1 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:08,840 Speaker 1: Ho Ho Ho Mary. Late summer. I'm Santa Claus. Normally 2 00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:11,160 Speaker 1: I'd come to you from the North Pole, but due 3 00:00:11,240 --> 00:00:14,000 Speaker 1: to a series of d A raids and Bobo Ho 4 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:18,080 Speaker 1: Gus Telny charges, I'm in hiding right now. My friend 5 00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:21,360 Speaker 1: Robert Evans has agreed to help me with all of 6 00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:23,759 Speaker 1: the charges against me, and its thanks to him. I've 7 00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:27,360 Speaker 1: used some of my CHRISP mismagic to put together the 8 00:00:27,520 --> 00:00:31,640 Speaker 1: perfect behind the Bastard script. But of course her perfect 9 00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:36,880 Speaker 1: script needs a perfect guest, so I've used Santa's Luciferian 10 00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:40,680 Speaker 1: hell Forge, powered by the bones of the Devil himself, 11 00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:47,640 Speaker 1: to conjure up the greatest podcast guest in history, Michael Swam. 12 00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:51,280 Speaker 1: All right, that's all from Santa until the holidays, kids, 13 00:00:51,479 --> 00:00:55,160 Speaker 1: And remember those children were dead when Santa got there. 14 00:00:56,280 --> 00:01:01,200 Speaker 1: Oh thank you, Sanna Ah. Robert Evans here the newly 15 00:01:01,280 --> 00:01:04,840 Speaker 1: conjured Michael Swain. Michael, how does it feel to have 16 00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:09,080 Speaker 1: been birthed from Santa's Luciferian hell Forge? What the fuck? 17 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:14,479 Speaker 1: What the funk was that he's an immortal, immortal North 18 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:18,959 Speaker 1: Pole man just told us, Robert, everything about my conception 19 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,640 Speaker 1: of metaphysics has shattered. Now, Michael, this is interesting. Is 20 00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:25,720 Speaker 1: it true that you never existed prior to this point 21 00:01:25,760 --> 00:01:27,840 Speaker 1: and all of the memories that people have of your 22 00:01:27,880 --> 00:01:30,800 Speaker 1: many hours of content were created by the devil in 23 00:01:30,840 --> 00:01:34,280 Speaker 1: the last several seconds. I come from the yes and 24 00:01:34,360 --> 00:01:41,000 Speaker 1: school of improvs. So absolutely, that's my entire beast. Now, well, 25 00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:45,039 Speaker 1: now that you exist and have an extensive backlog of 26 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:48,360 Speaker 1: content and projects in that have been well underway for 27 00:01:48,400 --> 00:01:51,160 Speaker 1: several years at this point going on, why don't you 28 00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:53,960 Speaker 1: tell the audience what what kind of stuff you do 29 00:01:54,040 --> 00:01:55,760 Speaker 1: and where they can find you before we get into 30 00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:59,800 Speaker 1: this this Yule Tide extravaganza of an episode. Thank you 31 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:02,960 Speaker 1: so much? River. Well, it's true I was busy in 32 00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:07,480 Speaker 1: Santa's sack, and I don't mean it's attack. But when 33 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,520 Speaker 1: I was but a gleam in Santa's I I was 34 00:02:10,760 --> 00:02:13,679 Speaker 1: Let's see where can I take the metaphor um cobbling 35 00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:17,040 Speaker 1: together a brand new show about video games with my 36 00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:20,000 Speaker 1: friend Adam Ganza right here on the I Heart Network. 37 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:23,200 Speaker 1: So check us out. We're called one Upsmanship. That's the 38 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:27,079 Speaker 1: number one, and then the word lit upsmanship. I used 39 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:29,480 Speaker 1: to say word, but Adam told me that that's bullshit. 40 00:02:29,919 --> 00:02:32,040 Speaker 1: But I need people to know that it's the number one. 41 00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:34,840 Speaker 1: So yeah, we deep dive into various video games and 42 00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:37,840 Speaker 1: argue about whether they would be shown to aliens if 43 00:02:37,880 --> 00:02:40,480 Speaker 1: we wanted to like impress them and not have them 44 00:02:40,480 --> 00:02:43,560 Speaker 1: destroy humanity. But it seems like the windows closing on 45 00:02:43,639 --> 00:02:47,360 Speaker 1: that opportunity. But let's put it this way, when they 46 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:49,680 Speaker 1: sift through the ruins of Earth, these are the video 47 00:02:49,720 --> 00:02:53,239 Speaker 1: games we want them to encounter. Now, it's Michael, it's 48 00:02:53,320 --> 00:02:56,160 Speaker 1: it's very appropriate. You just talked about what we would 49 00:02:56,200 --> 00:02:59,120 Speaker 1: show aliens if they came to Earth, because today we're 50 00:02:59,200 --> 00:03:01,680 Speaker 1: kind of talking about that kind of story. This is 51 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:05,000 Speaker 1: the story of essentially a group of aliens led by 52 00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:08,240 Speaker 1: the most alien creature in all of the universe and Italian, 53 00:03:08,600 --> 00:03:12,040 Speaker 1: who come upon a world filled with people who you know, 54 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:15,680 Speaker 1: are are going to have to endure the realities of 55 00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:19,600 Speaker 1: their of their appearance in this world. Um, I am, 56 00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:23,120 Speaker 1: of course talking about Christopher Columbus and his voyage to 57 00:03:23,200 --> 00:03:27,680 Speaker 1: the quote unquote New World. Masterful sege, not plague, not 58 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:30,640 Speaker 1: not at all, not at all. Michael, what do you 59 00:03:30,639 --> 00:03:32,600 Speaker 1: what do you what do you what do you know about? Oh, 60 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:37,040 Speaker 1: Chris Columbus, not the director but also the director. I 61 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:41,440 Speaker 1: assume they're guilty of the same crimes. So the angrier 62 00:03:41,520 --> 00:03:43,480 Speaker 1: you get it this, Chris Columbus, if you have a 63 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:46,680 Speaker 1: chance to do harm to the other Chris Columbus, just 64 00:03:46,760 --> 00:03:49,680 Speaker 1: take a swing man. It's fine. Yeah. They both are 65 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:52,920 Speaker 1: noted for their similar like rapport with children. Both Chris 66 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:57,760 Speaker 1: Columbus have um well, I know, of course the pat version, 67 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:00,560 Speaker 1: which I wonder if it's still taught an element free school. 68 00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:05,840 Speaker 1: But I first imbibed like the classic Happy Thanksgiving, Everything's 69 00:04:05,880 --> 00:04:10,960 Speaker 1: fine Christopher Columbus story, and my, uh, my eyes were 70 00:04:11,560 --> 00:04:13,920 Speaker 1: ripped from the veil whatever, you know what I mean, 71 00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:18,800 Speaker 1: probably middle of high school, where I learned a few 72 00:04:18,920 --> 00:04:21,480 Speaker 1: let's say, fun facts about Christopher Columbus that I bet 73 00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:24,920 Speaker 1: will come up over the course of this podcast. And 74 00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:28,960 Speaker 1: then this all culminated for me personally when at Cracked. 75 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:32,760 Speaker 1: Among many many sketches, I got to portray Chris Columbus 76 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:35,520 Speaker 1: in a series we did called Dead Talks, which is 77 00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:39,480 Speaker 1: an exhaustive like Chris Columbus bragging basically about the triangle 78 00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:44,120 Speaker 1: trade and you know, putting it in sort of neo 79 00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:46,000 Speaker 1: tech like we're going to change the world for the 80 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:48,440 Speaker 1: better terms is the premise of that sketch and I 81 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,680 Speaker 1: learned a lot through that actually, because cracked, as you know, 82 00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:54,839 Speaker 1: it's very fact based, something you brought to it honestly 83 00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:57,400 Speaker 1: before you were hired. I got to make shift up 84 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:00,640 Speaker 1: a lot more. And uh, then they are like, these 85 00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:03,360 Speaker 1: kids really like the facts. Let's do the fact. I 86 00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:06,880 Speaker 1: murdered the fun for you. That's right. We hybridized it. 87 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:09,279 Speaker 1: We got jokes in there. I know the feeling. He 88 00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:13,080 Speaker 1: does murder the fun. I do murder the fun, just 89 00:05:13,160 --> 00:05:15,919 Speaker 1: like Santa murdered those kids. According to the d e 90 00:05:16,040 --> 00:05:21,920 Speaker 1: A there it is so Santa does not admit any 91 00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:25,200 Speaker 1: wrongdoing in this case. So before we get into this episode, Mike, 92 00:05:25,240 --> 00:05:28,040 Speaker 1: I think we should probably have a discussion about morality 93 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:31,839 Speaker 1: and the distant past, because whenever we talk particularly about dead, 94 00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:34,760 Speaker 1: famous white guys who were once worshiped as heroes and 95 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:37,919 Speaker 1: are now being criticized for bad things they did, there's 96 00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:40,039 Speaker 1: a cry that goes up from a certain corner that's like, 97 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:43,120 Speaker 1: you can't judge people from the past by modern moral standards. 98 00:05:43,600 --> 00:05:46,239 Speaker 1: This is usually meant as a callow and cowardly attempt 99 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:49,080 Speaker 1: to stop all critical moral analysis of these people, but 100 00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:53,599 Speaker 1: also the sentiment is not entirely without value, because things 101 00:05:53,760 --> 00:05:56,800 Speaker 1: are different in the past, and if you are applying 102 00:05:57,120 --> 00:05:59,800 Speaker 1: entirely modern standards to things, then you're going to like 103 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:03,039 Speaker 1: wind up just getting angry at ship and condemning people 104 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:06,200 Speaker 1: rather than kind of understanding their actual place in the 105 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:08,640 Speaker 1: moral universe of the time. And I think slavery is 106 00:06:08,680 --> 00:06:11,800 Speaker 1: a good example of that, because viewing all slavery and 107 00:06:11,880 --> 00:06:14,680 Speaker 1: all people who have owned slaves in history as the 108 00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:17,320 Speaker 1: same as the worst slave owners in history, and I'm 109 00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:20,520 Speaker 1: generally talking about the American Confederacy in this period of 110 00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:23,240 Speaker 1: time or when I when I say that is kind 111 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:27,159 Speaker 1: of counterproductive because slavery has been the normal state of 112 00:06:27,200 --> 00:06:31,000 Speaker 1: affairs in most society throughout human history. Most societies either 113 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:34,280 Speaker 1: had slaves or individuals in them were always at risk 114 00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:36,920 Speaker 1: of being enslaved. This is a thing that has gone 115 00:06:36,960 --> 00:06:40,560 Speaker 1: on basically forever. There have been some notable exceptions, like 116 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:42,839 Speaker 1: the Persian Empire and whatnot, were like there was no 117 00:06:42,920 --> 00:06:47,080 Speaker 1: such thing as slavery, but there were generally structures within 118 00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:50,560 Speaker 1: things like the Persian Empire or like structures like serfdom that, 119 00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:53,520 Speaker 1: even though they were technically slavery, were worse off than 120 00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:55,480 Speaker 1: slaves were in a lot of other Like you could 121 00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:58,359 Speaker 1: compare a surf in the Russian step to like a 122 00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:01,120 Speaker 1: slave in urban Rome, and slave in urban Rome has 123 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:04,000 Speaker 1: a lot more autonomy as a general rule, So like 124 00:07:04,160 --> 00:07:06,440 Speaker 1: discussing all of these things as if they're kind of 125 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:08,839 Speaker 1: the same, I think does lose us some nuance. And 126 00:07:08,880 --> 00:07:13,720 Speaker 1: so when we're talking about Christopher Columbus, I obviously none 127 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:16,160 Speaker 1: of this is set up in order to defend him 128 00:07:16,320 --> 00:07:22,760 Speaker 1: or mitigate his bood. But yeah, I think if you 129 00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:26,040 Speaker 1: want to actually understand what he did that was like 130 00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:29,280 Speaker 1: super fucked up, it's important not to just kind of 131 00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:31,120 Speaker 1: look at here's the things he did that we can 132 00:07:31,160 --> 00:07:33,880 Speaker 1: say now in two are bad, But here is the 133 00:07:33,880 --> 00:07:36,600 Speaker 1: things that he made worse. Here are the things that 134 00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:40,360 Speaker 1: like he ways he changed the world in ways that 135 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:43,040 Speaker 1: made it more brutal and horrific than it had been, 136 00:07:43,080 --> 00:07:46,240 Speaker 1: because he came into a pretty gnarly fucking world and 137 00:07:46,280 --> 00:07:48,360 Speaker 1: he made it a lot worse. And I think that's 138 00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:51,320 Speaker 1: the reason to condemn him, rather than being rather than 139 00:07:51,440 --> 00:07:53,480 Speaker 1: stuff that he did that was like more or less 140 00:07:53,480 --> 00:07:55,760 Speaker 1: in line with common morality at the time. So I 141 00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:57,440 Speaker 1: think you do have to have an understanding of like 142 00:07:57,760 --> 00:08:01,119 Speaker 1: what was accepted in his culture. You understand the things 143 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:04,960 Speaker 1: he did that were particularly fucked up. If that makes sense, Oh, 144 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:07,440 Speaker 1: it absolutely makes sense. Although I do want to say 145 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:10,440 Speaker 1: something that came to mind for me, uh was a 146 00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:13,240 Speaker 1: trip to the Slavery Museum in New York that I 147 00:08:14,080 --> 00:08:16,640 Speaker 1: where I encounter like a series of letters from people 148 00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:19,520 Speaker 1: at the time when the Triangle trade was first like 149 00:08:19,720 --> 00:08:22,160 Speaker 1: getting built and slave ships were coming to the shore. 150 00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:25,080 Speaker 1: And what was really eye opening for me is several 151 00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:29,320 Speaker 1: of the letters are and I'm paraphrasing here, holy sh it, 152 00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:33,559 Speaker 1: these are human beings and they're enslaving them. They're doing this. Now, 153 00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:36,679 Speaker 1: what the funk is going on? That's insane. We can't 154 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:39,680 Speaker 1: do that. What is this? It's so it's interesting that 155 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:42,080 Speaker 1: on and they it was on rare occasion, but there 156 00:08:42,120 --> 00:08:45,240 Speaker 1: were people who saw it with modern eyes instinctively like 157 00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:47,640 Speaker 1: you can't do that to a human being. Well, here's 158 00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:50,079 Speaker 1: the thing, I will are you, we'll get into this more. 159 00:08:50,200 --> 00:08:52,600 Speaker 1: They're not seeing it with modernized because most of those 160 00:08:52,640 --> 00:08:57,760 Speaker 1: people accepted slavery in other forms, specifically the kind of 161 00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:01,959 Speaker 1: slavery that Columbus instituted. They were like, oh my god, 162 00:09:02,280 --> 00:09:05,080 Speaker 1: this is so much worse than anything we've seen. Like, 163 00:09:05,320 --> 00:09:08,120 Speaker 1: everybody does a little bit of slave trading, but what 164 00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:11,800 Speaker 1: he has introduced is like a new plague upon the world, 165 00:09:11,880 --> 00:09:15,080 Speaker 1: and is is is so much worse than anything that 166 00:09:15,120 --> 00:09:17,000 Speaker 1: had been seen before. I think that's part of what's 167 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:19,439 Speaker 1: interesting about him, because like some of the people who 168 00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:21,680 Speaker 1: are condemning him, like day Las Casas, are people who 169 00:09:21,720 --> 00:09:24,920 Speaker 1: like grew up with slave trading in their local in 170 00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:28,560 Speaker 1: their own society, and like didn't really speak out about 171 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:34,319 Speaker 1: that being an issue. Yeah, and it's Las Casas. I 172 00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:37,320 Speaker 1: I take the podcast wherever you want to steer it, 173 00:09:37,320 --> 00:09:39,120 Speaker 1: but if you do get into the list of just 174 00:09:39,200 --> 00:09:45,240 Speaker 1: like imagery, it's pretty it is a nightmare. But I 175 00:09:45,280 --> 00:09:47,840 Speaker 1: do want to in order to actually, I think, in 176 00:09:47,960 --> 00:09:52,640 Speaker 1: order to properly condemn Christopher Columbus to the with the 177 00:09:52,679 --> 00:09:55,440 Speaker 1: most understanding that we can condemn him, we have to 178 00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:58,320 Speaker 1: set the moral scene and and talk about the world 179 00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:00,480 Speaker 1: he came into and like what was the norm in 180 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:04,120 Speaker 1: the society that he and his critics came into. So 181 00:10:04,160 --> 00:10:05,800 Speaker 1: this is not just when we talk about the ship 182 00:10:05,880 --> 00:10:09,080 Speaker 1: that was normal in Columbus's world. This is also the 183 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:11,520 Speaker 1: thing that the people who condemned him at the time, 184 00:10:11,880 --> 00:10:14,160 Speaker 1: saw is normal, which gives you an idea of like, 185 00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:18,319 Speaker 1: how fucked up what Columbus does later is um, because 186 00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:21,640 Speaker 1: it's bad. But um, yeah, we will be talking about 187 00:10:21,720 --> 00:10:24,480 Speaker 1: a number of different kind of historic defenses because we 188 00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:26,520 Speaker 1: had this. So if you want to look at the 189 00:10:26,559 --> 00:10:28,880 Speaker 1: broad sweep of how people have talked about Columbus, you 190 00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:34,120 Speaker 1: had Columbus, great guy, hero, schoolhouse rock, you know, YadA, YadA, YadA, 191 00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:37,280 Speaker 1: let's let's show him dancing, and then you have Columbus 192 00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:41,120 Speaker 1: is was a monster and and a war criminal on 193 00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:43,800 Speaker 1: a on a on a historic scale. And now you've 194 00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:48,440 Speaker 1: got a pushback largely coming from conservatives. Um. If you 195 00:10:48,520 --> 00:10:53,160 Speaker 1: want to go google Columbus Misunderstood or like Columbus, you know, 196 00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:56,160 Speaker 1: revisiting or whatever, you'll find a bunch of daily wire 197 00:10:56,240 --> 00:10:58,920 Speaker 1: fucking articles and ship about him, and a lot of 198 00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:00,960 Speaker 1: them are going to quote one of the books that 199 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:04,360 Speaker 1: also is going to be a source of our in 200 00:11:04,400 --> 00:11:08,640 Speaker 1: our episode today. UM. And it's a book by Carol Delaney, 201 00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:11,439 Speaker 1: Um that is about It's called Columbus and the Quest 202 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:14,199 Speaker 1: for Jerusalem. Um. Now, this is a book that has 203 00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:16,160 Speaker 1: some original research, and it will be quoting from it 204 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:17,960 Speaker 1: quite a bit, but we will also be quoting from 205 00:11:18,040 --> 00:11:21,280 Speaker 1: other sources to point out how fucked up what Delaney 206 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:25,079 Speaker 1: is trying to do in rehabilitating Columbus is. Um. She 207 00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:27,560 Speaker 1: is clear to note that she's trying to look at 208 00:11:27,600 --> 00:11:30,360 Speaker 1: him quote from a contemporary perspective rather than from the 209 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,959 Speaker 1: values and practice or she's she's she complains that people 210 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:36,840 Speaker 1: try to judge him quote from a contemporary perspective rather 211 00:11:36,880 --> 00:11:40,280 Speaker 1: than from the values and practices of his own time. Um. 212 00:11:40,360 --> 00:11:42,360 Speaker 1: And then she goes ahead and leaves out all of 213 00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:44,800 Speaker 1: the different judgments that people out at his own time 214 00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:46,960 Speaker 1: made about him, and a whole bunch of other details too. 215 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:49,280 Speaker 1: It's just wild too. It was a different time, like 216 00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:53,360 Speaker 1: stabbing pregnant people on their bellies, You're like different. That 217 00:11:53,559 --> 00:11:57,160 Speaker 1: was always a problem, um, but it's interesting. I think 218 00:11:57,200 --> 00:11:59,160 Speaker 1: part of the value of this episode is as we 219 00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:01,160 Speaker 1: go through Columbus his life, we will be going through 220 00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:03,280 Speaker 1: Delaney's book and pointing out all of the things she 221 00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:05,840 Speaker 1: leaves out, because it's useful when you try to engage 222 00:12:05,840 --> 00:12:07,800 Speaker 1: with people who are currently in the process of trying 223 00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:10,760 Speaker 1: to rehabilitate Columbus, because that is like you may not 224 00:12:10,800 --> 00:12:12,560 Speaker 1: have noticed it, and all of the other problems. But 225 00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:14,560 Speaker 1: it's like a thing the right has been trying to do, 226 00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:17,719 Speaker 1: particularly in the last two years. Um So, I think 227 00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:21,440 Speaker 1: it's worth not just being like fuck that book, but 228 00:12:21,559 --> 00:12:23,959 Speaker 1: also being like, here is why that's books fucked up in. 229 00:12:24,040 --> 00:12:25,720 Speaker 1: Here is the things that it leaves out, and here's 230 00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:29,120 Speaker 1: the holes in her research that other people have not 231 00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:34,079 Speaker 1: had holes in. Um So, Yeah, Christopher Columbus was born 232 00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:37,880 Speaker 1: not at long after the Black Death finished its last 233 00:12:37,880 --> 00:12:40,200 Speaker 1: series of waves. Throughout his world, he's a he's a 234 00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:43,040 Speaker 1: child of the Mediterranean. He's born on the Italian coast. 235 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:46,120 Speaker 1: Probably we don't know exactly, but there's a bunch of 236 00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:48,360 Speaker 1: records of him as a young man in the city 237 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:51,040 Speaker 1: of Genoa, and he always claimed to be from Genoa, 238 00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:54,679 Speaker 1: so it's pretty safe to say probably born somewhere around Genoa. 239 00:12:55,440 --> 00:12:59,520 Speaker 1: Um and you know, Genoa is it's worth like again 240 00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:01,960 Speaker 1: to kind of at the stage for like the kind 241 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:05,720 Speaker 1: of people who are around when he's a kid. The 242 00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:08,679 Speaker 1: plague is still kind of in its last waves when 243 00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:13,360 Speaker 1: he's born, and the Mediterranean is particularly like one of 244 00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:15,760 Speaker 1: the places where the Black Plague does them. There's a 245 00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:19,320 Speaker 1: lot of cities and towns, including Genoa, where it's not 246 00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:22,480 Speaker 1: uncommon for like plague waves to kill fifty to se 247 00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:26,440 Speaker 1: the population, whereas if you're looking at like England and stuff, 248 00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:29,400 Speaker 1: it's often more like twenty, which is still devastating. Right, 249 00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:32,000 Speaker 1: you think about how bad COVID has been and how 250 00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:34,400 Speaker 1: much damage like a million dead has done in a 251 00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:39,520 Speaker 1: country three million, and like you're talking about, you know, 252 00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:42,360 Speaker 1: seventy five times that many people dying more or less 253 00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:45,360 Speaker 1: in like or actually know, like a hundred and I 254 00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:47,000 Speaker 1: don't know, I'm not great at math. A lot more 255 00:13:47,960 --> 00:13:50,960 Speaker 1: as a percentage of your population, much more people. So 256 00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:53,679 Speaker 1: number one. One of the things that this sets up 257 00:13:53,760 --> 00:13:57,079 Speaker 1: understanding like the fact that an apocalypse has just occurred. 258 00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:01,560 Speaker 1: When Christopher Columbus co and do he is going to 259 00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:04,200 Speaker 1: cause an apocalypse, but he's also he is the child 260 00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:07,000 Speaker 1: of an apocalypse. So he's born into a world where 261 00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:10,520 Speaker 1: like a whole lot of ship got sucked up really hard, 262 00:14:10,760 --> 00:14:14,080 Speaker 1: very recently in ways that are it would be difficult 263 00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:16,680 Speaker 1: for us to put our heads, to put ourselves in 264 00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:20,080 Speaker 1: the place of like people living in that world, because 265 00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:22,640 Speaker 1: the collapse that they endured was like so much more 266 00:14:22,680 --> 00:14:25,400 Speaker 1: severe than anything we've seen yet, you know, check back 267 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:28,080 Speaker 1: in in about a month and a half. But at 268 00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:32,800 Speaker 1: the moment um, and obviously slavery was extremely common in 269 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:35,160 Speaker 1: the world. He grew up in the city of his birth, Genoa, 270 00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:38,120 Speaker 1: was an influential Italian city state that made a significant 271 00:14:38,160 --> 00:14:41,280 Speaker 1: amount of its income through slavery. Italy is not a thing, 272 00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:45,200 Speaker 1: like it's a geographical thing, but like nobody would say that, 273 00:14:45,240 --> 00:14:47,960 Speaker 1: like I'm an Italian. You'd say, like, I'm Genoese. You know, 274 00:14:48,040 --> 00:14:50,640 Speaker 1: I'm from Venice, I'm a Roman. And they all hate 275 00:14:50,680 --> 00:14:52,840 Speaker 1: each other, like they hate each other and they're yeah, 276 00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:57,320 Speaker 1: they're city states and they're constantly murdering each other, and um, yeah, 277 00:14:57,400 --> 00:14:59,960 Speaker 1: it's it's it's Italian's favorite thing in this period is 278 00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:02,160 Speaker 1: killing each other. Um, it's like the thing that they 279 00:15:02,560 --> 00:15:05,360 Speaker 1: do the most of um, other than make a shipload 280 00:15:05,360 --> 00:15:08,160 Speaker 1: of money through trade, a lot of which is the 281 00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:11,440 Speaker 1: slave trade. And the book is a good historic upgrade 282 00:15:11,480 --> 00:15:15,040 Speaker 1: that rebrand in Genoa from slavery to Salamia, which I 283 00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:18,000 Speaker 1: think and they're most associated with now major grad Yeah, no, 284 00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:20,760 Speaker 1: it it sounds like Genoa was a fucking nightmare back 285 00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:22,320 Speaker 1: in the day. And it is worth noting when we 286 00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:25,360 Speaker 1: talk about this city there's about seventy five thousand people 287 00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:27,760 Speaker 1: in Genoa when he's a kid, which makes it I 288 00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:30,280 Speaker 1: think it's like in the top five or ten cities 289 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:33,360 Speaker 1: in Western Europe by population. It's one of the most 290 00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:35,000 Speaker 1: I mean it's which makes it one of the most 291 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:38,280 Speaker 1: populous cities in the world at the time. Um, because 292 00:15:38,280 --> 00:15:42,680 Speaker 1: there's not all that many people, you know. UM. Anyway, 293 00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:46,480 Speaker 1: the book Columbus by Lawrence bear Green, who's a much 294 00:15:46,520 --> 00:15:50,600 Speaker 1: better historian than Carol Delaney, I think, um ably describes 295 00:15:50,640 --> 00:15:52,960 Speaker 1: the status quo in his home when he was born. 296 00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:56,600 Speaker 1: R E slavery quote. Slavery was deeply woven into the 297 00:15:56,640 --> 00:15:59,960 Speaker 1: fabric of the Genoese economy, especially traffic in girls who 298 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:03,480 Speaker 1: were only thirteen or fourteen years old. Every Genoese household, 299 00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:06,640 Speaker 1: even modest ones, had one or two female slaves. Although 300 00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:09,880 Speaker 1: Christianity prohibited bondage, an exception was made for these non 301 00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:14,440 Speaker 1: Christian slaves. They were Russian, Arab, Mongol, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Albanian 302 00:16:14,440 --> 00:16:17,240 Speaker 1: and Chinese slave traders and pirates sold them on a 303 00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:20,440 Speaker 1: regular basis to Genoa. Occasionally, their wide net included a 304 00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:23,120 Speaker 1: Christian girl whom they kidnapped and would return for a 305 00:16:23,200 --> 00:16:27,800 Speaker 1: high ransom. The transactions were formal ordarized. Indeeded most slaves 306 00:16:27,800 --> 00:16:30,280 Speaker 1: were sold as is. If others whose health had been 307 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:34,000 Speaker 1: guaranteed developed epilepsy or other health problems, the owner demanded 308 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:37,080 Speaker 1: an annulment of the contract. Some cautious buyers kept the 309 00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:39,160 Speaker 1: girl of their choice on a trial basis to judge 310 00:16:39,160 --> 00:16:41,480 Speaker 1: whether she would remain charming and adapt to a life 311 00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:44,680 Speaker 1: of slavery. In Genoa, once acquired by a Genoese master, 312 00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:48,200 Speaker 1: girls became mere property, bound to gratify his sexual wants, 313 00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:50,960 Speaker 1: as well as those of his friends. Merchants able to 314 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:53,880 Speaker 1: afford a concubine, and many in this prosperous city could 315 00:16:54,120 --> 00:16:57,200 Speaker 1: maintain them in households separate from their families. The master 316 00:16:57,280 --> 00:16:59,360 Speaker 1: of the house specified the terms of the arrangement with 317 00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:02,680 Speaker 1: the local note republic, especially concerning sensitive matters such as 318 00:17:02,680 --> 00:17:07,119 Speaker 1: inheritance rights for children born out of wedlock. So a 319 00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:09,960 Speaker 1: couple of things. You're number one, that's bad, Like it's 320 00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:15,160 Speaker 1: bad to have your society based heavily around child sex trading. 321 00:17:15,400 --> 00:17:18,520 Speaker 1: But also this is the norm, right, this is what 322 00:17:18,560 --> 00:17:21,480 Speaker 1: he's born into. Right, It's yeah, it's just hard to 323 00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:24,120 Speaker 1: put yourself truly in the mindset of an actual other 324 00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:27,040 Speaker 1: time with truly different social morizes, in the sense that 325 00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:30,880 Speaker 1: this is someone who's going, here's a fourteen year old 326 00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:33,000 Speaker 1: girl I purchased, If you'd like to have sex with her, 327 00:17:33,119 --> 00:17:36,280 Speaker 1: my friend, we're doing it. We're doing a society. This 328 00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:41,720 Speaker 1: is civilization now. Uh, it's so inconceivable through modern eyes. 329 00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:45,399 Speaker 1: And yeah, I totally get what you're saying in the 330 00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:48,000 Speaker 1: opening about the contrast between what yes stept and what 331 00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:51,399 Speaker 1: is normalized. And it is important. Again, obviously it is 332 00:17:51,440 --> 00:17:55,439 Speaker 1: bad to sexually traffic children as slaves, but also this 333 00:17:55,560 --> 00:17:58,440 Speaker 1: is not just the norm in Genoa in the fourteen hundreds. 334 00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:00,199 Speaker 1: This was going on has been going on for a 335 00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:03,919 Speaker 1: very long time, and you could argue the system is 336 00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:06,600 Speaker 1: less shitty than it was, for example, like the height 337 00:18:06,600 --> 00:18:09,960 Speaker 1: of the Roman Empire, because slaves in Genoa are primarily 338 00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:12,879 Speaker 1: this kind of slave like how slaves who exist to 339 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:16,560 Speaker 1: satisfy like an old dude sexual whims, which is gross 340 00:18:16,560 --> 00:18:19,520 Speaker 1: and bad, But a major factor of ancient Roman slavery 341 00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:22,320 Speaker 1: was we are going to enslave these people and work 342 00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:24,600 Speaker 1: them to death in a mind like in the worst 343 00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:29,159 Speaker 1: conditions imaginable by the thousands, which is probably worse, and 344 00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:32,080 Speaker 1: the fact that that's less common in the fourteen hundreds, 345 00:18:32,119 --> 00:18:34,359 Speaker 1: you could say, is better. I don't think it's super 346 00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:37,800 Speaker 1: useful to look at it that way, but like, yeah, 347 00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:40,600 Speaker 1: it's important to note that, like all, like Italian wealth 348 00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:44,520 Speaker 1: for the last three thousand years prior to this was 349 00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:48,240 Speaker 1: built on the back of slavery on a massive scale, right, 350 00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:51,639 Speaker 1: always had been, you know. Um, And that's that's the 351 00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:54,080 Speaker 1: world Columbus comes into, not just a world in which 352 00:18:54,359 --> 00:18:58,200 Speaker 1: the trade in girls is a major industry in his city, 353 00:18:58,359 --> 00:19:00,520 Speaker 1: but also a world in which no one can remember 354 00:19:00,560 --> 00:19:04,520 Speaker 1: a time in which Italians did not make did not 355 00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:08,360 Speaker 1: base a significant portion of their economy on slavery. Right, 356 00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:15,080 Speaker 1: And like the world pre taken one, there's not a 357 00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:19,640 Speaker 1: singlely amazing no so nothing can free these people. Um 358 00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:22,640 Speaker 1: and yeah, so by the standards of the time, Um, 359 00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:25,800 Speaker 1: an individual who like accepts within this society that like, yeah, 360 00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:29,320 Speaker 1: there's just gonna be slavery around me, that's pretty normal. Um. 361 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:32,440 Speaker 1: And it's worth noting, well, actually there's debates whether or 362 00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:34,320 Speaker 1: not Columbus himself owned a slave. This is the kind 363 00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:35,879 Speaker 1: of thing that you're not going to get a satisfying 364 00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:39,840 Speaker 1: answer on Um, but it is probably fair to say 365 00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:43,000 Speaker 1: that like if Columbus were just another Italian who existed 366 00:19:43,119 --> 00:19:46,440 Speaker 1: within a slave owning society and perpetuated it, he would 367 00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:49,960 Speaker 1: not get an episode on his own um, because there's like, 368 00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:52,840 Speaker 1: like every Italian prior to this point in history was 369 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:58,880 Speaker 1: involved in the slave trade basically. UM So yeah, anyway, UM, 370 00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:02,280 Speaker 1: what I think is important is kind of setting the 371 00:20:02,320 --> 00:20:05,640 Speaker 1: scene because the thing that he creates is like, it's 372 00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:08,480 Speaker 1: not just worse than slavery that exists in Genoa of 373 00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:10,679 Speaker 1: his birth, It's something that the Roman Empire would have 374 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:14,040 Speaker 1: looked at and been like Jesus Christ, dude, like what 375 00:20:14,119 --> 00:20:20,280 Speaker 1: the fuck? He yes? I mean he yes, he he 376 00:20:20,359 --> 00:20:23,280 Speaker 1: literally would have. But also like not not only did 377 00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:25,119 Speaker 1: people at the time judge him, but like if you 378 00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:27,439 Speaker 1: could go back and talk to like fucking Cicero, he 379 00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:29,960 Speaker 1: would have been like what the fuck man, this is like, 380 00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:35,359 Speaker 1: this isn't how you treat people. Um. So yeah, Christopher 381 00:20:35,359 --> 00:20:37,679 Speaker 1: Columbus was not, as I think he gets described a 382 00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:40,680 Speaker 1: lot by people on the left, just an er capitalist 383 00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:43,240 Speaker 1: who want to do enslaved people in like mind their 384 00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:47,520 Speaker 1: society because he was personally greedy. What's interesting about him 385 00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:50,199 Speaker 1: as a bastard. Is that the reason for everything he 386 00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:53,080 Speaker 1: does is that he becomes a Messianic Christian holy warrior, 387 00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:55,879 Speaker 1: and the genocide that he's going to commit, which heavily 388 00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:58,399 Speaker 1: involves slavery, is done in the name of funding a 389 00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:02,240 Speaker 1: war to retake the Holy City in Christendom, Jerusalem. Like, 390 00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:05,760 Speaker 1: that's why he does it. And so his excesses that 391 00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:07,960 Speaker 1: we're going to be covering are just because he's greedy, 392 00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:11,240 Speaker 1: although he certainly is, but it's because he's a frenzied 393 00:21:11,320 --> 00:21:14,000 Speaker 1: narcissist who believes he's chosen by God to bring about 394 00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:17,440 Speaker 1: the apocalypse, which is a different story than the one 395 00:21:17,480 --> 00:21:21,560 Speaker 1: I had heard even on the left for the most part. Um, Yeah, 396 00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:24,280 Speaker 1: I've only heard the Chamber of Horror's version. I have 397 00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:29,159 Speaker 1: not heard the Messianic cultist version. Yes he is. He 398 00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:32,160 Speaker 1: is a Messianic apocalypse cultist, and that's why he does 399 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:37,280 Speaker 1: a genocide. So Christophero Colombo, which is his actual birth name, 400 00:21:37,359 --> 00:21:39,600 Speaker 1: and it's ridiculous, so we're not going to call him 401 00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:42,240 Speaker 1: that again, was born near Genoa in the summer of 402 00:21:42,280 --> 00:21:46,280 Speaker 1: fourteen fifty one, quite possibly around July. We don't know 403 00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:49,160 Speaker 1: the exact date or even month. But Carol Delaney notes 404 00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:52,280 Speaker 1: that St. Christopher's Day was celebrated on July twenty and 405 00:21:52,320 --> 00:21:54,040 Speaker 1: that his first name might be a hint as to 406 00:21:54,080 --> 00:21:56,879 Speaker 1: win he was born. Um I have my issues with Carol, 407 00:21:56,920 --> 00:22:00,600 Speaker 1: but this is not an unreasonable deduction. Um Any also 408 00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:03,639 Speaker 1: notes quote the name given to a child at baptism 409 00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:05,760 Speaker 1: was believed to have an influence on the child's character. 410 00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:09,280 Speaker 1: So when Susannah that's his mom, selected the name Christopher Oh, 411 00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:11,720 Speaker 1: she may well have been trying to affect his destiny. 412 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:15,199 Speaker 1: The name Christopher Oh. Christopher means Christ Bearer and is 413 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:18,480 Speaker 1: derived from the story of a pagan man, Reprobus, who 414 00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:21,719 Speaker 1: once carried a small child across a river. As they crossed, 415 00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,320 Speaker 1: the child became heavier and heavier, until he revealed to 416 00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:27,119 Speaker 1: Reprobus that he was carrying the weight of the entire world. 417 00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,159 Speaker 1: With that Reprobus, we realized that he was carrying the 418 00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:33,440 Speaker 1: christ child. For his service, Reprobus became a saint known 419 00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:37,879 Speaker 1: as Christopher. So that's the guy he's named after. And 420 00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:41,160 Speaker 1: that's relevant because he is going to take that name 421 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:44,800 Speaker 1: that he gets super Literally, someone sold you a bag 422 00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:48,240 Speaker 1: of rocks, dude, you've been scammed. History dude, Yeah, you 423 00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:52,160 Speaker 1: have been scammed. And you know who else has been scammed? Michael, Oh, 424 00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:55,080 Speaker 1: gosh me in the future. After I hear these great, 425 00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:59,120 Speaker 1: wonderful products and services, I would say, the people who 426 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,360 Speaker 1: haven't her of these products and services have been scammed. 427 00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:05,359 Speaker 1: But you know you can judge for yourselves. You really 428 00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:14,520 Speaker 1: turned me around on that issue. Oh we're back. So 429 00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,639 Speaker 1: Christopher is born just two years before one of the 430 00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,600 Speaker 1: most critical events in Christian history, the fall of Constantinople 431 00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:25,160 Speaker 1: to the Ottoman Empire. Now this is a really fascinating 432 00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:27,520 Speaker 1: story in and of itself, but it's importance to our 433 00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:29,600 Speaker 1: story is that this was both seen as a sign 434 00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:32,959 Speaker 1: of the looming apocalypse. The enemy was quite literally at 435 00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:36,000 Speaker 1: the gates, and it was a calamity for European access 436 00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,000 Speaker 1: to global trade. Constantinople was one of the I mean 437 00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:40,919 Speaker 1: it still is like one of the major If you 438 00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:42,400 Speaker 1: just look at it on a map, you can see 439 00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,240 Speaker 1: why it's an important port city. Right. It's you can't 440 00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:49,440 Speaker 1: get shipped by sea from from Asia to the Mediterranean 441 00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,600 Speaker 1: without sailing around a bunch of extra bullshit unless you 442 00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:56,560 Speaker 1: cross through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which Constantinople effectively 443 00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:59,680 Speaker 1: allows you to guard Um, and prior to its fall, 444 00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,240 Speaker 1: Christian control of the city gave Europe basically all of 445 00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:06,239 Speaker 1: its access to spices and textiles from the Orient. Right, 446 00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:08,560 Speaker 1: That's how you get stuff from China, That's how you 447 00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:11,119 Speaker 1: get stuff from like even like Eastern you know, the 448 00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:14,359 Speaker 1: Russian provinces, places like Kazakhstan. It flows to you through 449 00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:18,440 Speaker 1: over the Black Sea, through fucking Constantinople. Constantinople falls, the 450 00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:21,680 Speaker 1: Ottomans blest the ship out of it with some very 451 00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:25,879 Speaker 1: cool canons um, and then suddenly Christians are like, oh no, 452 00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:29,120 Speaker 1: we're We're fucked. And there's a fun little story here. 453 00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:32,720 Speaker 1: They almost end the Eastern Orthodox Church as part of 454 00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:35,439 Speaker 1: an agreement with the pope to like send reinforcements to 455 00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:37,800 Speaker 1: save them, but it doesn't quite work out in time, 456 00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:40,879 Speaker 1: and it falls anyway, and then I guess the Eastern 457 00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:44,400 Speaker 1: Orthodox Church is like, well, why are we gonna? Yeah, 458 00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:50,320 Speaker 1: fuck it? I guess yeah. Um, So when the Ottomans 459 00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:54,200 Speaker 1: take Constantinople, which they call istanbul Um, there's a good 460 00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:58,960 Speaker 1: song about this setting up defining my favorite bands A 461 00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,639 Speaker 1: thousand years later. Whatever. Although you know, a lot of 462 00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:03,879 Speaker 1: different ethnic groups in the region would say that it's 463 00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,359 Speaker 1: quite a few other people's business. But the Turks, although 464 00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:09,040 Speaker 1: under air to win, the Turks would say that there 465 00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,000 Speaker 1: are only Turks in Anatolia. This is a whole contentious 466 00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:18,160 Speaker 1: historical man hates man. Yeah, particle man hates universe man 467 00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:22,720 Speaker 1: and recognizes the reality of the Armenian genocide. Um, that's 468 00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:26,840 Speaker 1: what everyone knows about particle man. Um. So when the 469 00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:30,200 Speaker 1: Ottomans take Constantinople, they get the ability to tax and 470 00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:33,480 Speaker 1: control all trade throughout the city or that comes through 471 00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,920 Speaker 1: the city, right and so and obviously, like you know, 472 00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,800 Speaker 1: they're Muslim, Christians are Christians. There's some like bad blood there. 473 00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,600 Speaker 1: So they don't have like the most interest in making 474 00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,880 Speaker 1: it uh easy for Western Europe to like get goods 475 00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:50,360 Speaker 1: from the East. Um. They want to make their fucking cut. 476 00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:52,159 Speaker 1: They've spent a lot of time going to war in 477 00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,200 Speaker 1: order to get the ability to do this. Um. And 478 00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:59,480 Speaker 1: you know this is a problem for Europe. Um. There's 479 00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,880 Speaker 1: attempts crusades. None of them really work out very well, 480 00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,320 Speaker 1: which is generally what happens with crusades. Usually they go 481 00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,240 Speaker 1: very badly. Um. And as Christopher goes grows up, he 482 00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:13,040 Speaker 1: was probably a little too young, you know, when Constantinople 483 00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:15,280 Speaker 1: falls to remember it. But a lot of his early 484 00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,719 Speaker 1: memories are going to be adults talking about these attempted crusades, 485 00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:22,840 Speaker 1: talking about the need to reconquer Constantinople and talking about 486 00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,399 Speaker 1: fall in Jerusalem, right, and the fact that like that 487 00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:29,080 Speaker 1: is a thing that Christians should be trying to reconquer. 488 00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,600 Speaker 1: So Jerusalem it was believed. Again this is not like 489 00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:35,120 Speaker 1: this is a belief at the time, but it's also 490 00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:38,199 Speaker 1: a belief among a lot of Christians today that Jerusalem 491 00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:40,960 Speaker 1: has to be in Christian hands, and particularly there's some 492 00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,119 Speaker 1: fucking temple there that has to be returned to like 493 00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:46,399 Speaker 1: being a Christian church or turned into a Christian church. 494 00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:48,080 Speaker 1: I don't know if I ever, I'm not an expert 495 00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,920 Speaker 1: on Jerusalem mystery. Don't yell at me, um, but like 496 00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,240 Speaker 1: there's a Jerusalem has to be in control, like the 497 00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:54,920 Speaker 1: Christians have to be in control of it so that 498 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,320 Speaker 1: God can end the world. Right, that's that's that's the 499 00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:02,040 Speaker 1: idea word for work, Yes, yes, um. But the problem 500 00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:06,520 Speaker 1: is that Jerusalem fell to Soladin in seven because again 501 00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:12,560 Speaker 1: crusades bad idea what and and Saladin very cool guy, 502 00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:14,960 Speaker 1: we'll talk about in one of these days. Um, But 503 00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:19,119 Speaker 1: it's worth noting that like this is very recent. Number one, 504 00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:21,680 Speaker 1: things move a little bit more slowly back then in 505 00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,000 Speaker 1: terms of history. This is three years before his birth, 506 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,320 Speaker 1: But this is also very recent history to everybody in 507 00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:30,600 Speaker 1: a lot of ways. Um. And to think about like 508 00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:32,880 Speaker 1: the way in which like this might have been talked 509 00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:35,800 Speaker 1: about the time. Remember, the founding of the United States 510 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,399 Speaker 1: is a political entity. Is about the same distance from 511 00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:41,159 Speaker 1: you and me as the fall of Jerusalem was to 512 00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,200 Speaker 1: Columbus as a young person. Think about the degree to 513 00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:46,600 Speaker 1: which that period of time shapes all of our lives 514 00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:48,920 Speaker 1: right now, the degree to which every people still talk 515 00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,360 Speaker 1: about the quote unquote founders and ship. And that will 516 00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,160 Speaker 1: give you an idea of like how immediate and relevant 517 00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:56,720 Speaker 1: the fall of Jerusalem would have been to Christopher Columbus 518 00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:58,960 Speaker 1: as a kid. Right. Yeah, you can still win any 519 00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:01,480 Speaker 1: argument if you can prove that Thomas jeff Well, that's 520 00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:06,240 Speaker 1: what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted, which is so and 521 00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:08,720 Speaker 1: it cares about that and in his day, the Trump 522 00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:11,640 Speaker 1: card is well, this will help us retake Jerusalem. Like, well, 523 00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:15,639 Speaker 1: you're not focusing enough, right you know. Um, Yeah, so 524 00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,400 Speaker 1: for young Christopher and for any good Catholic, it would 525 00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,320 Speaker 1: have been taken as read that the chief goal of 526 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,880 Speaker 1: Christian civilization ought to be the reconquest of the Holy Land. Now, 527 00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,600 Speaker 1: this was for some people an actual fervent belief that 528 00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:30,200 Speaker 1: they devoted their lives too. For most people, this is 529 00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,200 Speaker 1: kind of like the way old people today talk about 530 00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:34,680 Speaker 1: the deficit, right, Like they'll say, like, well, of course 531 00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,320 Speaker 1: I want to retake Jerusalem, but like, we gotta do 532 00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:39,560 Speaker 1: this too first, and like we got all this other 533 00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,120 Speaker 1: stuff to do, right, Like, it wasn't really on their 534 00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:44,880 Speaker 1: front burner, you know, um, which is why it never 535 00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:49,080 Speaker 1: gets retaken, among other reasons. Um. So, since there was 536 00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,600 Speaker 1: no real hope of taking the city and most of 537 00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,160 Speaker 1: the actual rulers were not going to burn all of 538 00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,120 Speaker 1: their treasure and all of their armies, probably failing to 539 00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:01,240 Speaker 1: retake Jerusalem, Christians at the time who were fanatics had 540 00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:04,200 Speaker 1: to content themselves with fantasies in order to like feel 541 00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:06,440 Speaker 1: like there was a chance of actually retaking the city. 542 00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:08,920 Speaker 1: One of the most common fantasies was about a guy 543 00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:10,880 Speaker 1: named Prester John, they believed, and who was this like 544 00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,560 Speaker 1: mythical Christian warrior king he's supposed to have a powerful 545 00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,440 Speaker 1: kingdom with a mighty army somewhere between Russia and China. 546 00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:17,960 Speaker 1: A lot of times people would say it was like 547 00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,200 Speaker 1: kind of where Tibet actually is. Um And basically the 548 00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:22,960 Speaker 1: way people will talk about it is that like any 549 00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,920 Speaker 1: day now, Prester John's gonna save us from the rampaging 550 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:29,560 Speaker 1: Muslim hordes. You know, he's gonna come down from somewhere 551 00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,640 Speaker 1: in Asia and we'll we'll, we'll beat those devious Muslims, 552 00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,640 Speaker 1: you know. Um. The other hope they had, and this 553 00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,800 Speaker 1: may be surprising to people, was the Great Khan. Now 554 00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:43,719 Speaker 1: they're generally talking about Genghis or um Or or uh 555 00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:46,640 Speaker 1: Kubla Khan, right when they talk about the Great Khan, 556 00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:50,040 Speaker 1: that none of those guys were around in Columbus's day. 557 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:52,600 Speaker 1: They were still talking about the Great Khan. The Western 558 00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,640 Speaker 1: Khanate had ended, which is like Russia Ish had ended 559 00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:59,000 Speaker 1: in thirteen seventy. In the Eastern Khannate was deep into 560 00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:02,120 Speaker 1: declined by the late four hundreds, but news didn't really 561 00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,360 Speaker 1: travel back then, right, So like people just knew that 562 00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,600 Speaker 1: a couple hundred years ago the Mongolians had been unstoppable 563 00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:12,480 Speaker 1: and assumed they still were. And one of the things 564 00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:17,680 Speaker 1: that the Mongolians did was fucking absolutely curb stomp um 565 00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:22,560 Speaker 1: a big Muslim empire, like they they fucking melt Baghdad. Basically, Um, 566 00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:26,520 Speaker 1: it is gnarly shit. And so another thing is that, 567 00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,320 Speaker 1: like you get these stories from Marco Polo, right, who's 568 00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,000 Speaker 1: like a hundred and fifty two hundred years earlier than 569 00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:34,760 Speaker 1: this period um, and still would have been very relevant 570 00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,840 Speaker 1: in the day that Columbus is going up, in part 571 00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:41,720 Speaker 1: because Columbus tells the story of like his magical journey 572 00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:44,800 Speaker 1: to Asia while he is captured by Genoese soldiers and 573 00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:48,520 Speaker 1: imprisoned in Genoa, right, Like he's another Italian and he 574 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,680 Speaker 1: like gets captured in a war, and he tells this 575 00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:54,040 Speaker 1: fucking story that's at least the story about how the 576 00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:57,520 Speaker 1: story comes out. Hey, everybody, I screwed up here at 577 00:30:57,640 --> 00:30:59,280 Speaker 1: this point, and at a couple of their points, I 578 00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,560 Speaker 1: say Columbus us when I meant to say Marco Polo, 579 00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,320 Speaker 1: makes a little bit confusing. I apologize for the error 580 00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:10,160 Speaker 1: and will burn a city in penance. And Columbus one 581 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,040 Speaker 1: of the things he'd said in his purported voyage to 582 00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,520 Speaker 1: like hang out with the Great con in Asia is 583 00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,200 Speaker 1: that the con was really interested in Christianity, and if 584 00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,080 Speaker 1: we could just get some guys to go talk to 585 00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:23,360 Speaker 1: him about Jesus, he might convert, and then we'll be 586 00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:26,120 Speaker 1: able to retake the Holy Land, right because the Mongols 587 00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,400 Speaker 1: will do it for us once they're Christian, you know, 588 00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:34,840 Speaker 1: um yeah, um, and so yeah, these are the stories people, 589 00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,600 Speaker 1: and particularly people in young Columbus's orbit, would have been 590 00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,560 Speaker 1: telling themselves. And we know from his own writings and 591 00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,200 Speaker 1: from things he says later he grows up believing all this, 592 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:46,720 Speaker 1: both that there is a great con with a powerful 593 00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,920 Speaker 1: army who's probably you can convert to Christianity if you 594 00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:52,520 Speaker 1: can just he just is waiting for a guy to 595 00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:54,400 Speaker 1: come talk to him, you know, he's just got to 596 00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:56,239 Speaker 1: get the right dude, and he'll be like, all right, 597 00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,760 Speaker 1: we're Christians, got him, But we ran out of pamphlets, 598 00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,560 Speaker 1: we ran out of pamples. We tell we we got 599 00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:05,680 Speaker 1: right up, we got right up to Jesus, but then 600 00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,360 Speaker 1: we no one could tell what had happened after Jesus 601 00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:10,080 Speaker 1: turned like thirty. And so he was like, well, I 602 00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:14,080 Speaker 1: don't see why this is. Yeah, we forgot Bible, got wet, 603 00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,640 Speaker 1: got smug, yeah, if only the pope had been there. 604 00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:22,720 Speaker 1: None of us knew what Jesus did because we're not 605 00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:26,280 Speaker 1: allowed to read the Bible in this period, which is 606 00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:30,240 Speaker 1: actually not wildly far from the truth. So Clumbus grows 607 00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,560 Speaker 1: up believing all this um, and so probably do most 608 00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:35,680 Speaker 1: of the people around him. Because Jenoa is kind of 609 00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:39,480 Speaker 1: people are pretty fanatically fucking Catholic there. His family is 610 00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:43,360 Speaker 1: middle class, probably upper middle class, although again those terms 611 00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,720 Speaker 1: and the fourteen hundreds not super useful for actually understanding 612 00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:50,640 Speaker 1: for one thing, politics Even so, obviously all of the 613 00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,400 Speaker 1: city states are constantly murdering each other, all of the 614 00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:57,000 Speaker 1: different political factions in the cities are also constantly murdering 615 00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,360 Speaker 1: each other, and so your ability to be like quote 616 00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:02,440 Speaker 1: unquote middle class or whatever is heavily tied to, like 617 00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:04,960 Speaker 1: you being friends with the people who are in power, 618 00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:07,520 Speaker 1: and if they happen to get murdered, which happens constantly, 619 00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:10,160 Speaker 1: ship can change very quickly for you because you're very 620 00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,600 Speaker 1: much reliant upon them for like the right to sell 621 00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:14,600 Speaker 1: or buy certain things or get this, you know, whatever 622 00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,360 Speaker 1: government job. His father, Domenico, was a cloth weaver who 623 00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:20,640 Speaker 1: does good enough. He makes friends with the people who 624 00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:22,160 Speaker 1: are in charge of the city. When Columbus is a 625 00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:24,480 Speaker 1: little kid, he gets a cushy job at one point, 626 00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:28,000 Speaker 1: like is the gatekeeper, which is a pretty pretty sweet 627 00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:31,680 Speaker 1: gig um. Now, as Columbus grows up, he goes to 628 00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:35,280 Speaker 1: obviously he's he's attending church constantly. The cathedral that he 629 00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:37,800 Speaker 1: would have gone to as a kid was most noted 630 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:41,440 Speaker 1: by this gigantic fresco. It has of the apocalypse, um, 631 00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:44,680 Speaker 1: which he's probably spending a lot of time thinking about 632 00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:46,920 Speaker 1: the end of the world is. Interestingly, it was the 633 00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:50,240 Speaker 1: first thing he saw and he was gazing upon it 634 00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:52,520 Speaker 1: as he lost his virginity. For some reason, he got 635 00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:56,120 Speaker 1: like really into it. Yeah. It's his star wars, his 636 00:33:56,480 --> 00:34:01,040 Speaker 1: whole personality. Yeah. Um. He he's got like all sorts 637 00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,920 Speaker 1: of fucking what do you call them, funco pops of 638 00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:12,200 Speaker 1: like Pagan's wailing as Christ burns them. Um. One of 639 00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:15,000 Speaker 1: the most influential religious minds of his day or slightly 640 00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:18,160 Speaker 1: before his day, would have been the Franciscan monk St. Bernardino, 641 00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:21,200 Speaker 1: who had given famous sermons in Genoa about a generation 642 00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:25,160 Speaker 1: or so before Christopher was born. Bernardino was an apocalyptic preacher. 643 00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:28,320 Speaker 1: He warned evade an imminently coming end time, and he 644 00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:30,880 Speaker 1: would screech that today's Christians had slipped into sin and 645 00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,080 Speaker 1: we're in danger of damnation. God was angry at them 646 00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:37,279 Speaker 1: because they weren't Christian enough. YadA YadA, YadA, San Bernardino, 647 00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:41,080 Speaker 1: it's pretty apocalyptic, it is. It is. It's the end 648 00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:45,040 Speaker 1: of days. That is how I feel. We got a 649 00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:47,719 Speaker 1: nu kid, just like the Great Light. Anyway, we'll talk 650 00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,919 Speaker 1: about that later. Carol Delaney writes, quote, people would gather 651 00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:53,800 Speaker 1: in town squares day after day, sitting for hours listening, 652 00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,120 Speaker 1: transfixed by this fascinating but horrific moral tales about the 653 00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:01,320 Speaker 1: wages of sin. Bernardino focused especially on sins committed by witches, 654 00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:03,719 Speaker 1: consorting with the devil, the sin of sodomy, and the 655 00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:07,960 Speaker 1: sin of fraternizing with the Jews. You have to do that, 656 00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:14,360 Speaker 1: it's the only way. Yeah. Specifically, you also are supposed 657 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:19,560 Speaker 1: to go out sodomy. Sodomy, Yeah, thank you. His sermons 658 00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:23,160 Speaker 1: were important enough they were transcribed, copied, and distributed widely 659 00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:25,879 Speaker 1: by the time Christopher was a kid. When he was nine, 660 00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,360 Speaker 1: this fixation with sin and a need to fight for 661 00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:30,600 Speaker 1: God would have been reinforced by the launching of a 662 00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,759 Speaker 1: crusade by Pope Pious, the second being a port city. 663 00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,319 Speaker 1: Genoa was a major rowling point for crusader, So as 664 00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:38,239 Speaker 1: a little kid, he's probably seen a bunch of guys 665 00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:40,640 Speaker 1: go off to do a crusade, which again doesn't go 666 00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:44,640 Speaker 1: great because none of them do. It is noteworthy that 667 00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,799 Speaker 1: young Christopher grows up knowing how to read and write. Um. 668 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:49,880 Speaker 1: This is not common at the time, and it is 669 00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:52,840 Speaker 1: in fact widely agreed upon that his penmanship was gorgeous 670 00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:54,920 Speaker 1: and that he could have made a solid living on 671 00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,439 Speaker 1: the fact that he was really good at writing. Maybe 672 00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,000 Speaker 1: done that, then maybe he gigs should have done that. 673 00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:03,879 Speaker 1: We aren't certain where he learned to read and write. 674 00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:06,480 Speaker 1: His family was friendly with a group of wealthy nobles, 675 00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:10,040 Speaker 1: the decun Eos, who will be relevant later in the story. Um. 676 00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,920 Speaker 1: It's also possible that he attended classes with them, just 677 00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:14,440 Speaker 1: because like they're like, oh, yeah, you know, we've got 678 00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:16,200 Speaker 1: a tutor for our rich kids. You're a friend of 679 00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:18,239 Speaker 1: the family, come on, learn how to read. It's he 680 00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:20,440 Speaker 1: also might have just gotten educated through the guild that 681 00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,520 Speaker 1: his father belonged to. Guilds are kind of doing running 682 00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:25,880 Speaker 1: a lot of civil society in Genoa, and they do 683 00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:29,240 Speaker 1: provide educations kids of people who are in guilds. Sometimes. 684 00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,240 Speaker 1: It's worth noting also that because Genoa's a port city 685 00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,399 Speaker 1: and the economy focused entirely around maritime trade, the fall 686 00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:41,760 Speaker 1: of Constantinople leads to like economic shit fuck for Genoa. 687 00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,520 Speaker 1: To make matters worse, the French, who are allied with 688 00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:47,120 Speaker 1: some of Genoa's enemy city states, are like in the 689 00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:49,239 Speaker 1: period where he is a child and a young man, 690 00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:53,759 Speaker 1: steadily raiding Genoa and shipping and dominating its economy. Um 691 00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,640 Speaker 1: Lawrence Burgreen, author of Columbus the Four Voyages, notes that 692 00:36:57,719 --> 00:36:59,920 Speaker 1: there are rumors that the Columbus family had once been 693 00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,279 Speaker 1: half wealthy, but, like Jittewah, had fallen from their past 694 00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:06,280 Speaker 1: glory by the time Christopher came into the picture. Burgreen 695 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:08,960 Speaker 1: proposes that he may have been motivated to regain that 696 00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:11,799 Speaker 1: lost glory and build a legacy for himself because both 697 00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:14,279 Speaker 1: his city and his family used to be doing good. 698 00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:19,600 Speaker 1: You think a guy named christ Pharaoh might have grandiosity 699 00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:26,880 Speaker 1: or like yes, yeah, well it doesn't. It does a 700 00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:28,560 Speaker 1: little bit. It does a little bit. You're not that 701 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,680 Speaker 1: far from Egypt. So in late fourteen fifty nine. When 702 00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:35,000 Speaker 1: Columbus was around eight, his family home was fifty yards 703 00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:38,080 Speaker 1: from the Porta to San Andrea, where the doge, who's 704 00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:40,920 Speaker 1: basically the mayor of the town, gets cornered by a 705 00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,160 Speaker 1: gang of rivals who were backed by the French and 706 00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:45,440 Speaker 1: like murdered in the street. Like he's beaten to death 707 00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,279 Speaker 1: with iron rods and his corpses torn apart in front 708 00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,480 Speaker 1: of everybody. This is fifty yards from Columbus's front door. 709 00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:54,759 Speaker 1: There's a good chance he watches this, right, like a 710 00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:56,759 Speaker 1: pretty good shot. He's just looking at this from his 711 00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:59,880 Speaker 1: window or something. Um and his father is allied with 712 00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:02,040 Speaker 1: the guy who gets torn apart in the streets. So 713 00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:06,200 Speaker 1: this is this causes problems? Is good? Get a load 714 00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:09,000 Speaker 1: of this. This is his This is his watching the 715 00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,160 Speaker 1: Rugrats on Nickelodeon. You know, is seeing this man torn 716 00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:15,919 Speaker 1: apart in front of his death? Is that an iron rod? 717 00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:20,360 Speaker 1: That's pretty good? Yes, that's the Uh, that's the I 718 00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:24,120 Speaker 1: don't know Simpson's season four of His Child, the iron 719 00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:28,520 Speaker 1: Rod would be Angelica clearly. Oh okay, that's fair. I 720 00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:30,920 Speaker 1: was gonna just I was going to compare that that 721 00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:33,399 Speaker 1: man getting torn apart and beaten to death in front 722 00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:35,839 Speaker 1: of his house to the Mono rail episode. But yeah, 723 00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:40,240 Speaker 1: it's all so. I can't emphasize enough just how religious 724 00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:42,400 Speaker 1: his upbringing would have been. The Genoese, for all of 725 00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:45,480 Speaker 1: the fact that they're Italians and sailors, are a dour 726 00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:49,239 Speaker 1: and joyless people. They are members of a fucking death cult, 727 00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,279 Speaker 1: which is pre millennial Catholicism. And in order to make 728 00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:54,720 Speaker 1: that point, I want to quote from Lawrence burg Green's 729 00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,160 Speaker 1: book Now. Clothing worn by the Genoese was strictly regulated 730 00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,360 Speaker 1: by the Office of Virtue. Beginning in thirty nine. The 731 00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,160 Speaker 1: Office and forced a series of sumptuary laws to regulate 732 00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:07,560 Speaker 1: morality by curbing luxury and excess, as well as prostitution. 733 00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,439 Speaker 1: These laws limited the amount of money Genoese could spend 734 00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,520 Speaker 1: on luxury items and even on weddings limited to fifty guests. 735 00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:16,880 Speaker 1: They regulated the days on which prostitutes, a staple of 736 00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:20,440 Speaker 1: Genoese nightlife, could roam the streets. They measured their time 737 00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,160 Speaker 1: with clients by the half hour marked by a flickering candle. 738 00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:25,920 Speaker 1: Girls with a candle, as the prostitutes were known, were 739 00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,759 Speaker 1: forbidden to inter a cemetery or approach at shirts, and 740 00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,799 Speaker 1: had to wear insignia indicating their profession. If caught out 741 00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,360 Speaker 1: of bounds, the prostitutes were punished by having their noses 742 00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:42,560 Speaker 1: amputated and their livelihood ruined. Holy shine again, not fun people, 743 00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:45,719 Speaker 1: Um no, it It never surprises me when it's like 744 00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:48,680 Speaker 1: and they were executed, But when it's so specific, when 745 00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:50,880 Speaker 1: they're like and their left eye was plucked out and 746 00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:56,759 Speaker 1: pins to their breast and they wore it for a week. Damn. Yeah, 747 00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:58,719 Speaker 1: they really put a lot of put a lot of 748 00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:02,759 Speaker 1: work on the back end the this. So these sumptuary 749 00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:06,120 Speaker 1: laws mandated that men should wear only gray clothing. Red 750 00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,279 Speaker 1: and purple were strictly forbidden. Women had limits on how 751 00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:11,480 Speaker 1: much jewelry they could own and how much money they 752 00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,440 Speaker 1: could spend on dresses. They were fined if they violated 753 00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:17,400 Speaker 1: these limits. Adultery also had a series of fines, and 754 00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,120 Speaker 1: a woman who failed to pay her adultery fine would 755 00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:23,719 Speaker 1: be beheaded. Um. It is unclear if Columbus found these 756 00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:26,680 Speaker 1: rules stifling, as he was a religious extremist himself, but 757 00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:29,200 Speaker 1: he also spends most of his life in Lisbon, Spain, 758 00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:32,840 Speaker 1: or like in Portugal in Spain, or at sea, so 759 00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,280 Speaker 1: like maybe he kind of was like Jesus, fuck genous bullshit, 760 00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:40,160 Speaker 1: he's living over them. But he does. He does get 761 00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,600 Speaker 1: the funk out of there about as quickly as he can. 762 00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:46,080 Speaker 1: Feels to love the city. So it feels like the 763 00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:48,919 Speaker 1: dad from the Witch would get the funk out of there. Yeah, 764 00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:50,960 Speaker 1: it does. It does feel like this is like, yeah, 765 00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:53,600 Speaker 1: it's a little stern for me. We're going to live 766 00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:56,680 Speaker 1: in the woods. Yeah. So we don't know when he 767 00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:59,319 Speaker 1: goes sailing for the first time, but I say, Genoese boy, 768 00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:02,239 Speaker 1: he would not have lacked opportunities to do so. Later 769 00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:04,279 Speaker 1: in life, he wrote that he started sailing at a 770 00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,920 Speaker 1: young age and that he was particularly drawn to the 771 00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:10,440 Speaker 1: art of navigation, which he said, quote incites those who 772 00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:12,920 Speaker 1: pursue it to inquire into the secrets of the world. 773 00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,719 Speaker 1: For whatever reason, I often find myself reiterating to the 774 00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:20,319 Speaker 1: audience that from most of Western history fourteen counted as 775 00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:22,840 Speaker 1: an adult, and so when Christopher was that age, he 776 00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,240 Speaker 1: starts working full time as a sailor. Um he probably 777 00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,799 Speaker 1: started out sailing on a caravel, which is a sail 778 00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:30,960 Speaker 1: bearing merchant vessel mainly was supposed to like kind of 779 00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,960 Speaker 1: stick either close to the rivers or to the coastline. Um. 780 00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:35,799 Speaker 1: And he seems to have been good at this enough 781 00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:39,400 Speaker 1: that he's signed on for several more trips. This is dangerous, 782 00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,799 Speaker 1: backbreaking work. Young sailors are made to do the kind 783 00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,120 Speaker 1: of tasks that older men with their ruined joints and 784 00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,120 Speaker 1: off broken bones, could no longer handle. Um. As is 785 00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:50,480 Speaker 1: always the case when young boys put to sea, there 786 00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:54,520 Speaker 1: was a significant risk of being sodomized. UM. We have 787 00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:56,880 Speaker 1: no information about this whatsoever, so I'm not gonna like 788 00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,080 Speaker 1: belabor the point, but like, that's that. If that the 789 00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:04,480 Speaker 1: fact of sea life. Yeah, UM. Refer to the Pogues 790 00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,080 Speaker 1: album Rum Sodomy in the Lash for more information on 791 00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:10,600 Speaker 1: that part of sailing. UM. In addition to the obvious 792 00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:14,000 Speaker 1: dangers of the sea, in the fourteen hundreds, Italian sailors 793 00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:17,440 Speaker 1: in the Mediterranean lived under constant threat of attack. Every 794 00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:20,000 Speaker 1: city in Italy was always at war with every other city, 795 00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,400 Speaker 1: and they can always like if you're always allowed to 796 00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:26,040 Speaker 1: be a pirate to other Italians. UM. So Italians haven't 797 00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,879 Speaker 1: changed all that much in the last couple hundred years. 798 00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:31,600 Speaker 1: It is not unlikely that Christopher would have found himself 799 00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:34,320 Speaker 1: in the midst of several small neighbors naval skirmishes in 800 00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:37,279 Speaker 1: his early twenties. All we know for certain, though, is 801 00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:38,960 Speaker 1: that by the time he was twenty one, he had 802 00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:41,320 Speaker 1: mastered the skills of a sailor, and he had proven 803 00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:44,600 Speaker 1: himself to be a particularly gifted navigator. He had also 804 00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,600 Speaker 1: developed a talent for manipulation. I'm gonna quote from Carol 805 00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:51,480 Speaker 1: Delaney here. He was commissioned by King Renee of Andrew, 806 00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,160 Speaker 1: who would continue to oversee the government of Savona, to 807 00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,200 Speaker 1: capture a galleus, a very large, three massive galley that 808 00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:00,000 Speaker 1: included rowers as well as sales, off the coast of Tunas. 809 00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:02,960 Speaker 1: En route, Columbus learned that in addition to the gallias, 810 00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,640 Speaker 1: there were two ships and a carrick, which frightened my people, 811 00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:07,920 Speaker 1: and they regard resolved to go no further but to 812 00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:10,960 Speaker 1: return to Marseilles to pick up another ship and more men. I, 813 00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:13,439 Speaker 1: seeing that I could do nothing against their wills without 814 00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,560 Speaker 1: some ruse, agreed to their demand, and, changing the point 815 00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:19,120 Speaker 1: of the compass, made it sail at nightfall, and at 816 00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:22,000 Speaker 1: sunrise the next day we found ourselves off Cape Carthage. 817 00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:24,560 Speaker 1: While all aboard were certain we will bound for Marseilles, 818 00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:28,439 Speaker 1: so he like as the navigator secretly takes them into 819 00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,000 Speaker 1: battle when they think they're going back for reinforcements because 820 00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:32,839 Speaker 1: he doesn't want to like funk up this deal he's 821 00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:35,080 Speaker 1: got going on with this king. And one of the 822 00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:37,920 Speaker 1: things that saves him on this because this goes pretty 823 00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,759 Speaker 1: well for them. Genoese are like the best sailors. They 824 00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:44,759 Speaker 1: are famously good at fighting at sea. Um The first 825 00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:48,080 Speaker 1: time we can confirm Christopher experienced ship to ship combat 826 00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:50,799 Speaker 1: was in fourteen seventy six when he was twenty five 827 00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,440 Speaker 1: and his convoy. So he's in a convoy of ships 828 00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:55,920 Speaker 1: and they get accosted by a group of French privateers 829 00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:59,200 Speaker 1: allied with an Italian city state, and they're outnumbered. I 830 00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:01,400 Speaker 1: think it's something like two to one. Like this is 831 00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:05,720 Speaker 1: a disastrous looking battle, but the Genoese lose three ships, 832 00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,640 Speaker 1: including the boat that Columbus is on, and the attackers 833 00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:11,400 Speaker 1: lose four hundreds and hundreds of minde And this is 834 00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:15,319 Speaker 1: they have like rudimentary guns and cannons at this point. 835 00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:18,200 Speaker 1: For the most part, they're slamming their boats into each 836 00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:20,520 Speaker 1: other and beating each other to death with sticks and 837 00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:23,200 Speaker 1: knives at close range and lighting each other on fire. 838 00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:28,120 Speaker 1: With patrole. It is a nightmare like and he fights 839 00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:31,279 Speaker 1: in this battle. He fights in this battle, very nearly dies. 840 00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,480 Speaker 1: His ship sinks and he has to swim six miles 841 00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:38,040 Speaker 1: to shore, clinging to an oar. Um like this is 842 00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:41,800 Speaker 1: it is. It is very unlikely that he survives the 843 00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:44,560 Speaker 1: circumstances he finds themselves in, but he manages to do it. 844 00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:54,799 Speaker 1: Um and yes, um, he finds himself in Lagos in Portugal. Um. 845 00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,680 Speaker 1: They take care of him because there's generally all the 846 00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:00,040 Speaker 1: seafaring cities, like even if they're at war or and 847 00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,640 Speaker 1: I like, well, if you're a sailor who like washes up, 848 00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:04,239 Speaker 1: we have a duty to like take care of you, 849 00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,319 Speaker 1: because that's just kind of good business, you know, for everybody. Um. 850 00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:09,880 Speaker 1: So they take they they they patch him up, and 851 00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:13,360 Speaker 1: he eventually gets back in the convoy which had survived 852 00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:16,440 Speaker 1: the battle, and he finishes his voyage in London. Um. 853 00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:18,800 Speaker 1: While he's in London, he takes on another gig and 854 00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:21,279 Speaker 1: he actually sails as far north as Iceland, which at 855 00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:23,120 Speaker 1: that point is known as Thule. I think it's actually 856 00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:27,160 Speaker 1: pronounced tula um. Now it was during this far northern 857 00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:30,760 Speaker 1: voyage that Christopher first felt the easterly currents of the Atlantic, 858 00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:33,800 Speaker 1: which helped to inspire an idea in him. If he 859 00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:35,879 Speaker 1: were to voyage far to the west, beyond the roots 860 00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,879 Speaker 1: known to any European, he could probably count on those 861 00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,680 Speaker 1: eastern currents to carry him back to Europe. It was 862 00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:44,080 Speaker 1: also on this trip that he visited Galway, where several 863 00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,680 Speaker 1: frozen dead bodies had washed up and they appeared. Columbus 864 00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:51,280 Speaker 1: says that they're Asian people. He has never met anybody 865 00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,480 Speaker 1: from that part of the world. He has read descriptions 866 00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:56,440 Speaker 1: in Marco Polo, and these are water logged corpses. Who 867 00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:00,600 Speaker 1: knows what dead people he encountered. Three John Wayne yea like, 868 00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,960 Speaker 1: he has no idea who these people are. He decides 869 00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:08,080 Speaker 1: they're probably from like China, um. And he concludes because 870 00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:11,320 Speaker 1: of these waterlogged corpses that Asia is much closer to 871 00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:14,799 Speaker 1: western Europe on the western side than previously guessed. Right, 872 00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,000 Speaker 1: So he's like, look at these Yeah, so you can 873 00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,719 Speaker 1: see things coming together based largely on like a mix 874 00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:24,560 Speaker 1: of accurate things. Yes, those currents can in fact carry 875 00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:28,640 Speaker 1: you back from you know, the West to to to Europe. Um. 876 00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:33,359 Speaker 1: Just look at this bloated corpse. What do you mean 877 00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:38,680 Speaker 1: why this dead body, dead ass motherfucker means that I'm 878 00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:42,640 Speaker 1: gonna get rich. So in between his voyages, Christopher settles 879 00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:45,640 Speaker 1: into a new life in Lisbon among the expat Genoese 880 00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:49,000 Speaker 1: community there. Again, they're the best sailors pretty much in 881 00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:52,200 Speaker 1: the Mediterranean, so like they're kind of in demand everywhere 882 00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:54,080 Speaker 1: else that has sports. So they set up a lot 883 00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:57,239 Speaker 1: of different like little little Lisbon. Everybody wears gray and 884 00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:07,040 Speaker 1: traffics children ums video game. They are very super good at. Yes, 885 00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:10,120 Speaker 1: the sex trafficking doesn't make it into syn I never 886 00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:13,920 Speaker 1: unlocked that perk. See, that's why you're That's why you 887 00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:20,880 Speaker 1: keep losing. Michael always um. So he gets married in 888 00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:24,200 Speaker 1: fourteen seventy nine. She's going to dive right away, don't worry. 889 00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,120 Speaker 1: And he has a child, Diego. In fourteen eighty um 890 00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:31,280 Speaker 1: now his wife's father, participated in Portugal's first colonizing mission 891 00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:35,960 Speaker 1: UM in Porto Santo between Europe and Africa. The island 892 00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:39,720 Speaker 1: is Portugal's base of operations for their colonizing in Africa, 893 00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:43,520 Speaker 1: which had started in this period. Portugal is starting to 894 00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:46,719 Speaker 1: operate and it's not This is not colonization in the 895 00:47:46,840 --> 00:47:48,960 Speaker 1: sense that you are going to see it later during 896 00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:51,400 Speaker 1: the scrambled to Africa, where they are taking in and 897 00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:54,560 Speaker 1: governing large land masses, they are setting up kind of 898 00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:59,359 Speaker 1: trading missions on the African coast right um. And it's 899 00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:01,880 Speaker 1: here that we're going to need to leave Carol Delaney's 900 00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,919 Speaker 1: account of Columbus's life behind, because she leaves this part 901 00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:08,120 Speaker 1: entirely out. This is the first major bit of whitewashing 902 00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:11,520 Speaker 1: and her Columbus in Jerusalem book she Uh. She does 903 00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:14,120 Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the time he spends on 904 00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:16,640 Speaker 1: the African coast. She notes that in late fourteen eight 905 00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:18,920 Speaker 1: one or early fourteen eighty two he participates in a 906 00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:22,360 Speaker 1: trip to Portuguese controlled Ghana. Um. For a bunch of 907 00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:24,799 Speaker 1: complicated reasons we don't need to get into, the Pope 908 00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:27,279 Speaker 1: had given Portugal the right to handle all trade on 909 00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:29,920 Speaker 1: the West African coast. Only Portugal gets to do that 910 00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:32,880 Speaker 1: in this period. This comes with the rights to enslave 911 00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:36,440 Speaker 1: any Pagans or Muslims they encounter. Now, again, this is slavery. 912 00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:39,680 Speaker 1: This is not yet racial slavery, because if people convert 913 00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:43,200 Speaker 1: to Christianity before they're enslaved, they cannot be enslaved. So 914 00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,320 Speaker 1: this is religious slavery, right, like that is the basis 915 00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:48,400 Speaker 1: for it, as opposed to what's going to be the 916 00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:51,080 Speaker 1: basis for it in the future. Um, which is not 917 00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:53,960 Speaker 1: on the night, but it's different. And hung up on 918 00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:58,240 Speaker 1: the fact that it's the pope's call, decides he gets 919 00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:01,400 Speaker 1: the right to go to spoil after Yeah, it's the 920 00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:05,880 Speaker 1: and he said and he says Portugal. Um. So Delaney 921 00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:09,000 Speaker 1: mentions this that like they have the right to enslave 922 00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:14,320 Speaker 1: people that they encounter on their yeah. Um. But she 923 00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:16,759 Speaker 1: spends most of her time just talking about like, so 924 00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,959 Speaker 1: there's these series of beliefs that Europeans have about skin 925 00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:22,880 Speaker 1: color in the equator. It is generally taken that people's 926 00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:25,640 Speaker 1: skin gets darker closer to the equator. There are some 927 00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:28,320 Speaker 1: attendant racial beliefs that are kind of like the early 928 00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:32,200 Speaker 1: stirrings of the kind of white racial hierarchy that's going 929 00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:34,320 Speaker 1: to be in place not that far in the future. 930 00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:36,960 Speaker 1: This is where like those ideas are coming together. But 931 00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:40,160 Speaker 1: there's this understanding that like, people near the equator have 932 00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:44,120 Speaker 1: darker skin, they are very smart, but they can't control 933 00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:47,359 Speaker 1: their emotions, whereas people who are like further north are 934 00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:49,799 Speaker 1: are dumb but calm and then like people who were 935 00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:52,640 Speaker 1: in people in Europe are the perfect balance of everything. 936 00:49:52,760 --> 00:49:56,120 Speaker 1: So that's why they're the best. This is more or 937 00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:59,200 Speaker 1: less their understanding of like. And they also at the 938 00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:01,840 Speaker 1: same time, again because everyone's very dumb back then, they 939 00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:04,320 Speaker 1: believe that all metal is the same thing, and that 940 00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:06,560 Speaker 1: the closer you get to the equator, the more time 941 00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,600 Speaker 1: metal has to like ripen and that's what makes it gold. 942 00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:13,640 Speaker 1: So they there's this is valuable context for what comes 943 00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:16,799 Speaker 1: next that Europeans of the time belief your skin gets 944 00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:21,000 Speaker 1: darker closer to you to the equator, and all medalist 945 00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:23,799 Speaker 1: metal and you find gold at the equator. Right. Um. 946 00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:26,600 Speaker 1: This is again why he winds up because again you 947 00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:29,200 Speaker 1: think about Columbus is trying to sail west to find land. 948 00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:32,160 Speaker 1: Why wouldn't he start his voyage like from the coast 949 00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:34,320 Speaker 1: of Iberi, you know, further north or further north in 950 00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:37,000 Speaker 1: Europe as opposed to he sails to the Canary Islands 951 00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,399 Speaker 1: and then he goes to the Caribbean. He goes down 952 00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:43,399 Speaker 1: south because the equators where you find gold. Right Um. 953 00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:45,840 Speaker 1: So it's because of these beliefs that he picks the 954 00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:49,080 Speaker 1: route that he picks. Um. So this is valuable context 955 00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:53,080 Speaker 1: for what comes next. But Carol Delaney, just when she 956 00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:55,480 Speaker 1: talks about columbus time on the African coast, this is 957 00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:59,000 Speaker 1: all she talks about, Like the geographical knowledge acquires, his 958 00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:01,839 Speaker 1: growing understanding of winds and currents, the notes he makes 959 00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:04,160 Speaker 1: in his log book, that's all the detail. Like this 960 00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:06,200 Speaker 1: line here is about all of the detail you get 961 00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:09,520 Speaker 1: about Columbus's time and Ghana. Quote. With a new information 962 00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:11,839 Speaker 1: about winds and currents that Columbus absorbed on this trip, 963 00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:13,840 Speaker 1: combined with his belief about the width of the ocean, 964 00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:16,279 Speaker 1: he concluded that the ocean could be crossed and then 965 00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:18,600 Speaker 1: on the far side of it, in the same climactic zone, 966 00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:23,120 Speaker 1: there would be gold. Now again that's not useless context, 967 00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:25,239 Speaker 1: But if you have an inquisitive mind, you might be 968 00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:29,000 Speaker 1: going hmm, right now, he probably I bet he did 969 00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:32,080 Speaker 1: other stuff when he was on the coast of Africa, 970 00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:35,080 Speaker 1: because he spends eight years in Lisbon, and he makes 971 00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:37,560 Speaker 1: a number of voyages for Portugal. And in order to 972 00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:39,920 Speaker 1: talk about what he's doing in that period, I'm going 973 00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:42,719 Speaker 1: to quote now from the book The Other Slavery by 974 00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:48,719 Speaker 1: Andres Riscindez Andre Racinda. Sorry, the early Portuguese slave trade 975 00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:52,479 Speaker 1: assumed several forms, from inherited slavery to indentured servitude forced 976 00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:55,800 Speaker 1: labor for a fixed period of time, occasionally with modest wages. 977 00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:58,920 Speaker 1: This was the form of slavery with which Columbus was familiar. 978 00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:02,080 Speaker 1: He briefly wrote a about his experimenting with importing entire 979 00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:05,120 Speaker 1: families from Guinea to Portugal, not just men, and his 980 00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:08,600 Speaker 1: disappointment that the experiment did not ensure greater loyalty or 981 00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,800 Speaker 1: cooperation among the slaves. The problem, as Columbus saw it, 982 00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:15,400 Speaker 1: was the babble of tongues spoken in Guinea. Now, the 983 00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:19,200 Speaker 1: fact that Columbus is importing entire enslaving and importing entire 984 00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:22,080 Speaker 1: families from the African coast to Europe, Carol the Lady 985 00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:24,840 Speaker 1: doesn't think that's worth talking about, because she makes a 986 00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,279 Speaker 1: major the through line in her book is that he 987 00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:30,239 Speaker 1: wasn't pro slavery, and he was horrified at the fact 988 00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:33,480 Speaker 1: that people kept getting enslaved, like it's one of those 989 00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:38,080 Speaker 1: like casablanga gambling occurring in this establishment moments um, but 990 00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:40,600 Speaker 1: with you know, the ownership of human beings. She's like, 991 00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:45,200 Speaker 1: we was there, he accrued people he didn't like slavery. 992 00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:47,640 Speaker 1: She completely leaves out the fact that he is he 993 00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:50,840 Speaker 1: is enslaving and importing entire families into Europe in this 994 00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:55,480 Speaker 1: period of time. Um. Now, obviously this is again pretty 995 00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:58,640 Speaker 1: normal behavior for a guy at the time. The slavery 996 00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:00,800 Speaker 1: that the Portuguese are engaged in is not pretty. But 997 00:53:00,880 --> 00:53:05,239 Speaker 1: again it's also not what it is going to become yet. Um. 998 00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:08,480 Speaker 1: But he is enslaving people. He is in the business 999 00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:11,920 Speaker 1: of being a slave trader way before he is sailing 1000 00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,440 Speaker 1: to the New World. So when we talk about what 1001 00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:17,239 Speaker 1: comes later, slavery is not something that does not come 1002 00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:22,200 Speaker 1: naturally to Christopher Columbus. But Michael, it's time for a 1003 00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:24,880 Speaker 1: word from our sponsors, and I want to talk about 1004 00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,920 Speaker 1: a special thing that we're supporting today. Michael, you love 1005 00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:31,640 Speaker 1: the environment, right, I'll think about it, big fan, big 1006 00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:34,320 Speaker 1: fan of Look, we'll see. I think we can all agree. 1007 00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:39,080 Speaker 1: Wastefulness one of the major problems that that our species. Right, 1008 00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,800 Speaker 1: we're waiting. Half of the food grown in the United States, 1009 00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:45,839 Speaker 1: you know, gets gets wasted. Um. You know, vampire drain, 1010 00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:48,279 Speaker 1: which is just the power we use on devices that 1011 00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:51,640 Speaker 1: no one is using, just completely unnecessary power drain multiple 1012 00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:54,120 Speaker 1: countries you know, could be powered by what we were 1013 00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:57,440 Speaker 1: very wasteful people, and nothing embodies that better than our 1014 00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:01,680 Speaker 1: nuclear weapons stockpiles. Michael. Did you know that the United 1015 00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:05,560 Speaker 1: States spent trillions of dollars building a nuclear arsenal, researching 1016 00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:07,880 Speaker 1: nuclear weapons from the time of the Cold Warp to 1017 00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:10,600 Speaker 1: the present day and we never use those weapons after 1018 00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:13,560 Speaker 1: nineteen forty five? Did you know that? Michael? Horrible? Wait, 1019 00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,960 Speaker 1: it occurs to me that that's a waste now, Michael, 1020 00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:21,640 Speaker 1: m in order to be environmentally friendly, I think we 1021 00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:24,600 Speaker 1: got to use those nukes, and nowhere makes more sense 1022 00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:28,640 Speaker 1: the nuking the Great Lakes now, Michael, I know this 1023 00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:31,320 Speaker 1: is a controversial thing. I'd like to make two points. 1024 00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:37,080 Speaker 1: Number one number one, Sophie number one, all of those 1025 00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:42,799 Speaker 1: cities basically Canadian right. Number two. Michael. Are you a fan? 1026 00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:46,160 Speaker 1: Are you yeah? Yeah, yeah exactly? Are you a fan 1027 00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:48,960 Speaker 1: of the song the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald very much? 1028 00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:55,440 Speaker 1: Great song? Lake Superior is killing our sailors, killed our sailors. 1029 00:54:56,880 --> 00:54:59,759 Speaker 1: We wouldn't have that, We wouldn't have that song. Well, 1030 00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:02,319 Speaker 1: but we have the song, I mean, but it's such 1031 00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:06,960 Speaker 1: a sad nuke it Now, protect our Sailors nuke the 1032 00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:12,200 Speaker 1: Great Lakes. This has been sponsored especially here rock It 1033 00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:16,880 Speaker 1: Knows Why. This has been a podcast ad for Behind 1034 00:55:16,960 --> 00:55:19,839 Speaker 1: the Bastards, sponsored by the Committee to Nuke the Great Lakes. 1035 00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:33,000 Speaker 1: No Ah, We're back. So Columbus the slave trader comes 1036 00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:35,920 Speaker 1: along away from his time enslaving people in order to 1037 00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:39,640 Speaker 1: profit um for Portugal, convinced that he could sail west 1038 00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:43,200 Speaker 1: and reach Asia. This would allow him to avoid the 1039 00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:45,319 Speaker 1: Muslim blockade on trade. From that part of the word, 1040 00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:47,080 Speaker 1: it's not really a blockade, but it like it makes 1041 00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:49,080 Speaker 1: it a lot more expensive and difficult. Whenever you have 1042 00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:52,200 Speaker 1: political ship with the Ottoman Empire, they're not going to 1043 00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:55,600 Speaker 1: let you trade, so it's like a problem for the Christians. Um. 1044 00:55:56,120 --> 00:55:58,080 Speaker 1: So he sees this both as if we can get 1045 00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:01,040 Speaker 1: to Asia from the west, number one, we can get 1046 00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:03,319 Speaker 1: all their good ship. Number two, we can get all 1047 00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:05,319 Speaker 1: that gold, because if we can get down, if there's 1048 00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:07,960 Speaker 1: this landet, there's probably a funckload of gold there um, 1049 00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:10,960 Speaker 1: and we can convert all these goodwilled heathens, who, as 1050 00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:13,480 Speaker 1: we know from Marco Polo, are just waiting for a 1051 00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:16,480 Speaker 1: guy who likes Jesus enough, and then they're gonna they're 1052 00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:19,799 Speaker 1: all gonna give up whatever they've been doing, you know. Um, 1053 00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:24,759 Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be fine. Um. And yes, the Ottomans 1054 00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:26,960 Speaker 1: are an obstacle, as they so often are asked, Dick 1055 00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:30,680 Speaker 1: van Dyke, Oh, I'm sorry for that? Was that was good? 1056 00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:35,080 Speaker 1: That was not good? You go ahead, No, that was fine. 1057 00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:37,520 Speaker 1: That was fine because the only person who's committed more 1058 00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:42,480 Speaker 1: genocidean than Christopher Columbus is famously Dick Vandy. The walnuts 1059 00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:45,160 Speaker 1: that came out of closet each represented a village that 1060 00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:48,799 Speaker 1: he That's right, that's right, right, that's right. That's why 1061 00:56:49,080 --> 00:56:52,839 Speaker 1: I don't know how to continue this bit anyway, as 1062 00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:55,920 Speaker 1: one scholar Columbus exchanged letters with said quote. It will 1063 00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:58,040 Speaker 1: also be a voyage to kings and princes who are 1064 00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:00,440 Speaker 1: very eager to have friendly dealings in speech with the 1065 00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:03,200 Speaker 1: Christians of our countries because many of them are Christians. 1066 00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:06,160 Speaker 1: So again, they also believe that there's all these Christians 1067 00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:08,480 Speaker 1: stuck over in Asia who are like isolated from broader 1068 00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:11,440 Speaker 1: Christendom that they can like make deals with. This is 1069 00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:14,239 Speaker 1: not entirely There are like groups of Christians in the 1070 00:57:14,320 --> 00:57:16,680 Speaker 1: East that like are kind of separated from the main 1071 00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:18,760 Speaker 1: there's like a Storian Christians and stuff. So it's not 1072 00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:22,000 Speaker 1: this doesn't come out of nowhere, right, But obviously, like 1073 00:57:22,320 --> 00:57:24,840 Speaker 1: among other things there there there winds up. You may 1074 00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:27,120 Speaker 1: not know this, Michael. There's actually a couple of continents 1075 00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:30,120 Speaker 1: in between Europe and Asia and the West, Like, yeah, 1076 00:57:30,440 --> 00:57:35,080 Speaker 1: they're pretty big ones. Um. So much of the next 1077 00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:38,000 Speaker 1: bit of stuff is things you're going to remember from 1078 00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:40,840 Speaker 1: your time in middle school social studies class. Columbus spends 1079 00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:43,160 Speaker 1: years going all of the rich people, the nobles and 1080 00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:45,280 Speaker 1: kings that are listened to him. He tries to sell 1081 00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:48,040 Speaker 1: them on his grand scheme to cross the ocean. Uh. 1082 00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:50,400 Speaker 1: This brings us back to Carol Delaney because she is 1083 00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:53,040 Speaker 1: very much in the right by trying to return to 1084 00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:56,240 Speaker 1: a historic understanding of the fact that Christopher Columbus is 1085 00:57:56,320 --> 00:57:59,440 Speaker 1: not motivated primarily by a desire to explore or to 1086 00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:02,080 Speaker 1: some cap realistic urge to find new markets. He is 1087 00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:05,200 Speaker 1: a religious extremist and he wants to sail west in 1088 00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:09,120 Speaker 1: order to fund a holy war. Now, during this period 1089 00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:11,800 Speaker 1: he's living in Lisbon, he starts reading the Bible, and 1090 00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:14,120 Speaker 1: this is a weird thing for him to do. People 1091 00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:17,400 Speaker 1: don't read the Bible back then, Right, normal people do not. 1092 00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:19,720 Speaker 1: Most of them are illiterate for one thing. And there's 1093 00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:24,320 Speaker 1: also a strong understanding, sometimes enforced through law, that the 1094 00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:27,000 Speaker 1: Word of God is not supposed to be consumed directly 1095 00:58:27,080 --> 00:58:30,320 Speaker 1: by worshippers. It is supposed to be transmitted through the 1096 00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:35,360 Speaker 1: clergy to worshippers. Right. Um, But Columbus starts reading the 1097 00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:38,200 Speaker 1: Bible for himself, and it's only available in Latin. Right, 1098 00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:40,480 Speaker 1: You're not getting the Bible in other languages. It's considered 1099 00:58:40,560 --> 00:58:44,520 Speaker 1: kind of like sacrilege to translate the Bible. Um. So 1100 00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:47,120 Speaker 1: he starts reading the Bible, and he's he's he's starting 1101 00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:49,520 Speaker 1: to read the Bible primarily because he wants to calculate 1102 00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:52,360 Speaker 1: when the end of the world is coming, because he 1103 00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:56,000 Speaker 1: needs to he he knows that Christians have to reconquer Jerusalem, 1104 00:58:56,000 --> 00:58:57,560 Speaker 1: and he's trying to figure out, like how much time 1105 00:58:57,680 --> 00:58:59,560 Speaker 1: is on the clock? Right, how much time do we 1106 00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:03,000 Speaker 1: have to retake? This is he is the end of 1107 00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:07,320 Speaker 1: the world. He is the end of the world. Yes, um, quote, 1108 00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:10,160 Speaker 1: there were there were sev hundred and fifty nine years left, 1109 00:59:10,240 --> 00:59:12,760 Speaker 1: plenty of time for fifteenth century Christians to complete the 1110 00:59:12,800 --> 00:59:15,800 Speaker 1: necessary tasks before the end time. Twenty years later, however, 1111 00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:19,320 Speaker 1: Columbus revisited and revised his calculations and drastically reduced the 1112 00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:21,439 Speaker 1: number of years left to a hundred and fifty five. 1113 00:59:21,880 --> 00:59:24,440 Speaker 1: It his earlier vision had been focused primarily on wrestling 1114 00:59:24,520 --> 00:59:26,760 Speaker 1: Jerusalem from the Muslims, he was now beginning to see 1115 00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:29,480 Speaker 1: that it as an integral part of the world historical 1116 00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:31,600 Speaker 1: drama that would culminate in the end of the world. 1117 00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:35,800 Speaker 1: So again, his goal is to end all life on Earth. 1118 00:59:37,480 --> 00:59:41,040 Speaker 1: That that is, that is his motivation. What a fortunate 1119 00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:45,280 Speaker 1: coincidence that after revisiting the information, it turns out I'm 1120 00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:48,640 Speaker 1: the most important one to ever live and it's all 1121 00:59:48,800 --> 00:59:53,120 Speaker 1: gonna happen during my watch under my auspices. Yeah, I 1122 00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:55,480 Speaker 1: am the special boy who gets to end all life 1123 00:59:55,520 --> 01:00:00,400 Speaker 1: on Earth. Um, that's that's a pretty again shoot for 1124 01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:02,560 Speaker 1: those stars. So you land on the moon or whatever. 1125 01:00:02,720 --> 01:00:05,120 Speaker 1: He almost got there. There's a lot of people who 1126 01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:07,720 Speaker 1: are like, I want to sail to this place. People 1127 01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:09,600 Speaker 1: haven't been able as far as I'm aware of that, 1128 01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:11,480 Speaker 1: people have never sailed you before. And there's also a 1129 01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:13,800 Speaker 1: lot of people who are like, I'm fine with selling slaves. 1130 01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:16,080 Speaker 1: Not a lot of people are saying, I am taking 1131 01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:19,320 Speaker 1: personal responsibility for harolding the apocalypse. I would like the 1132 01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:23,200 Speaker 1: versus of the beast and leash the energy of God 1133 01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:30,160 Speaker 1: upon the people. And that's you know, it's quite a 1134 01:00:30,240 --> 01:00:33,160 Speaker 1: goal when you grow up. Yeah, the bringer of the 1135 01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:36,200 Speaker 1: end of all things. Wait, wait in a good way, 1136 01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:41,200 Speaker 1: in a good way. Yeah. Yeah. So, like many fanatics 1137 01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:43,680 Speaker 1: before and after, he saw himself as a key ingredient 1138 01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:45,840 Speaker 1: in God's plan, and he came to believe that his 1139 01:00:45,920 --> 01:00:48,400 Speaker 1: budding understanding of how he might sail west to Asia 1140 01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:51,439 Speaker 1: was a key aspect in God's design. Quote. He knew 1141 01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:54,000 Speaker 1: that another crusade would be necessary if Jerusalem was to 1142 01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:56,080 Speaker 1: be retaken from the Muslims. He knew that there was 1143 01:00:56,200 --> 01:00:58,560 Speaker 1: enough gold in the East to finance such a crusade. 1144 01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:00,480 Speaker 1: He also knew that if the Grand con and his 1145 01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:03,120 Speaker 1: people could be converted, as seemed likely, he could count 1146 01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:07,960 Speaker 1: on their support. Yeah. So, many of us probably did 1147 01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:10,240 Speaker 1: learn in school that Columbus believed the world was round 1148 01:01:10,320 --> 01:01:11,920 Speaker 1: and most people thought it was flat. I think this 1149 01:01:12,000 --> 01:01:15,320 Speaker 1: has been debunked fairly well. Anyone who thought about it 1150 01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:17,200 Speaker 1: was probably true that a lot of people didn't think 1151 01:01:17,200 --> 01:01:19,160 Speaker 1: about the shape of the world because like there's plagues 1152 01:01:19,240 --> 01:01:21,840 Speaker 1: and stuff like you got shipped to do. But anybody 1153 01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:25,440 Speaker 1: who sailed and navigated knew that the earth was broadly spherical. 1154 01:01:25,920 --> 01:01:28,600 Speaker 1: Columbus was not a trailblazer here, and in fact his 1155 01:01:28,720 --> 01:01:32,280 Speaker 1: understanding in theories. But he's terrible at geography. Um. He 1156 01:01:32,400 --> 01:01:35,560 Speaker 1: felt that Asia was so huge that there was very 1157 01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:38,680 Speaker 1: little ocean between Europe and Asia, and generally he believed 1158 01:01:38,720 --> 01:01:41,560 Speaker 1: that like a sixth of the land's surface was ocean 1159 01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:44,840 Speaker 1: and the rest of it is all land. Um. He 1160 01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:47,320 Speaker 1: also ended his life thinking the earth was pear shaped 1161 01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:50,640 Speaker 1: rather than round. So again, not great at the stuff 1162 01:01:50,680 --> 01:01:54,000 Speaker 1: that everyone gave him credit for when we were kids. Um. 1163 01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:57,720 Speaker 1: Most of Columbus attempts to convince Royalty to back his 1164 01:01:57,800 --> 01:02:00,840 Speaker 1: plan failed. The King of Portugal is more interested in 1165 01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:03,440 Speaker 1: getting around the Horn of Africa. Um. He's also put 1166 01:02:03,520 --> 01:02:07,160 Speaker 1: off by Columbus's list of demands for carrying out the exploration, 1167 01:02:07,440 --> 01:02:09,880 Speaker 1: which are bug fuck and I'm gonna quote from Bear 1168 01:02:09,960 --> 01:02:13,920 Speaker 1: Green's book Columbus only Green Eminem's upon the ship. It's 1169 01:02:14,000 --> 01:02:17,440 Speaker 1: kind of worse than that. The personal demands that Columbus 1170 01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:20,160 Speaker 1: made of King Juo were far more onerous and unrealistic. 1171 01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:23,520 Speaker 1: He wanted a title preparably Night of the Golden Spurs 1172 01:02:23,600 --> 01:02:26,480 Speaker 1: that would permit him and his descendants to style themselves Dawn. 1173 01:02:26,920 --> 01:02:29,320 Speaker 1: He also wished for himself the grandest title he could 1174 01:02:29,360 --> 01:02:31,880 Speaker 1: think of, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, with all the 1175 01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:35,520 Speaker 1: privileges of rank, prerogatives, rights, revenue, and immunities enjoyed by 1176 01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:39,680 Speaker 1: the admirals of Castile. Even to Portuguese ears accustomed to overstatement, 1177 01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:43,280 Speaker 1: this description verged on the absurd. A tireless conversationalist and 1178 01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:45,840 Speaker 1: self promoter, Columbus never knew when to stop, and he 1179 01:02:45,920 --> 01:02:49,240 Speaker 1: demanded an appointment as viceroy and governor in perpetuity of 1180 01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:52,400 Speaker 1: all the lands and terra firma discovered either personally by 1181 01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:54,560 Speaker 1: him or as a result of his voyage, And he 1182 01:02:54,640 --> 01:02:57,280 Speaker 1: planned to award himself one tenth of all the money's 1183 01:02:57,320 --> 01:03:01,440 Speaker 1: accruing to the Crown in respective gold, silver, per jim's metal, spices, 1184 01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:04,760 Speaker 1: and other articles of value and merchandise of whatever kind, nature, 1185 01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:07,760 Speaker 1: or variety that should be purchased barter, discovered or won 1186 01:03:07,840 --> 01:03:09,640 Speaker 1: in battle through the length and breadth of the lands 1187 01:03:09,720 --> 01:03:13,160 Speaker 1: under his jurisdiction. So he doesn't just want to discover things. 1188 01:03:13,240 --> 01:03:16,440 Speaker 1: He wants to personally be the emperor of everything discovered 1189 01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:20,080 Speaker 1: under the King of Portugal, but he wants it to 1190 01:03:20,200 --> 01:03:23,280 Speaker 1: be his property whatever they find. Basically, he wants the 1191 01:03:23,360 --> 01:03:29,400 Speaker 1: elden ring and the iron throne. So that again it's 1192 01:03:29,440 --> 01:03:31,160 Speaker 1: not to say that he's not greedy, he's in this 1193 01:03:31,440 --> 01:03:34,800 Speaker 1: extraordinarily greedy man. It's also that his greed is focused 1194 01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:37,160 Speaker 1: on he wants to build riches so that he can 1195 01:03:37,200 --> 01:03:39,760 Speaker 1: contribute to the conquest of Jerusalem and in the world. 1196 01:03:40,480 --> 01:03:44,280 Speaker 1: Um So his demands are extreme and outlandish, and Burgery 1197 01:03:44,360 --> 01:03:47,840 Speaker 1: notes that he was basically trying to He was basically saying, Hey, 1198 01:03:47,880 --> 01:03:49,680 Speaker 1: if I do this, you have to make me almost 1199 01:03:49,720 --> 01:03:53,280 Speaker 1: as powerful as you, King of Portugal. Um. Now, the 1200 01:03:53,360 --> 01:03:56,160 Speaker 1: Portuguese king. For a little bit of context, this guy 1201 01:03:56,240 --> 01:03:59,280 Speaker 1: once stabbed his child nephew to death in a jealous rage. 1202 01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:02,040 Speaker 1: So this is like not a man you funk with. 1203 01:04:02,360 --> 01:04:05,240 Speaker 1: And in fact, a lot of historians are kind of 1204 01:04:05,280 --> 01:04:07,960 Speaker 1: surprised that Columbus doesn't just get murdered for saying this 1205 01:04:08,080 --> 01:04:10,439 Speaker 1: kind of ship to the King of Portugal. Well, they're 1206 01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:13,800 Speaker 1: in the middle of an iron rod shortage and this 1207 01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:16,400 Speaker 1: this dude, again, the king of Portugal is a crazed, 1208 01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:19,880 Speaker 1: violent narcissist, and he's like, Wow, this Christopher Columbus dude 1209 01:04:19,960 --> 01:04:23,920 Speaker 1: is a crazy narcissist. Yeah, Jesus, this guy needs therapy. 1210 01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:28,480 Speaker 1: Am I right? Oh? I stabbed you to death? Sorry? Um, So, Christopher, 1211 01:04:28,880 --> 01:04:30,880 Speaker 1: you know things don't work out. There's some back and 1212 01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:32,960 Speaker 1: forth with Portugal. We're not going to go into tremendous 1213 01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:35,840 Speaker 1: to dale about all this. Christopher tries with other sovereigns. 1214 01:04:35,880 --> 01:04:39,080 Speaker 1: He since his brother Bartholomew, who's like better at talking 1215 01:04:39,160 --> 01:04:41,360 Speaker 1: to England, to try and convince that king to fund 1216 01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:44,000 Speaker 1: the voyage. He doesn't have any luck with that. Eventually, 1217 01:04:44,080 --> 01:04:46,480 Speaker 1: at age forty and kind of feeling like because at 1218 01:04:46,560 --> 01:04:48,760 Speaker 1: forty you're kind of old to be a sea captain, 1219 01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:51,600 Speaker 1: he travels to Spain, which is kind of his last hope, 1220 01:04:51,680 --> 01:04:54,000 Speaker 1: right that like, maybe I can convince these fucking monarchs 1221 01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:57,000 Speaker 1: to fund my ship. Now again, he's an old man. 1222 01:04:57,080 --> 01:04:58,960 Speaker 1: He's starting to panic that, like he's never going to 1223 01:04:59,040 --> 01:05:01,240 Speaker 1: get to do these things that he think God wants 1224 01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:04,120 Speaker 1: him to do. Um. But over the course of several years, 1225 01:05:04,160 --> 01:05:07,320 Speaker 1: he manages to like wrangle an audience with Queen Isabella 1226 01:05:07,400 --> 01:05:09,760 Speaker 1: and King Ferdinand. A lot of this is because he's 1227 01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:11,840 Speaker 1: he gets in good with a bunch of monks, and 1228 01:05:11,960 --> 01:05:14,320 Speaker 1: like there's some like rich dude who visits the monks, 1229 01:05:14,360 --> 01:05:16,160 Speaker 1: and the rich dude is like, this is a good idea. 1230 01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:18,840 Speaker 1: I know the king and queen and it's a whole process. 1231 01:05:19,440 --> 01:05:21,120 Speaker 1: You can learn all of the history if you want 1232 01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:26,080 Speaker 1: by reading about it. I think it's kind of boring. Yeah, exactly, 1233 01:05:26,760 --> 01:05:29,720 Speaker 1: it worked right. And both of these Ferdinand and Isabella 1234 01:05:29,920 --> 01:05:32,920 Speaker 1: again for first off, not a love match. Um, not 1235 01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:36,000 Speaker 1: very similar people. Um. Both of them had just spent 1236 01:05:36,080 --> 01:05:38,640 Speaker 1: the last few years unifying Spain, which is a pretty 1237 01:05:38,720 --> 01:05:41,880 Speaker 1: violent process. Uh. They kick out all of the Muslims 1238 01:05:41,960 --> 01:05:44,160 Speaker 1: or force them to convert. They also force all of 1239 01:05:44,200 --> 01:05:47,640 Speaker 1: the Jewish people to convert or leave. Uh. They like 1240 01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:51,480 Speaker 1: ethnically cleanse all of the Jewish people who won't leave 1241 01:05:51,480 --> 01:05:53,240 Speaker 1: their religion, and those people have to sail to the 1242 01:05:53,280 --> 01:05:55,280 Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire, which is like the only place that will 1243 01:05:55,320 --> 01:05:59,280 Speaker 1: take them. Um, it's a pretty gnarly process. There's an inquisition, 1244 01:05:59,400 --> 01:06:01,360 Speaker 1: right that happened in this period. There's all these crimes 1245 01:06:01,400 --> 01:06:03,720 Speaker 1: against humanity. Maybe we'll talk about it one of these days. 1246 01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:06,760 Speaker 1: These are not nice people, which is fun because they're 1247 01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:09,280 Speaker 1: both going to be much more moral people than Christopher 1248 01:06:09,320 --> 01:06:12,480 Speaker 1: Columbus as the story goes on. Um, but I just 1249 01:06:12,560 --> 01:06:15,240 Speaker 1: want you to know, these are the Inquisition people. So 1250 01:06:15,320 --> 01:06:20,000 Speaker 1: when we're talking about them being outraged at Christopher Columbus's behavior, 1251 01:06:20,280 --> 01:06:23,080 Speaker 1: it's the people who started the Inquisition who are like, Wow, 1252 01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:31,240 Speaker 1: this guy is not very like very uh like bad person. Um. Anyway, 1253 01:06:31,520 --> 01:06:33,480 Speaker 1: Christopher manages to get a sit down meeting with the 1254 01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:36,400 Speaker 1: Queen and may have a six for the first time. 1255 01:06:36,800 --> 01:06:39,680 Speaker 1: Carol Delaney make sure to note that he's hot, which 1256 01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:42,640 Speaker 1: is a little weird, But then Bear Green also kind 1257 01:06:42,720 --> 01:06:45,320 Speaker 1: of says that he's hot, so maybe he was hot. Um. 1258 01:06:45,560 --> 01:06:48,960 Speaker 1: He is a charismatic dude obviously because he's he talks 1259 01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:51,520 Speaker 1: them into this eventually, so yeah, maybe he's hot. I 1260 01:06:51,600 --> 01:06:54,760 Speaker 1: don't know. Um. He does succeed in talking to King 1261 01:06:54,840 --> 01:06:57,240 Speaker 1: and Queen into funding his expedition, mainly the Queen. The 1262 01:06:57,360 --> 01:06:59,960 Speaker 1: King never really buys into Columbus, but like his whye 1263 01:07:00,320 --> 01:07:02,040 Speaker 1: is on board and he's like, what are you gonna do? 1264 01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:06,600 Speaker 1: You know? Gems this way some gems see what happened, 1265 01:07:06,640 --> 01:07:08,960 Speaker 1: and this is a law he has to follow. He's 1266 01:07:09,040 --> 01:07:11,120 Speaker 1: kind of like following the King and Queen for half 1267 01:07:11,160 --> 01:07:14,400 Speaker 1: a decade while they finish the series of battles to 1268 01:07:14,560 --> 01:07:17,960 Speaker 1: like unify their realm Um. He actually fights in a 1269 01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:20,240 Speaker 1: battle to take the city of Bassa in Granada in 1270 01:07:20,400 --> 01:07:23,400 Speaker 1: order to impress them, um, and apparently fights very well. 1271 01:07:23,560 --> 01:07:25,960 Speaker 1: Like yeah, like they He goes to war for them 1272 01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:27,920 Speaker 1: and stuff during this period to try to convince them 1273 01:07:28,240 --> 01:07:31,560 Speaker 1: to let him take a bunch of boats. Um, they 1274 01:07:31,640 --> 01:07:35,800 Speaker 1: conquered Granada. Uh. And despite the fact that a commission 1275 01:07:35,840 --> 01:07:38,480 Speaker 1: they convene to study his proposal is like, this is impossible, 1276 01:07:38,800 --> 01:07:41,680 Speaker 1: Queen Isabella decides to trust Columbus more than her advisors 1277 01:07:41,720 --> 01:07:45,600 Speaker 1: and she approved the expedition. Uh. Ferdinand again doesn't fight 1278 01:07:45,680 --> 01:07:48,240 Speaker 1: his wife on the matter. Now you know what comes next, right. 1279 01:07:48,440 --> 01:07:51,400 Speaker 1: In four ninety two, Columbus sails his ass across the 1280 01:07:51,480 --> 01:07:54,680 Speaker 1: Ocean Blue in three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, the 1281 01:07:54,760 --> 01:07:59,720 Speaker 1: Santa Maria. He set sail on August third, fourto um 1282 01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:02,560 Speaker 1: one bit of fun trivia. The Nina and the Pinta 1283 01:08:02,600 --> 01:08:05,080 Speaker 1: are assembled last minute by a Spanish town that had 1284 01:08:05,120 --> 01:08:07,760 Speaker 1: like piste off the King and Queen and owed them 1285 01:08:07,760 --> 01:08:09,560 Speaker 1: a bunch of money. So like two thirds of the 1286 01:08:09,600 --> 01:08:11,320 Speaker 1: fleet was built at the last minute as kind of 1287 01:08:11,360 --> 01:08:14,800 Speaker 1: a bribe. The ships are technically the property of these 1288 01:08:14,840 --> 01:08:17,080 Speaker 1: brothers who Columbus has going to have an issue with, 1289 01:08:17,200 --> 01:08:19,559 Speaker 1: But we'll talk about that in the next episode. Um, 1290 01:08:20,439 --> 01:08:24,479 Speaker 1: I'm not going we'll do even better than that. You'll 1291 01:08:24,560 --> 01:08:28,639 Speaker 1: see as they shook their fists at the diminishing boats 1292 01:08:28,960 --> 01:08:31,840 Speaker 1: and I almost figured it out. Um, So I'm not 1293 01:08:31,880 --> 01:08:33,839 Speaker 1: going to go into a lot of detail about the voyage. 1294 01:08:33,880 --> 01:08:36,240 Speaker 1: It's worth noting that Columbus was the thing that he's 1295 01:08:36,280 --> 01:08:40,560 Speaker 1: best at is navigating, not geography. He's constantly wrong and 1296 01:08:40,640 --> 01:08:42,240 Speaker 1: he gets into a lot of trouble and gets other 1297 01:08:42,240 --> 01:08:44,479 Speaker 1: people into trouble because he refuses to accept that he's 1298 01:08:44,560 --> 01:08:48,120 Speaker 1: terrible at like geography, but he's incredible at what's called 1299 01:08:48,240 --> 01:08:51,240 Speaker 1: dead reckoning. And this is I don't this sounds like 1300 01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:54,240 Speaker 1: magic to me. You're basically sitting in a dark room 1301 01:08:54,479 --> 01:08:58,920 Speaker 1: building charts and estimating distances based on compass readings that 1302 01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:02,920 Speaker 1: you've taken. And normally when people do dead reckoning, they 1303 01:09:03,040 --> 01:09:06,599 Speaker 1: have other data that, like other sailors have taken sailing 1304 01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:08,640 Speaker 1: the same route, so they're just kind of modifying it 1305 01:09:08,760 --> 01:09:11,720 Speaker 1: slightly in order to like optimize the route. No one 1306 01:09:11,920 --> 01:09:16,200 Speaker 1: has done this route before. So Christopher is flying purely 1307 01:09:16,320 --> 01:09:19,400 Speaker 1: on instinct and just like doing math in his cabin 1308 01:09:19,560 --> 01:09:22,559 Speaker 1: to figure out how to get from the Canary Islands 1309 01:09:22,640 --> 01:09:26,200 Speaker 1: to the Caribbean, and the route he picks is still 1310 01:09:26,320 --> 01:09:29,559 Speaker 1: to this day basically the best sail route between Europe 1311 01:09:29,600 --> 01:09:32,680 Speaker 1: and the Caribbean. Like, if you're sailing that distance, you 1312 01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:36,519 Speaker 1: more or less do just what Columbus figures out without 1313 01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:38,519 Speaker 1: any benefit of anything but like a compass, and like 1314 01:09:38,640 --> 01:09:41,880 Speaker 1: his ability to do math. It is an astounding achievement 1315 01:09:42,000 --> 01:09:46,280 Speaker 1: in navigation. Samuel Morrison, who's a Harvard sailor who recreated 1316 01:09:46,360 --> 01:09:49,439 Speaker 1: Colubus Voyage in nine nine wrote when he was analyzing, 1317 01:09:50,680 --> 01:09:52,600 Speaker 1: he did the whole bit he does he kills so 1318 01:09:52,840 --> 01:09:57,519 Speaker 1: many people. Yeah Harvard, uh quote, No such dead reckoning 1319 01:09:57,600 --> 01:10:01,080 Speaker 1: navigators exist today, No man alive limited to the instruments 1320 01:10:01,120 --> 01:10:03,760 Speaker 1: and means that Columbus's disposal could obtain anything near the 1321 01:10:03,840 --> 01:10:07,479 Speaker 1: accuracy of his results. Um so he's pretty good at 1322 01:10:07,520 --> 01:10:12,800 Speaker 1: this one thing, perfect pitch of navigating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 1323 01:10:12,880 --> 01:10:15,599 Speaker 1: that's the thing that he's good at. Um. Credit where 1324 01:10:15,680 --> 01:10:18,640 Speaker 1: it's due. Now, as we're all aware again bad at 1325 01:10:18,640 --> 01:10:23,519 Speaker 1: actual geography. He sure knew his way around this old pair. Yeah, 1326 01:10:24,400 --> 01:10:28,599 Speaker 1: well a little bit of it. Um. So he lands eventually, 1327 01:10:28,640 --> 01:10:30,920 Speaker 1: after like thirty three days, on a little island off 1328 01:10:30,960 --> 01:10:33,400 Speaker 1: the coast of Hispaniola or modern day Haiti in the 1329 01:10:33,439 --> 01:10:37,920 Speaker 1: Dominican Republic Um. Here is how Carol Delaney describes the 1330 01:10:38,000 --> 01:10:41,439 Speaker 1: moment of their first landing quote as the anchors were dropped, 1331 01:10:41,479 --> 01:10:43,320 Speaker 1: the men stood on the decks and gazed at the 1332 01:10:43,360 --> 01:10:45,920 Speaker 1: green island, a soothing site after so long at sea 1333 01:10:46,000 --> 01:10:49,519 Speaker 1: with only gray, blue water and sky, and saw naked people. 1334 01:10:50,040 --> 01:10:52,840 Speaker 1: Columbus summoned the Pinzone brothers, the captains of the other 1335 01:10:52,920 --> 01:10:55,800 Speaker 1: two ships, donned his armor and went ashore in the launch, 1336 01:10:55,960 --> 01:10:58,840 Speaker 1: carrying the royal banner and two flags emblazoned with a 1337 01:10:58,920 --> 01:11:02,639 Speaker 1: green cross and the initials of Ferdinand and Isabella. Now 1338 01:11:02,880 --> 01:11:06,639 Speaker 1: the Spanish sailors, they're relieved, first of all the fact 1339 01:11:06,720 --> 01:11:10,080 Speaker 1: that these natives, you know, they're naked, they have paint 1340 01:11:10,160 --> 01:11:13,760 Speaker 1: that's not familiar. They look peculiar, but they also look 1341 01:11:13,840 --> 01:11:16,120 Speaker 1: like normal humans, which is a huge relief because at 1342 01:11:16,160 --> 01:11:18,960 Speaker 1: the time, all of these guys believe what Pliny the 1343 01:11:19,040 --> 01:11:23,679 Speaker 1: Elder wrote about geography, which is that these other islands 1344 01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:26,160 Speaker 1: are like there's these things called anthropophagi, which are like 1345 01:11:26,360 --> 01:11:30,280 Speaker 1: headless monsters with like torso men that like are cannibals 1346 01:11:30,320 --> 01:11:36,880 Speaker 1: and stuff. So it's normal people great like that. That 1347 01:11:37,080 --> 01:11:39,840 Speaker 1: is kind of like the first overwhelming reaction is like, oh, 1348 01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:44,360 Speaker 1: thank god, they're not They're not monsters. Oh cool, we 1349 01:11:44,479 --> 01:11:49,839 Speaker 1: were really worried about that, all right. Well, yeah, Columbus 1350 01:11:49,920 --> 01:11:53,080 Speaker 1: never believed there were monsters. On his part. Um, he 1351 01:11:53,280 --> 01:11:55,880 Speaker 1: is moved to comment on how attractive they are, which 1352 01:11:55,960 --> 01:11:58,799 Speaker 1: everyone does in this period. Um he names the island 1353 01:11:58,840 --> 01:12:03,600 Speaker 1: which had been inhabited basically forever San Salvador quote. He 1354 01:12:03,720 --> 01:12:07,000 Speaker 1: called for the Escravano Scribe, and as protocol dictated, he 1355 01:12:07,080 --> 01:12:09,360 Speaker 1: had him record as witness that he took possession of 1356 01:12:09,400 --> 01:12:12,639 Speaker 1: it in the name of the Catholic Sovereigns, with appropriate ceremony. 1357 01:12:12,720 --> 01:12:16,160 Speaker 1: In words, taking possession of lands hitherto unknown or undiscovered 1358 01:12:16,240 --> 01:12:19,280 Speaker 1: was primarily a signal to other European nations to keep off, 1359 01:12:19,600 --> 01:12:21,640 Speaker 1: a sign that whoever took possession first had the pre 1360 01:12:21,760 --> 01:12:24,960 Speaker 1: eminent right to discover, explore, and established trading posts. It 1361 01:12:25,000 --> 01:12:29,040 Speaker 1: did not automatically imply conquest or ownership now that's what 1362 01:12:29,240 --> 01:12:31,800 Speaker 1: Carol writes, and it's really interesting to me that she's 1363 01:12:31,800 --> 01:12:33,880 Speaker 1: trying to push this claim that like, well, he wasn't 1364 01:12:33,960 --> 01:12:36,000 Speaker 1: really he was just this is just a warning to 1365 01:12:36,040 --> 01:12:38,760 Speaker 1: other Europeans. He wasn't really saying we own this now. 1366 01:12:38,880 --> 01:12:42,360 Speaker 1: Obviously that's not what this means necessarily, which is very 1367 01:12:42,400 --> 01:12:44,640 Speaker 1: silly because that's exactly what it means and exactly what 1368 01:12:44,760 --> 01:12:47,640 Speaker 1: he's done. And she later writes about the process of 1369 01:12:47,760 --> 01:12:51,120 Speaker 1: him conquering and like taking and governing these islands for Spain. 1370 01:12:51,439 --> 01:12:54,320 Speaker 1: It's extremely funny that she even now has to like 1371 01:12:54,439 --> 01:12:58,160 Speaker 1: pretend that that he's not just seeing islands inhabited by 1372 01:12:58,200 --> 01:13:00,559 Speaker 1: people and immediately being like, we own a ship. Now 1373 01:13:00,720 --> 01:13:04,920 Speaker 1: I'm governor, which is exactly what he actually is doing. Um. 1374 01:13:06,160 --> 01:13:09,040 Speaker 1: So he writes excitedly about the resources on the islands. 1375 01:13:09,360 --> 01:13:11,960 Speaker 1: He keeps finding, like we'll talk more about this in 1376 01:13:12,040 --> 01:13:14,000 Speaker 1: episode two, but he keeps seeing people like little gold 1377 01:13:14,040 --> 01:13:16,200 Speaker 1: pieces of jewelry, and he spends a lot of the 1378 01:13:16,280 --> 01:13:18,840 Speaker 1: next couple of weeks eagerly searching to go for gold, 1379 01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:21,680 Speaker 1: trying to find minds that Splain can exploit, because that's 1380 01:13:21,720 --> 01:13:25,000 Speaker 1: really everything to him, right, he has promised the sovereigns. 1381 01:13:25,040 --> 01:13:26,920 Speaker 1: I'm gonna find gold and we're gonna use that to 1382 01:13:27,000 --> 01:13:28,800 Speaker 1: fund an army that we can use to bring about 1383 01:13:28,800 --> 01:13:33,080 Speaker 1: the apocalypse. Everything very ripe here, Yes, the medal, the 1384 01:13:33,160 --> 01:13:36,439 Speaker 1: medal is ripe. Um. More to the point, though, he 1385 01:13:36,560 --> 01:13:40,160 Speaker 1: writes very enthusiastically and positively about the local culture, and 1386 01:13:40,240 --> 01:13:42,360 Speaker 1: in fact, it's probably worth noting that there's elements of 1387 01:13:42,400 --> 01:13:47,599 Speaker 1: what he writes that are not terrible, um, diminishing their 1388 01:13:48,160 --> 01:13:51,719 Speaker 1: culture or reductive. No, he's he's super there are elements 1389 01:13:51,800 --> 01:13:54,160 Speaker 1: of that he's but he's also there's like a lot 1390 01:13:54,200 --> 01:13:55,760 Speaker 1: of like one of the things that's noted is that 1391 01:13:55,880 --> 01:13:58,080 Speaker 1: he's one of the few guys in these voyages who's 1392 01:13:58,120 --> 01:14:01,720 Speaker 1: like all about trying out the native foods and stuff. Um. 1393 01:14:02,040 --> 01:14:04,120 Speaker 1: And he writes earlier there's there's things that he does 1394 01:14:04,240 --> 01:14:07,840 Speaker 1: minimize and stuff. It's worth noting that, like Carol points 1395 01:14:07,880 --> 01:14:10,840 Speaker 1: out a lot about how enthusiative, enthusiastic and positive he 1396 01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:14,800 Speaker 1: is about them, um. But also she kind of again 1397 01:14:14,880 --> 01:14:17,760 Speaker 1: among the other things she ignores is that he's enthusiastic 1398 01:14:17,800 --> 01:14:20,080 Speaker 1: about them because of what good subjects they're going to 1399 01:14:20,200 --> 01:14:22,800 Speaker 1: make for the Spanish crown, right that's the thing he's 1400 01:14:22,840 --> 01:14:26,920 Speaker 1: most excited about. Um Delaney gives Columbus great credit for 1401 01:14:26,960 --> 01:14:29,280 Speaker 1: the fact that his immediate thing is like, oh, these 1402 01:14:29,360 --> 01:14:32,040 Speaker 1: people are if you want to talk about diminishing. He decides, 1403 01:14:32,760 --> 01:14:34,960 Speaker 1: based on a couple of days of communicating with them 1404 01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:37,719 Speaker 1: through hand signals, that they don't have a real religion. 1405 01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:40,360 Speaker 1: Now what he means by that, And Carol's like, well, 1406 01:14:40,400 --> 01:14:42,919 Speaker 1: all he means by that is that they're not Muslim 1407 01:14:43,240 --> 01:14:46,759 Speaker 1: or or you know, some other kind of clear pagan religion. 1408 01:14:46,840 --> 01:14:49,280 Speaker 1: They don't have strict beliefs, so he thinks that they'll 1409 01:14:49,320 --> 01:14:52,960 Speaker 1: take to Christianity. He's literally saying, based on hand gestures, 1410 01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:55,080 Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they don't believe in anything, so we 1411 01:14:55,120 --> 01:14:58,439 Speaker 1: can make up christian real easy, right. The other thing 1412 01:14:58,520 --> 01:15:00,519 Speaker 1: that Carol, but this is where we're really getting into 1413 01:15:00,520 --> 01:15:02,920 Speaker 1: the ship about her, that's fucked up. She's like, look, 1414 01:15:03,000 --> 01:15:04,960 Speaker 1: the fact that he thinks the natives will be easy 1415 01:15:05,040 --> 01:15:08,800 Speaker 1: to convert to Christianity, Well, it's not just that it's 1416 01:15:08,800 --> 01:15:11,720 Speaker 1: a compliment. It means that he doesn't want to enslave them, 1417 01:15:12,160 --> 01:15:15,360 Speaker 1: because you can't enslave Christians. You can enslave someone and 1418 01:15:15,439 --> 01:15:17,639 Speaker 1: then they can convert to being Christian and that doesn't 1419 01:15:17,680 --> 01:15:20,360 Speaker 1: free them. But if you convert them into Christianity, they 1420 01:15:20,439 --> 01:15:24,080 Speaker 1: cannot be enslaved. Right. So she's like, look, Christopher Columbus 1421 01:15:24,160 --> 01:15:26,760 Speaker 1: clearly didn't want anything bad for these people because he 1422 01:15:26,960 --> 01:15:32,000 Speaker 1: wanted to convert them. Um. This is again very fucked 1423 01:15:32,040 --> 01:15:35,840 Speaker 1: up of her, very manipulative, and and and sketchy. Um, 1424 01:15:36,000 --> 01:15:41,920 Speaker 1: it's also fucking nonsense. Lawrence bear Green describes things rather differently. Quote, 1425 01:15:42,320 --> 01:15:44,519 Speaker 1: the Spanish should come all this way across the ocean 1426 01:15:44,600 --> 01:15:48,519 Speaker 1: sea expecting to confront the superior civilization. How disconcerting to 1427 01:15:48,600 --> 01:15:51,719 Speaker 1: be confronted with naked people who were very poor in everything. 1428 01:15:52,200 --> 01:15:54,160 Speaker 1: Columbus and his men would have to be careful not 1429 01:15:54,240 --> 01:15:56,560 Speaker 1: to hurt them, rather than the other way around. I 1430 01:15:56,640 --> 01:15:58,759 Speaker 1: saw some who had marks of wounds on their bodies 1431 01:15:58,800 --> 01:16:00,800 Speaker 1: and made signs for them to ask what it was, 1432 01:16:01,120 --> 01:16:02,960 Speaker 1: and they showed me that people of other islands which 1433 01:16:02,960 --> 01:16:04,720 Speaker 1: are near came there and was to capture them, and 1434 01:16:04,760 --> 01:16:07,479 Speaker 1: they defended themselves. And I believe that people do come 1435 01:16:07,520 --> 01:16:10,520 Speaker 1: here from the mainland to take them as slaves. Slaves 1436 01:16:10,920 --> 01:16:17,599 Speaker 1: the idea enslaves. Yeah, The idea instantly struck Columbus as plausible, 1437 01:16:17,800 --> 01:16:21,160 Speaker 1: even desirable. They ought to be good servants, he continued, 1438 01:16:21,360 --> 01:16:23,559 Speaker 1: and of good skill. For I see they repeat quickly 1439 01:16:23,680 --> 01:16:27,080 Speaker 1: everything that is said to them. So Delaney is like, 1440 01:16:27,200 --> 01:16:29,160 Speaker 1: of course he doesn't want to enslave him. He wants 1441 01:16:29,200 --> 01:16:32,599 Speaker 1: to convert them. And fucking Lawrence bear Green just points 1442 01:16:32,640 --> 01:16:34,560 Speaker 1: out the first thing he writes about these people is 1443 01:16:34,560 --> 01:16:38,280 Speaker 1: they're going to be great slaves, Like that's like servants, 1444 01:16:38,560 --> 01:16:42,120 Speaker 1: right servants. But what happens is they all get enslaved. 1445 01:16:42,120 --> 01:16:43,920 Speaker 1: So I think it's clear what he means. So he 1446 01:16:44,000 --> 01:16:47,280 Speaker 1: has he has discovered quote unquote new people and thought 1447 01:16:47,400 --> 01:16:51,080 Speaker 1: number one is like, oh man, number one, these people 1448 01:16:51,360 --> 01:16:53,120 Speaker 1: are not as good at fighting as at us. And 1449 01:16:53,200 --> 01:16:55,200 Speaker 1: number two, it's going to be really easy as ship 1450 01:16:55,320 --> 01:16:59,240 Speaker 1: to enslave them, hot dog um. And we're going to 1451 01:16:59,320 --> 01:17:03,080 Speaker 1: talk about what comes next and everything Christopher Columbus does, 1452 01:17:03,160 --> 01:17:05,639 Speaker 1: and we will we will try to give some insight 1453 01:17:05,760 --> 01:17:08,519 Speaker 1: into these people that he has found. Two, because they 1454 01:17:08,560 --> 01:17:11,439 Speaker 1: go extinct very quickly, and so there's not as much 1455 01:17:11,520 --> 01:17:14,320 Speaker 1: known about them as is ideal, but there there is 1456 01:17:14,439 --> 01:17:16,960 Speaker 1: some There are some people trying to do decent anthropology 1457 01:17:17,360 --> 01:17:19,600 Speaker 1: in this period, including delas Casas, to try to like 1458 01:17:20,680 --> 01:17:24,120 Speaker 1: save something of like these folks. Um, so we'll talk. 1459 01:17:24,240 --> 01:17:26,519 Speaker 1: We will be talking about that, and we will be 1460 01:17:26,600 --> 01:17:30,240 Speaker 1: talking about everything else that Christopher Columbus is about to do, 1461 01:17:30,360 --> 01:17:34,000 Speaker 1: which is much worse. It gets a lot worse after 1462 01:17:34,080 --> 01:17:36,280 Speaker 1: episode one. I know, he's been a very likable guy 1463 01:17:36,400 --> 01:17:40,679 Speaker 1: up to this point. Yeah, as another famous Columbo once said, 1464 01:17:41,479 --> 01:17:47,439 Speaker 1: one more thing and then genocide and then genocide. So, Michael, 1465 01:17:47,640 --> 01:17:49,559 Speaker 1: how are you feeling at the end of part one? 1466 01:17:50,120 --> 01:17:53,280 Speaker 1: Has this changed your mind on Christopher Columbus. I'll tell 1467 01:17:53,320 --> 01:17:56,000 Speaker 1: you I thought Amerigo Vespucci was a piece of ship 1468 01:17:56,280 --> 01:18:00,680 Speaker 1: this guy. Yeah, No, I'm uneasy Robert leaning puns for 1469 01:18:00,800 --> 01:18:07,080 Speaker 1: my own comfort. Yeah, I mean Amerigos Gucci, Christopher Columbus. Look, 1470 01:18:07,960 --> 01:18:10,480 Speaker 1: do we need to figure out what's going on with Italians? 1471 01:18:10,640 --> 01:18:13,080 Speaker 1: You know, maybe shut down immigration from that, from that 1472 01:18:14,280 --> 01:18:19,920 Speaker 1: perfidious our isthmus, I don't understand geographic turns like Columbus. 1473 01:18:20,800 --> 01:18:23,280 Speaker 1: I'd broaden it to all humanity. I mean, we're all 1474 01:18:23,400 --> 01:18:26,479 Speaker 1: just metal ripening in the wind. We're all just metal 1475 01:18:26,640 --> 01:18:30,320 Speaker 1: ripening in the wind. That's right, That's right. Until to 1476 01:18:30,760 --> 01:18:35,960 Speaker 1: next time, find the director Chris Columbus and just huck 1477 01:18:36,000 --> 01:18:39,360 Speaker 1: a beer. Bottle at him, like really really brain him 1478 01:18:39,520 --> 01:18:42,400 Speaker 1: hard right in the side of the head him. At 1479 01:18:42,479 --> 01:18:45,280 Speaker 1: least pull your arm back in anticipation of a huck, 1480 01:18:45,320 --> 01:18:48,360 Speaker 1: and then tune in for the next episode. Yeah, yeah, 1481 01:18:49,360 --> 01:18:53,439 Speaker 1: what is he? What is he directed? What are his movies? Oh? 1482 01:18:53,520 --> 01:18:55,600 Speaker 1: He did the Harry Potter's movie. Well, there you go, 1483 01:18:55,760 --> 01:19:00,400 Speaker 1: that's reason enough. Yeah. Uh, screw that turf. I guess 1484 01:19:00,439 --> 01:19:04,080 Speaker 1: by association, even though there's I've heard nothing but fine 1485 01:19:04,200 --> 01:19:10,840 Speaker 1: things about Chris Columbus, literally never heard anything about it. Yeah, 1486 01:19:11,240 --> 01:19:14,760 Speaker 1: he has the name of the other guy. Um, I 1487 01:19:14,840 --> 01:19:18,639 Speaker 1: don't know. He looks like a guy who would enslave 1488 01:19:18,920 --> 01:19:21,599 Speaker 1: an entire people. You know what I say, screw people 1489 01:19:21,600 --> 01:19:24,800 Speaker 1: who have the same name as someone else, right, Robert Evans, Hey, 1490 01:19:25,640 --> 01:19:28,160 Speaker 1: all my namesake ever did was a hell of a 1491 01:19:28,240 --> 01:19:32,160 Speaker 1: lot of cocaine. Yeah he's a great Yeah, there's nothing 1492 01:19:32,200 --> 01:19:35,800 Speaker 1: wrong with either. Robert Evans. Nope, not going to read 1493 01:19:35,840 --> 01:19:40,720 Speaker 1: into that anymore. Um So, Michael, you got any plug 1494 01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:44,280 Speaker 1: doubles to plug? Oh? Sure, I'll do a second plug. 1495 01:19:44,400 --> 01:19:47,519 Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Uh. Specifically, I'd be remiss if 1496 01:19:47,520 --> 01:19:51,240 Speaker 1: I didn't mention one upsmanship. If you like hearing about 1497 01:19:51,400 --> 01:19:54,080 Speaker 1: video games as an art form and sort of the 1498 01:19:54,160 --> 01:19:58,800 Speaker 1: whole medium and the ongoing dialectic of what games are real? 1499 01:19:58,880 --> 01:20:02,400 Speaker 1: Good Me and my the Adam Ganzer discussed that at 1500 01:20:02,560 --> 01:20:05,639 Speaker 1: length every week on One Upsmanship. That's the number one 1501 01:20:06,200 --> 01:20:12,160 Speaker 1: ups Manship. Check us out now, Michael m hmm, I 1502 01:20:12,320 --> 01:20:15,799 Speaker 1: just learned something funked up about Christopher Columbus, the director 1503 01:20:17,400 --> 01:20:27,519 Speaker 1: oh his production company Pictures Oh. Does this mean that 1504 01:20:27,720 --> 01:20:31,120 Speaker 1: the Harry Potter movies were created as part of an 1505 01:20:31,160 --> 01:20:34,679 Speaker 1: occult right to in the world because our Christopher Columbus 1506 01:20:34,840 --> 01:20:38,880 Speaker 1: also views himself as an agent of the apocalypse. Harry 1507 01:20:39,200 --> 01:20:42,680 Speaker 1: has to re establish the Promised Land, as like the 1508 01:20:42,800 --> 01:20:46,600 Speaker 1: magical Kingdom needs to take over the world. Perhaps this 1509 01:20:46,840 --> 01:20:52,160 Speaker 1: Christopher Columbus is gathering gold to himself by making movies 1510 01:20:52,640 --> 01:20:55,960 Speaker 1: in order to retake Jerusalem. And you said he was hot, 1511 01:20:56,200 --> 01:20:57,920 Speaker 1: and but we don't. We're not sure exactly what he 1512 01:20:57,960 --> 01:21:00,320 Speaker 1: looks like. I'm going to assume he has just slits 1513 01:21:00,360 --> 01:21:02,719 Speaker 1: for a nose and it is basically a Baltimore test. 1514 01:21:03,479 --> 01:21:06,080 Speaker 1: I'm saying, is it took Robert I don't know twenty 1515 01:21:06,160 --> 01:21:11,760 Speaker 1: seconds to turn a man into a bastards anyway, Hunt 1516 01:21:11,840 --> 01:21:15,320 Speaker 1: him down, folks, bring him to justice. Oh he directed 1517 01:21:15,360 --> 01:21:18,400 Speaker 1: the Home Alone films. Yeah, and Mrs down Fire. No 1518 01:21:19,040 --> 01:21:22,759 Speaker 1: call off your dogs, no, no, no hunting, no, no hunting. 1519 01:21:23,080 --> 01:21:26,439 Speaker 1: This is the greatest mortal quandary and behind the Bastard's history. 1520 01:21:27,920 --> 01:21:36,360 Speaker 1: We'll have to crack that next time. Behind the Bastards 1521 01:21:36,439 --> 01:21:39,040 Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from 1522 01:21:39,080 --> 01:21:42,439 Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, 1523 01:21:42,880 --> 01:21:45,200 Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, 1524 01:21:45,280 --> 01:21:47,680 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.