mike johnson, so I would imagine she doesn't feel much... much less is she affected by it...
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u/DaaaahWhoosh 1d ago
It's something to get angry about, that's all. Same thing happens all the time in basically any fandom, everyone will glom onto a tiny nitpick and turn it into a defining moment that proves that some people are evil and other people are oppressed.
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u/levajack 1d ago
And "discovered" is generous. He lucked into it completely by accident as they were hopelessly lost, running out of supplies, and his crew was contemplating mutiny. Columbus ignored all advice that India was waaaaaay to fucking far to sail to across the Atlantic (because, you know, the size of the fucking earth), and they only survived thanks to a huge fucking landmass in between they didn't know was there.
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u/JokesNShit 1d ago
Can we not get disingenuous zealots in office, please? Fuck this is getting old
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u/nightmarejester12 1d ago
I mean u see who's currently president again. That should be a sign that we're fucked
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u/JokesNShit 1d ago
The child diddlers are being actively protected and siezing power..in ither countries those in the epstien files are being rounded up. The fuck has happened here?
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u/ParadeSit 1d ago
Columbus never even set foot in North America or the continental United States.
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u/ThePeteEvans 1d ago
Bahamas/Caribbean are part of North America
Still fuck Columbus tho
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u/Bearence 1d ago
While that may be true, people like Johnson think Columbus discovered The USA, in the same way they think Jesus was a tall white guy.
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u/redwhale335 1d ago
I would not recommend that last part. Rumor is he has syphilis.
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u/BiophileB 1d ago
Tagging in as pedant: southern Caribbean islands including Trinidad and Tobago, Curaçao and Aruba are a part of South America. Sorry, I just don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about the flora and fauna they’ll find there.
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u/ParadeSit 1d ago
Well, mainland North America of today’s Mexico, US, and Canada.
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u/StuffedStuffing 1d ago
And if people are gonna get picky about whether the viking colony on Greenland counts as the first colony in North America, I'm gonna get picky about the colonies in the Caribbean
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u/ateague_ 1d ago
He did land in Honduras on his fourth journey, and central america is technically part of continental north america.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 1d ago
I don't think when people talk about Columbus they're suggesting he's literally the first human being to see North America lol. The implication is obviously discovered it FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF EUROPEANS. And yeah he actually only touched Hispaniola but I think that counts.
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u/redwhale335 1d ago
I think they're more concerned about the genocide, slavery and rape than the "discovered America" part.
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u/No_Mission5287 1d ago
Yeah. Columbus was such a monster that he was condemned by the Spanish authorities and stripped of his titles for exhibiting such extreme brutality. Which is really saying something if you aware of what the Spanish condoned at home and abroad.
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u/ThinkAThirdTime 1d ago
Hey, I agree with them that historical accuracy and the facts should still matter.
Like the historically accurate fact that Columbus trafficked in sex-slaves and noted that girls around 9 years old were the most valuable.
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u/DietSteve 1d ago
Columbus never found America anyway, he "found" the Bahamas. It wasn't until his third voyage that he found Trinidad and the northern coast of Venezuela, and the fourth when he traveled down along Central America south of Mexico. He never set foot on what is now North America, let alone anywhere that would have become the US. Why he's celebrated here is absolute nonsense
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u/I_TRY_TO_BE_POSITIVE 1d ago
He's celebrated pretty much 100% because that's what you're taught in public school, and it's a day off, so as a kid you're like: thanks Columbus!
Then you become an adult and start reading up on what he actually did and what he got up to while he was doing it, and the shine comes off the penny pretty quick.
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u/pchlster 1d ago
Yeah, all that human trafficking and rape wouldn't be stood for in modern America!
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u/I_TRY_TO_BE_POSITIVE 1d ago
Okay now the horseshoe is touching for me. Do we celebrate him because of the trafficking?
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u/kermitthebeast 1d ago
It was an Italian American pr projet.
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u/jmil1080 1d ago
Yeah, it actually has a kind of fucked up history, even beyond how fucked up Columbus himself was.
The first celebration of Columbus Day in the U.S. was in New York in 1792 to celebrate the 300 year anniversary of Columbus arriving in America (put on by a group called the Society of Saint Tammany or the Columbian Order, actually a kind of interesting group).
It didn't have wide-spread recognition until 100 years later when Benjamin Harrison declared a one-time national celebration of Columbus Day for the 400 year anniversary. This was specifically to celebrate Italian heritage in response to the mass lynching of 11 Italian Americans. Columbus was chosen as a figurehead to celebrate Italian heritage largely because of a false biography of Columbus written by Washington Irving in 1828, which made a bunch of exaggerated and false statements about Columbus seemingly intentionally to create an Italian hero to celebrate in America.
It was only supposed to be a one-time thing, but Italian and Catholic groups started latching on to the holiday as a cultural celebration in response to hatred and bigotry against Italian immigrants and Catholics. Fast forward another 45 years, and it is declared a national holiday by FDR after intense lobbying by the Knights of Columbus.
Columbus himself is incredibly horrendous and dumb, but the intent behind the holiday itself does seem to have noble origins. Unfortunately, they relied on false narratives about a historical folk hero and unintentionally propped up a monster for hundreds of years in the process.
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u/Hootinger 1d ago
It is funny in a way. Columbus Day in the US was started because British-American Protestants treated Italian Catholics as second class citizens and not 'real' Americans. Now, if you don't celebrate Columbus Day, those same British-American Protestants will say you are not a 'real' American.
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u/jackalopeDev 1d ago
Not to be that guy, but Columbus did in fact land in Puerto Rico, which these days is a part of the US.
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u/SwampCastleGuards 1d ago
People don't just use America to refer to the United States. The Bahamas is part America, which historically refers to the entirety of the Americas. Not just the United states
That's why we are called the United States OF America
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u/UMACTUALLYITS23 1d ago
Both Trinidad and the Bahamas are in North America.
Other places south of Mexico are also North America.
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u/joeychestnutsrectum 1d ago
Central America is North America. He discovered “the new world” or the “Americas”. You’re the one equating that to the United States. Columbus’ expeditions set the stage for westward new world colonization, which is pretty important. He was also so horrible the Spanish crown jailed him.
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u/Fun-Leadership-5419 1d ago
I think that two things can both be true. Columbus accomplished something important AND was also a terrible human being. One does not erase the other.
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u/bafana_banana999 1d ago
How can you "discover" a place that already had people living in it?
Revealed a location to white folks, sure.
Discovered? Definitely not.
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u/Cultural-Treacle-680 1d ago
For Western Europe, it was discovered. They didn’t know it was there. We discover new species of animals and plants, that obviously have to exist first.
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u/pchlster 1d ago
I discovered Boston when I visited a couple of years ago; when do I get a holiday dedicated to that achievement?
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u/not_a_moogle 1d ago
Their was a lot of racism towards italian immigrants. So we gave them a holiday and a reason to celebrate Italian heritage. Seriously.
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u/lxpnh98_2 1d ago
America is taken to mean the whole continent. English speakers (of today at least) consider 'the Americas' 2 continents, but at the time, discovering America was reaching any part west of Europe that was not known to Western Europe at the time, and that's one of the reasons it's considered a single continent by many cultures to this day.
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u/LamarVannoi 1d ago
He didn't even set foot in the Americas. He landed in the Caribbean. He also sailed for Spain because Italy told him to kick rocks, so I never understand why Italian-Americans cling to him so much.
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u/JonLockeWlth2Kidneys 1d ago
Was loyal to Spain, lived in Spain, died in Spain, buried in Spain. Dumbasses want to claim it's prejudice against Italians.
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u/TheRealTRexUK 1d ago
Don't be silly. Spain isn't a real place, it's a language.
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u/Majestic-Marcus 1d ago
But Hispanic people are Latino and Latin comes from Italy. Therefore Italian. Checkmate.
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u/Think_Effectively 1d ago
I believe "Columbus Day"was basically created to be Italian-American's "St. Patrick's Day"
Columbus was just used because it sounded better than "Italian Immigration Day" ? and made sense in the context of those times?
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u/Frozenbbowl 1d ago
Colorado solved the problem beautifully. They got rid of Columbus Day and made mother Cabrini Day. The first American to be made a Catholic saint... And someone actually worth celebrating. And allows Italian Americans to keep their heritage day
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u/PrinceHarming 1d ago
Even Queen Isabelle was appalled at Columbus’ cruelty towards the natives he met. She had him arrested in 1500 for his crimes. The man was a sociopath.
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u/TorazChryx 1d ago
When the people behind the Spanish inquisition look at what you've done and go "Hold the fuck up dude what the fuck have you done???" thats... that's a lot.
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u/Beat_Saber_Music 1d ago
The true fucked up witch hunters were in Protestant Europe, the Inquisition ironically enough tended to be a voice of reason against the uneducated peasants superstitions
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u/apolloxer 1d ago
The Spanish Inquisition "only" executed about 3'000 people. In about 350 years of existing.
That's a lazy afternoon in a proper protestant witch hunt.
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u/Mobile-Dust4334 1d ago
He didn’t find much gold so he was like “you know what’s also valuable? Slaves”
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u/High_King_Diablo 1d ago
But he forgot the part where they were only valuable if they were still alive when they reached the destination.
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u/msuvagabond 1d ago
And they told him to kick rocks because everyone knew the size of the planet, and he did some funky math and underestimated by something like 30%. Had the Americas not been there, he and his crew would have just died, which is exactly what the Papal States and various Italian peninsula state said to him.
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u/trimbandit 1d ago
Wait, the Caribbean is not considered part of the Americas now?
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u/StreetofChimes 1d ago
I'm of Italian decent. (Great grandparents.)
I'm not clinging. He was a piece of shit human. And for all my family's many many flaws, praising Columbus has never been one of them.
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u/MeOnCrack 1d ago
Why we giving credit for the discovery of a place the guy never even set foot in??
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u/SaltyBawlz 1d ago
The region is literally named after a completely different explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who somehow the majority of the population probably don't know about
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u/314R8 1d ago
Vespucci was the first to identify it as a new land and not India. Named it. And was a nice dude. He was also part of an Italian campaign
His 1 mistake was he was forgotten and when there was a push to have a mascot for Italian- Americans, Columbus was chosen.
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u/AzraelIshi 1d ago
The territories were never confused as "India", that's a misunderstanding. In the past the entirety of east asia was known as "the indies" which is what Columbus was refering to. Columbus believed he landed in the eastern islands of Cipangu (Japan), which according to his calculations using Torricelis and Al-Farghanis maps were going to be around the area where he first found the caribbean islands.
Amerigo also wasn't the first to identify it was new land, Columbus himself recognized that in his last voyage in 1498, when he landed in what today is northern Venezuela. The combination of the landmass being entirely too big to be "Cipangu" and the lack of anything they would have expected to find there (like an established kingdom) made him understand that he found, and I quote, "a very great continent… until today unknown", altough he still believed it was part of asia/"the indies". This new information is what pushed Amerigo to travel south and map this new continent Columbus discovered, to determine if it truly was a new continent or a piece of "the indies" that was unknown.
Lastly, the "push to have a mascot for italian-americans" was nowhere near the reason why Columbus is the one everyone talks about today. Both Columbus and Vespucci were forgotten, but a 1828 book by Washington Irving painted columbus as a heroic figure that discovered the continent and created many, many of the modern myths around him (like that he thought he was in india, or that he was lost and was a horrible navigator, or...). The reason why he chose Columbus is because he wanted to create a great historic figure, basically build the origin story of the US. During that time there was a massive lack of foundational figures who were not British and so he grasped at what he could. Columbus was chosen because he was the "first" and arguiably he discovered "north" america vs Vespucci who sailed to the south. The "biography" (fanfiction) he published became incredibly well known and liked, and that's how he came to be the center of the whole "Discovering america" thing.
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u/Longjumping-Zone-724 1d ago
Columbus discovered America in the same way I discover a new restaurant only difference is I don't enslave the restaurant workers
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u/Mekisteus 1d ago
This right here. Why does everyone in this thread insist that something can only ever be discovered once? That's not how any English speaker actually uses the word.
Columbus did discover North America. He just wasn't the first. And he was a total dick so fuck him.
I know the internet hates nuance but come on this isn't that hard.
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u/Stunning-Mastodon193 1d ago
Well, it’s certainly true. The Vikings found North America first. It is objectively true that after Columbus, Europe knew about the Americas and would continue to come over that simply wasn’t the case before.
He wasn’t “lost” as I often hear. He was a very talented sailor. Terrible geographer
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u/Holymaryfullofshit7 1d ago
Amerigo sitting in some corner crying. It's named after him. It's not called Colombia it's called America.
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u/CaramelTurtles 1d ago
He was so bad his patrons tried to jail him for his crimes but he made them so much money they ended up letting him go
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u/blueavole 1d ago
Someone also discovered helium, which has been around for the whole universe before there was even an Earth.
So it’s really more that someone noticed it and added it the reference library we still use.
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u/SubmarineDream57 1d ago
When the written record is updated to reflect the truth, MAGA’s knee-jerk response is to look away, clap hands over ears and holler “La-la-la-la-la!!”
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u/rjsquirrel 1d ago
I prefer my late 15th-early 16th century explorers with a conscience, thanks. Like Bartolomé de las Casas, early proponent of universal human rights.
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u/Any-Seaworthiness-54 1d ago
By that logic, you can’t discover a new species either, because the animal already knew it existed.
What is even the point of that word?
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u/No-Sail-6510 1d ago
I really hate this argument. If nobody in Europe knew it was there, and the people in the new world didn’t realize where they were he did indeed discover it. Infact, even if the indigenous in the new world perfectly understood where they were in relation to the rest of the world, he still discovered it for all of the old world. It doesn’t diminish that in any way.
If you want to poke holes in Columbus, there’s so much fodder. For example he was a genocidal, psychopathic, religious zealot who actually never really understood the full value of what he’d done because he was kinda stupid and dogmatic .
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u/MoveToSafety 1d ago
This is really my take. History is also written by conquerors or at least those with power. Just compare Russian and American textbooks.
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u/Illustrious-Share312 1d ago
History is written by the literate. We have loads of accounts from the losers of wars.
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u/xywv58 1d ago
Columbus did open America to the European world, he wasn't the first, but one of the most important, dismissing his achievements is dumb, dismissing that he was an absolute monster is dumb, they're both dumb
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u/Saucererer 1d ago
People don't hate Columbus for exploring... they hate him because his reaction to finding other humans in the places he explored was slavery and genocide
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u/ThereminLiesTheRub 1d ago
"Discovered" in the sense he came across it. Newton didnt invent gravity, he just came across a scientific understanding of it.
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u/EverybodyMakes 1d ago
Can't I hate Columbus and still acknowledge that he was the first one to use ships of the day to travel to and from "the Americas" and make Europeans aware they could do that? That's "discovering" something. Then, of course, he was a monster and lots of people after him.
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u/LawrenceSpivey 1d ago
The Christopher Columbus I learned about on my own is far different than the bullshit they told us in public schools. Seems he didn’t bother to look any further than that.
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u/SquallkLeon 1d ago
Really depends on what you mean by "discover".
If you mean the first person to ever step foot on that piece of land, then it was likely some tribesmen hundreds or thousands of years before Columbus.
If you mean the first person to ever step foot on that general land mass/continent, as defined by the modern definition of continent, then that was likely a tribesman chasing wooly mammoths thousands of years ago.
If you mean the first person from a particular place, say, the continent of Europe, to step foot on that land, then it was Leif Erikson.
If you mean the first person to recognize and publicize that this was a new and previously unknown (to Europeans, Africans, and most Asians and Polynesians) place, then it was Amerigo Vespucci.
If you mean the first person whose journey to that place and back was widely known, in multiple countries and cultures, and whose journey was followed up by many others, then it was Christopher Columbus.
It's pedantic (the whole debate is), but you really need to define your terms.
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u/I_ALWAYS_UPVOTE_CATS 1d ago
I remember when this sub was actually about eviscerating comebacks, not just run-of-the-mill counterpoints.
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u/Gerry1of1 1d ago
Guess what, Both can be true.
In the 70s I was taught both in school. Columbus made his journey and we were also taught Leif Erikson made his.
No need to make this red vs blue
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u/HeavyMusic93 1d ago
Both aren’t true
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u/Gerry1of1 1d ago
Which one isn't true? Columbus didn't make his voyage or Leif Erikson didn't make his?
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u/HeavyMusic93 1d ago
The discovery part.
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u/Gerry1of1 1d ago
Semantics. "Discovered" "Found" whatever. Columbus opened the western hemisphere up to the eastern.
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u/Sidoen 1d ago
As far as I know, Asians discovered the America's first. At least thousands of years before Europeans got here.
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u/GiganticCrow 1d ago
I mean technically he did 'discover' it, in that he didn't know it was there before.
Its like I 'discovered' a band I really like last week, but of course plenty of other people were fans for years before me.
And me 'discovering' that band is just as historically insignificant as Columbus 'discovering' america.
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u/Dealiner 1d ago
And me 'discovering' that band is just as historically insignificant as Columbus 'discovering' america.
Is your discovery of a band considered so important that it marks the end of one of the historical era?
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u/Argented 1d ago
Columbus at best 'discovered' the Caribbean. He made it to modern day Cuba, Bahamas and even Haiti / Dominican Republic. He never made it to mainland North America but did visit parts of Central and northern South America. He went to Panama and Venezuela but not Florida.
One weird thing when you consider his routes is he likely saw Epstein Island.
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u/Altruistic-Star-3862 1d ago
First, he was Sephardic, not Italian or Genoan. He converted to Christianity and became and millenarian. He also was so brutal as a governor of Hispanola that even pre-Englightenment Europe thought he went too far with how he enslaved, raped, and murdered the indigenous people. Even though his relationship with the Spanish crown got him out of prison for those crimes, they never gave him back his titles.
No one should be honoring someone like Columbus. There are plenty of other notable Italians we can honor if they want a hero. An actual Italian hero sandwich would be better.
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u/therealmrj05hua 1d ago
He landed in the islands and Central America. The bs we learned as kids about this horrific pos should never have been taught. The real history of him should have. He was so hated that his own government hunted him in the end
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u/Drudgework 1d ago
Okay, two little tidbits for you guys:
Some scholars believe that Ancient Greeks visited North America because landmarks mentioned in the Odyssey match the northern sea route that the Vikings would have taken to reach here. This is obviously a controversial take due to a lack of direct archeological evidence.
If you don’t like Columbus the same day is also National Indigenous Peoples day. Calling it that will definitely piss off the red state culture warriors.
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u/Apprehensive-Pin518 1d ago
the real reason we celebrated christopher columbus was to fight an anti-italian sentiment that was growing in the country at the time. maybe we need to find a mexican "hero" we can celibrate next.
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u/VegasGamer75 1d ago
I remember during the pandemic when people in MAGA hats were bitching about having to wear a mask in Starbucks while ordering and they would respond to the barista with "Why, there's no one else here right now?".
That, right there, is how the Right views anyone of color. Any color other than white. First Nations and Native America people living there first? Good thing this guy "discovered" it, right? Fucking Columbus absolutely would have said to the native people "Why, there's no one else here" when told he can't just build a house there.
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u/emote_control 1d ago
Let's also note that this has nothing to do with the reason people hate Columbus. They hate him because he was a monster and committed crimes against humanity, not because he landed somewhere.
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u/solidadvise 1d ago
This kind of stuff always reminds me of Terry Pratchett, Vetinari renames the explorers guild the invaders guild because everywhere they “discover” already has people living there.
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u/Clozee_Tribe_Kale 1d ago
Didn't the Sopranos cover this whole thing in an episode like 25 years ago?
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u/Lalamedic 1d ago
If we really want to get picky, he wasn’t even technically Italian. Italy hadn’t been invented yet. He was from the Republic of Genoa. He also sailed under the Spanish flag.