WEBVTT - Part One: Christopher Columbus: Bringer of the Apocalypse 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:08.840 Ho Ho Ho Mary. Late summer. I'm Santa Claus. Normally 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:11.160 I'd come to you from the North Pole, but due 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.000 to a series of d A raids and Bobo Ho 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:18.080 Gus Telny charges, I'm in hiding right now. My friend 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.360 Robert Evans has agreed to help me with all of 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.759 the charges against me, and its thanks to him. I've 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.360 used some of my CHRISP mismagic to put together the 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:31.640 perfect behind the Bastard script. But of course her perfect 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:36.880 script needs a perfect guest, so I've used Santa's Luciferian 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.680 hell Forge, powered by the bones of the Devil himself, 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:47.640 to conjure up the greatest podcast guest in history, Michael Swam. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.280 All right, that's all from Santa until the holidays, kids, 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.160 And remember those children were dead when Santa got there. 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:01.200 Oh thank you, Sanna Ah. Robert Evans here the newly 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.840 conjured Michael Swain. Michael, how does it feel to have 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:09.080 been birthed from Santa's Luciferian hell Forge? What the fuck? 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:14.479 What the funk was that he's an immortal, immortal North 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:18.959 Pole man just told us, Robert, everything about my conception 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:22.640 of metaphysics has shattered. Now, Michael, this is interesting. Is 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.720 it true that you never existed prior to this point 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:27.840 and all of the memories that people have of your 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.800 many hours of content were created by the devil in 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.280 the last several seconds. I come from the yes and 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:41.000 school of improvs. So absolutely, that's my entire beast. Now, well, 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:45.039 now that you exist and have an extensive backlog of 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.360 content and projects in that have been well underway for 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.160 several years at this point going on, why don't you 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:53.960 tell the audience what what kind of stuff you do 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:55.760 and where they can find you before we get into 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.800 this this Yule Tide extravaganza of an episode. Thank you 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.960 so much? River. Well, it's true I was busy in 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:07.480 Santa's sack, and I don't mean it's attack. But when 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.520 I was but a gleam in Santa's I I was 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:13.679 Let's see where can I take the metaphor um cobbling 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.040 together a brand new show about video games with my 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.000 friend Adam Ganza right here on the I Heart Network. 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.200 So check us out. We're called one Upsmanship. That's the 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:27.079 number one, and then the word lit upsmanship. I used 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.480 to say word, but Adam told me that that's bullshit. 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.040 But I need people to know that it's the number one. 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.840 So yeah, we deep dive into various video games and 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.840 argue about whether they would be shown to aliens if 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.480 we wanted to like impress them and not have them 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.560 destroy humanity. But it seems like the windows closing on 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.360 that opportunity. But let's put it this way, when they 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.680 sift through the ruins of Earth, these are the video 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.239 games we want them to encounter. Now, it's Michael, it's 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.160 it's very appropriate. You just talked about what we would 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.120 show aliens if they came to Earth, because today we're 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.680 kind of talking about that kind of story. This is 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:05.000 the story of essentially a group of aliens led by 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.240 the most alien creature in all of the universe and Italian, 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.040 who come upon a world filled with people who you know, 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.680 are are going to have to endure the realities of 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.600 their of their appearance in this world. Um, I am, 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.120 of course talking about Christopher Columbus and his voyage to 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:27.680 the quote unquote New World. Masterful sege, not plague, not 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.640 not at all, not at all. Michael, what do you 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.600 what do you what do you what do you know about? Oh, 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:37.040 Chris Columbus, not the director but also the director. I 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:41.440 assume they're guilty of the same crimes. So the angrier 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.480 you get it this, Chris Columbus, if you have a 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.680 chance to do harm to the other Chris Columbus, just 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.680 take a swing man. It's fine. Yeah. They both are 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.920 noted for their similar like rapport with children. Both Chris 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:57.760 Columbus have um well, I know, of course the pat version, 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.560 which I wonder if it's still taught an element free school. 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:05.840 But I first imbibed like the classic Happy Thanksgiving, Everything's 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:10.960 fine Christopher Columbus story, and my, uh, my eyes were 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.920 ripped from the veil whatever, you know what I mean, 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:18.800 probably middle of high school, where I learned a few 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.480 let's say, fun facts about Christopher Columbus that I bet 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.920 will come up over the course of this podcast. And 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.960 then this all culminated for me personally when at Cracked. 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.760 Among many many sketches, I got to portray Chris Columbus 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.520 in a series we did called Dead Talks, which is 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.480 an exhaustive like Chris Columbus bragging basically about the triangle 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:44.120 trade and you know, putting it in sort of neo 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:46.000 tech like we're going to change the world for the 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.440 better terms is the premise of that sketch and I 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.680 learned a lot through that actually, because cracked, as you know, 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.839 it's very fact based, something you brought to it honestly 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.400 before you were hired. I got to make shift up 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.640 a lot more. And uh, then they are like, these 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.360 kids really like the facts. Let's do the fact. I 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.880 murdered the fun for you. That's right. We hybridized it. 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.279 We got jokes in there. I know the feeling. He 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.080 does murder the fun. I do murder the fun, just 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:15.919 like Santa murdered those kids. According to the d e 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:21.920 A there it is so Santa does not admit any 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.200 wrongdoing in this case. So before we get into this episode, Mike, 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.040 I think we should probably have a discussion about morality 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.839 and the distant past, because whenever we talk particularly about dead, 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.760 famous white guys who were once worshiped as heroes and 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.919 are now being criticized for bad things they did, there's 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.039 a cry that goes up from a certain corner that's like, 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:43.120 you can't judge people from the past by modern moral standards. 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.239 This is usually meant as a callow and cowardly attempt 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.080 to stop all critical moral analysis of these people, but 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:53.599 also the sentiment is not entirely without value, because things 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.800 are different in the past, and if you are applying 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.800 entirely modern standards to things, then you're going to like 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.039 wind up just getting angry at ship and condemning people 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.200 rather than kind of understanding their actual place in the 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.640 moral universe of the time. And I think slavery is 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:11.800 a good example of that, because viewing all slavery and 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.680 all people who have owned slaves in history as the 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.320 same as the worst slave owners in history, and I'm 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.520 generally talking about the American Confederacy in this period of 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.240 time or when I when I say that is kind 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.159 of counterproductive because slavery has been the normal state of 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.000 affairs in most society throughout human history. Most societies either 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.280 had slaves or individuals in them were always at risk 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:36.920 of being enslaved. This is a thing that has gone 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.560 on basically forever. There have been some notable exceptions, like 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:42.839 the Persian Empire and whatnot, were like there was no 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.080 such thing as slavery, but there were generally structures within 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.560 things like the Persian Empire or like structures like serfdom that, 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.520 even though they were technically slavery, were worse off than 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:55.480 slaves were in a lot of other Like you could 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.359 compare a surf in the Russian step to like a 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.120 slave in urban Rome, and slave in urban Rome has 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.000 a lot more autonomy as a general rule, So like 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.440 discussing all of these things as if they're kind of 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:08.839 the same, I think does lose us some nuance. And 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:13.720 so when we're talking about Christopher Columbus, I obviously none 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.160 of this is set up in order to defend him 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:22.760 or mitigate his bood. But yeah, I think if you 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.040 want to actually understand what he did that was like 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.280 super fucked up, it's important not to just kind of 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:31.120 look at here's the things he did that we can 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:33.880 say now in two are bad, But here is the 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.600 things that he made worse. Here are the things that 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.360 like he ways he changed the world in ways that 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.040 made it more brutal and horrific than it had been, 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.240 because he came into a pretty gnarly fucking world and 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.360 he made it a lot worse. And I think that's 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.320 the reason to condemn him, rather than being rather than 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.480 stuff that he did that was like more or less 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.760 in line with common morality at the time. So I 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:57.440 think you do have to have an understanding of like 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.119 what was accepted in his culture. You understand the things 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.960 he did that were particularly fucked up. If that makes sense, Oh, 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.440 it absolutely makes sense. Although I do want to say 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.440 something that came to mind for me, uh was a 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.240 trip to the Slavery Museum in New York that I 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.640 where I encounter like a series of letters from people 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.520 at the time when the Triangle trade was first like 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.160 getting built and slave ships were coming to the shore. 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:25.080 And what was really eye opening for me is several 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:29.320 of the letters are and I'm paraphrasing here, holy sh it, 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.559 these are human beings and they're enslaving them. They're doing this. Now, 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.679 what the funk is going on? That's insane. We can't 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.680 do that. What is this? It's so it's interesting that 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.080 on and they it was on rare occasion, but there 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.240 were people who saw it with modern eyes instinctively like 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:47.640 you can't do that to a human being. Well, here's 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.079 the thing, I will are you, we'll get into this more. 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.600 They're not seeing it with modernized because most of those 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:57.760 people accepted slavery in other forms, specifically the kind of 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:01.959 slavery that Columbus instituted. They were like, oh my god, 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.080 this is so much worse than anything we've seen. Like, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.120 everybody does a little bit of slave trading, but what 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.800 he has introduced is like a new plague upon the world, 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.080 and is is is so much worse than anything that 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.000 had been seen before. I think that's part of what's 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:19.439 interesting about him, because like some of the people who 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:21.680 are condemning him, like day Las Casas, are people who 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.920 like grew up with slave trading in their local in 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.560 their own society, and like didn't really speak out about 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:34.319 that being an issue. Yeah, and it's Las Casas. I 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.320 I take the podcast wherever you want to steer it, 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.120 but if you do get into the list of just 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:45.240 like imagery, it's pretty it is a nightmare. But I 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.840 do want to in order to actually, I think, in 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.640 order to properly condemn Christopher Columbus to the with the 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.440 most understanding that we can condemn him, we have to 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.320 set the moral scene and and talk about the world 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:00.480 he came into and like what was the norm in 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.120 the society that he and his critics came into. So 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:05.800 this is not just when we talk about the ship 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.080 that was normal in Columbus's world. This is also the 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.520 thing that the people who condemned him at the time, 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.160 saw is normal, which gives you an idea of like, 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:18.319 how fucked up what Columbus does later is um, because 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.640 it's bad. But um, yeah, we will be talking about 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.480 a number of different kind of historic defenses because we 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:26.520 had this. So if you want to look at the 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:28.880 broad sweep of how people have talked about Columbus, you 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:34.120 had Columbus, great guy, hero, schoolhouse rock, you know, YadA, YadA, YadA, 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.280 let's let's show him dancing, and then you have Columbus 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.120 is was a monster and and a war criminal on 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:43.800 a on a on a historic scale. And now you've 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:48.440 got a pushback largely coming from conservatives. Um. If you 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:53.160 want to go google Columbus Misunderstood or like Columbus, you know, 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.160 revisiting or whatever, you'll find a bunch of daily wire 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.920 fucking articles and ship about him, and a lot of 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:00.960 them are going to quote one of the books that 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.360 also is going to be a source of our in 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.640 our episode today. UM. And it's a book by Carol Delaney, 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.439 Um that is about It's called Columbus and the Quest 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.199 for Jerusalem. Um. Now, this is a book that has 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.160 some original research, and it will be quoting from it 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:17.960 quite a bit, but we will also be quoting from 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.280 other sources to point out how fucked up what Delaney 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:25.079 is trying to do in rehabilitating Columbus is. Um. She 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.560 is clear to note that she's trying to look at 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.360 him quote from a contemporary perspective rather than from the 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.959 values and practice or she's she's she complains that people 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.840 try to judge him quote from a contemporary perspective rather 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:40.280 than from the values and practices of his own time. Um. 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.360 And then she goes ahead and leaves out all of 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.800 the different judgments that people out at his own time 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:46.960 made about him, and a whole bunch of other details too. 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.280 It's just wild too. It was a different time, like 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.360 stabbing pregnant people on their bellies, You're like different. That 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.160 was always a problem, um, but it's interesting. I think 0:11:57.200 --> 0:11:59.160 part of the value of this episode is as we 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.160 go through Columbus his life, we will be going through 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.280 Delaney's book and pointing out all of the things she 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.840 leaves out, because it's useful when you try to engage 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:07.800 with people who are currently in the process of trying 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.760 to rehabilitate Columbus, because that is like you may not 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:12.560 have noticed it, and all of the other problems. But 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.560 it's like a thing the right has been trying to do, 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.719 particularly in the last two years. Um So, I think 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.440 it's worth not just being like fuck that book, but 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:23.959 also being like, here is why that's books fucked up in. 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:25.720 Here is the things that it leaves out, and here's 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.120 the holes in her research that other people have not 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:34.079 had holes in. Um So, Yeah, Christopher Columbus was born 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.880 not at long after the Black Death finished its last 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.200 series of waves. Throughout his world, he's a he's a 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.040 child of the Mediterranean. He's born on the Italian coast. 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.120 Probably we don't know exactly, but there's a bunch of 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.360 records of him as a young man in the city 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.040 of Genoa, and he always claimed to be from Genoa, 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.679 so it's pretty safe to say probably born somewhere around Genoa. 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.520 Um and you know, Genoa is it's worth like again 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.960 to kind of at the stage for like the kind 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.720 of people who are around when he's a kid. The 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.679 plague is still kind of in its last waves when 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:13.360 he's born, and the Mediterranean is particularly like one of 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.760 the places where the Black Plague does them. There's a 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.320 lot of cities and towns, including Genoa, where it's not 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.480 uncommon for like plague waves to kill fifty to se 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.440 the population, whereas if you're looking at like England and stuff, 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.400 it's often more like twenty, which is still devastating. Right, 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.000 you think about how bad COVID has been and how 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.400 much damage like a million dead has done in a 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:39.520 country three million, and like you're talking about, you know, 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.360 seventy five times that many people dying more or less 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.360 in like or actually know, like a hundred and I 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.000 don't know, I'm not great at math. A lot more 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.960 as a percentage of your population, much more people. So 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.679 number one. One of the things that this sets up 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.079 understanding like the fact that an apocalypse has just occurred. 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:01.560 When Christopher Columbus co and do he is going to 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.200 cause an apocalypse, but he's also he is the child 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.000 of an apocalypse. So he's born into a world where 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.520 like a whole lot of ship got sucked up really hard, 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.080 very recently in ways that are it would be difficult 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.680 for us to put our heads, to put ourselves in 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.080 the place of like people living in that world, because 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.640 the collapse that they endured was like so much more 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.400 severe than anything we've seen yet, you know, check back 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.080 in in about a month and a half. But at 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:32.800 the moment um, and obviously slavery was extremely common in 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.160 the world. He grew up in the city of his birth, Genoa, 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.120 was an influential Italian city state that made a significant 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.280 amount of its income through slavery. Italy is not a thing, 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:45.200 like it's a geographical thing, but like nobody would say that, 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.960 like I'm an Italian. You'd say, like, I'm Genoese. You know, 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.640 I'm from Venice, I'm a Roman. And they all hate 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:52.840 each other, like they hate each other and they're yeah, 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:57.320 they're city states and they're constantly murdering each other, and um, yeah, 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.960 it's it's it's Italian's favorite thing in this period is 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.160 killing each other. Um, it's like the thing that they 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.360 do the most of um, other than make a shipload 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.160 of money through trade, a lot of which is the 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.440 slave trade. And the book is a good historic upgrade 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.040 that rebrand in Genoa from slavery to Salamia, which I 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.000 think and they're most associated with now major grad Yeah, no, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:20.760 it it sounds like Genoa was a fucking nightmare back 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.320 in the day. And it is worth noting when we 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.360 talk about this city there's about seventy five thousand people 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:27.760 in Genoa when he's a kid, which makes it I 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:30.280 think it's like in the top five or ten cities 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.360 in Western Europe by population. It's one of the most 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:35.000 I mean it's which makes it one of the most 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.280 populous cities in the world at the time. Um, because 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.680 there's not all that many people, you know. UM. Anyway, 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.480 the book Columbus by Lawrence bear Green, who's a much 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.600 better historian than Carol Delaney, I think, um ably describes 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:52.960 the status quo in his home when he was born. 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.600 R E slavery quote. Slavery was deeply woven into the 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.960 fabric of the Genoese economy, especially traffic in girls who 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.480 were only thirteen or fourteen years old. Every Genoese household, 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.640 even modest ones, had one or two female slaves. Although 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.880 Christianity prohibited bondage, an exception was made for these non 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:14.440 Christian slaves. They were Russian, Arab, Mongol, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Albanian 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.240 and Chinese slave traders and pirates sold them on a 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.440 regular basis to Genoa. Occasionally, their wide net included a 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.120 Christian girl whom they kidnapped and would return for a 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:27.800 high ransom. The transactions were formal ordarized. Indeeded most slaves 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.280 were sold as is. If others whose health had been 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:34.000 guaranteed developed epilepsy or other health problems, the owner demanded 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.080 an annulment of the contract. Some cautious buyers kept the 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.160 girl of their choice on a trial basis to judge 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.480 whether she would remain charming and adapt to a life 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.680 of slavery. In Genoa, once acquired by a Genoese master, 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:48.200 girls became mere property, bound to gratify his sexual wants, 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:50.960 as well as those of his friends. Merchants able to 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.880 afford a concubine, and many in this prosperous city could 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.200 maintain them in households separate from their families. The master 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.360 of the house specified the terms of the arrangement with 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.680 the local note republic, especially concerning sensitive matters such as 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:07.119 inheritance rights for children born out of wedlock. So a 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.960 couple of things. You're number one, that's bad, Like it's 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:15.160 bad to have your society based heavily around child sex trading. 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.520 But also this is the norm, right, this is what 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.480 he's born into. Right, It's yeah, it's just hard to 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.120 put yourself truly in the mindset of an actual other 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.040 time with truly different social morizes, in the sense that 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.880 this is someone who's going, here's a fourteen year old 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.000 girl I purchased, If you'd like to have sex with her, 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.280 my friend, we're doing it. We're doing a society. This 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:41.720 is civilization now. Uh, it's so inconceivable through modern eyes. 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.399 And yeah, I totally get what you're saying in the 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.000 opening about the contrast between what yes stept and what 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.399 is normalized. And it is important. Again, obviously it is 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:55.439 bad to sexually traffic children as slaves, but also this 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.440 is not just the norm in Genoa in the fourteen hundreds. 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:00.199 This was going on has been going on for a 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.919 very long time, and you could argue the system is 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.600 less shitty than it was, for example, like the height 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.960 of the Roman Empire, because slaves in Genoa are primarily 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.879 this kind of slave like how slaves who exist to 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.560 satisfy like an old dude sexual whims, which is gross 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.520 and bad, But a major factor of ancient Roman slavery 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.320 was we are going to enslave these people and work 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.600 them to death in a mind like in the worst 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:29.159 conditions imaginable by the thousands, which is probably worse, and 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.080 the fact that that's less common in the fourteen hundreds, 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:34.359 you could say, is better. I don't think it's super 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.800 useful to look at it that way, but like, yeah, 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.600 it's important to note that, like all, like Italian wealth 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.520 for the last three thousand years prior to this was 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.240 built on the back of slavery on a massive scale, right, 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.639 always had been, you know. Um, And that's that's the 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.080 world Columbus comes into, not just a world in which 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.200 the trade in girls is a major industry in his city, 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.520 but also a world in which no one can remember 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:04.520 a time in which Italians did not make did not 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.360 base a significant portion of their economy on slavery. Right, 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:15.080 And like the world pre taken one, there's not a 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:19.640 singlely amazing no so nothing can free these people. Um 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.640 and yeah, so by the standards of the time, Um, 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.800 an individual who like accepts within this society that like, yeah, 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.320 there's just gonna be slavery around me, that's pretty normal. Um. 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.440 And it's worth noting, well, actually there's debates whether or 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:34.320 not Columbus himself owned a slave. This is the kind 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:35.879 of thing that you're not going to get a satisfying 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.840 answer on Um, but it is probably fair to say 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.000 that like if Columbus were just another Italian who existed 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.440 within a slave owning society and perpetuated it, he would 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.960 not get an episode on his own um, because there's like, 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.840 like every Italian prior to this point in history was 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:58.880 involved in the slave trade basically. UM So yeah, anyway, UM, 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.280 what I think is important is kind of setting the 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.640 scene because the thing that he creates is like, it's 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.480 not just worse than slavery that exists in Genoa of 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:10.679 his birth, It's something that the Roman Empire would have 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.040 looked at and been like Jesus Christ, dude, like what 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:20.280 the fuck? He yes? I mean he yes, he he 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:23.280 literally would have. But also like not not only did 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:25.119 people at the time judge him, but like if you 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.439 could go back and talk to like fucking Cicero, he 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:29.960 would have been like what the fuck man, this is like, 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:35.359 this isn't how you treat people. Um. So yeah, Christopher 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:37.679 Columbus was not, as I think he gets described a 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.680 lot by people on the left, just an er capitalist 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:43.240 who want to do enslaved people in like mind their 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:47.520 society because he was personally greedy. What's interesting about him 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.199 as a bastard. Is that the reason for everything he 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.080 does is that he becomes a Messianic Christian holy warrior, 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:55.879 and the genocide that he's going to commit, which heavily 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.399 involves slavery, is done in the name of funding a 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:02.240 war to retake the Holy City in Christendom, Jerusalem. Like, 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.760 that's why he does it. And so his excesses that 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:07.960 we're going to be covering are just because he's greedy, 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:11.240 although he certainly is, but it's because he's a frenzied 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.000 narcissist who believes he's chosen by God to bring about 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:17.440 the apocalypse, which is a different story than the one 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:21.560 I had heard even on the left for the most part. Um, Yeah, 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.280 I've only heard the Chamber of Horror's version. I have 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:29.159 not heard the Messianic cultist version. Yes he is. He 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.160 is a Messianic apocalypse cultist, and that's why he does 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:37.280 a genocide. So Christophero Colombo, which is his actual birth name, 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:39.600 and it's ridiculous, so we're not going to call him 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:42.240