WEBVTT - Part Two: Christopher Columbus: Bringer of the Apocalypse 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:06.800 Oh my goodness, it's behind the Bastards the podcast or 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:10.680 Michael Swain and I talk about how Christopher Columbus was 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:14.920 actually kind of a cool guy. Michael, how do you 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.560 you know a lot of people get angry at him 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:21.800 because of the slavery in the genocide. But I hadn't 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.279 heard that. But have you have you considered is it 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.760 Ohio that has a Columbus or is it Missouri has 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:29.480 a Columbus? Both of them have a Columbus, don't they? 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.560 Maybe both at least Ohio, at least one American state 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.000 has a town called Columbus. And I'm gonna say they 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:41.239 have good pizza. I don't know. Nobody knows. Michael. You 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.440 play video games, right, your big video games guy pizza? 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.040 I play video games. You are regular guy. Robert you are. 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:52.040 I should introduce you first, not that you need in because, 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:54.920 as you said, the format is and always has been 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.920 Robert Evans and Michael Swain talking about Christopher Columbus's that's 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.520 every episode of this show. Um, Michael, you are the 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:05.760 only member of the Cracked das for a who has 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.679 visited me in my new home. Um, I I guess 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:11.800 I could say that it's probably because of the plague, 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.480 but I think it's it's it's a direct personal insult. 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:16.759 But in any case, when you were here, you brought 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:19.199 out a machine which allowed you to play video games 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:23.520 on my television. UM, a gaming console, right, And that 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:25.600 made me think it's that this was like a year 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:27.800 ago now, but it maybe I've been thinking ever since. Boy, 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:29.679 it seems like it'd be nice to sit down on 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:31.880 the couch and play a play a video game old 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:33.320 fashioned style. So I don't know, I don't have a 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.199 lot of hobbies anymore, Michael um, and I kept thinking 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.280 about it, and yesterday I don't know why, I was 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:40.800 feeling kind of depressed, and I was like, I am 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.400 going to play a video game on the couch, but 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.000 I didn't have it. I don't have a console. I 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:46.240 don't have any way to do that. So I go 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:48.960 down to the video game store and I'm like, I 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.160 would like one PlayStation or Xbox, it doesn't matter. And 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.760 they told me you can't do that. You have to 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:56.920 get an invitation to buy a one. That's the way 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.240 that all gaming consoles work now. And so I just 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:01.280 need to ask, was a video game guy, what the 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.000 funk is going on? With video games. Why you just 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.840 go buy a video game machine? Well, if you collect 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:10.000 six Steam decks, then your punch card is full and 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.840 you can get a PS five. No, it's uh, my 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.959 understanding is that the well full disclosure. I used to 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.440 work at I g N and I would know this ship. Um, 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.360 I've laughed. That was like four or five six months ago. 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:26.160 So I believe though that that should be turning a 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:30.560 corner soon. Actually, chip shortage and the video card shortage 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.760 kind of has already broken. That's those I have no 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.560 idea what I have. I I've got. I've got a 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.200 gaming laptop that I bought a year or so ago 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.519 in another fit of depression. And so I just I realized, eventually, 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:45.320 why am I trying to buy a PlayStation? All I 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.240 want to do is play Grand Theft Out oh five. 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.320 I can just download that on Steam and buy a 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.840 controller and plug it all into my TV. So it's 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.639 fine now I figured it out. Um, but I was 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.800 did you go back and punched that clerk in the mouth? No, 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:03.120 he would he would like, yeah, I mean he wasn't 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.160 being rude. It's just like I didn't realize we'd gotten 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.280 to there with video game consis where you have to 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.920 get an invitation like dinner with a shake. What is 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.639 happening here? I remember at work when the PS fives 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.400 were coming out, they told us all to sign up 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.480 for X number of lottery tickets because if we didn't 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:23.840 get enough consoles to go around for the staff, we 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.960 wouldn't be able to cover stuff, which is the entire 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:33.040 livelihood of the god what periods? Wild? What a weird situation? Yeah, 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.520 it's it's something else, Michael, Michael, hmm, we're talking about 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:42.240 Christopher Columbus. Michael Swain, small Bean's network. Uh, formerly of 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.360 Cracked Dot. That's right, Please don't put my name director 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:50.640 of the film kill me now, Michael, Yes, you're ready 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:56.160 to get back to Columbus, absolutely or otherwise? Yeah, so, Michael, 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.800 as our story comes back, it is two now. Columbus 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.560 has unsailed his ass right across an ocean blue, and 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.880 he stumbled into a Caribbean island full of people who 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.040 immediately thinks are number one hot. He repeatedly comments on 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.800 how good looking they are and number two good potential 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.440 servants slash slaves. Now. According to his journals, the first 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.440 thing he focused on trying to do was convert them 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.800 to Christianity, and most importantly, to make sure that they 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:25.279 fought thought that all white people were chill dudes. Now, 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:27.520 he did this in a couple of ways, mainly by 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.560 handing out various trinkets. Here's how he wrote about it 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:33.000 in his diary. I in order that they would be 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.200 friendly to us, because I recognized they were a people 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:37.719 who would be better freed from error and converted to 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.160 our holy faith by love than by force. To some 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:42.839 of them, I gave red caps and glass beads which 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.080 they put on their chests, and many other things of 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.640 small value, which they took so much pleasure in and 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.719 became so much our friends that it was a marvel. 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.320 And one of the things that's like really funny here 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.400 is that he thinks, like you have you get all 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.120 these writing from the Spaniards at the time about how 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.880 silly these people are because the like trade gold gems 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.400 for like useless bobble, But none of them ever considered 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.200 the fact that like maybe to these people they're both useless, 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:09.120 that like a glass bead and gold about is valuable 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.720 to each other. Right, Like neither of them do anything. 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.240 They just look nice. If you've never gotten high and 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.719 then have the thought gold is just a rock though, man, 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.640 like it's just a rock someone, just just a rock 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.440 that sat out in the sun the most according to Plato. 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.520 And by the way, handing out red caps, I believe 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:30.719 this is the official origin of the maga caps. You 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.559 can play that he started it. Um you might actually 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:36.360 you might draw. I don't know. I don't know enough 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:41.240 about fucking Italian history in this period to know how 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.560 meaningful it is. But like you gotta remember, he comes 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.800 from a place where colored clothing is illegal. Um, so 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.240 I don't know that's that's that's got the latest hot ship. 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:56.200 Look his kids sucking red the color of passion. You 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:58.360 don't tell the pope, and I won't tell the pope. 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.040 My rods and cones are overwhelmed. And it's also it's 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.240 worth noting that, like, while this is often referred to 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.080 his gift giving, like him handing out trinkets, it seems 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.279 based on the descriptions you get that like the Natives 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.880 considered that that they are consciously like entering an exchange 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.760 with him, Like he's giving them stuff that they assume 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.839 he values, because they're giving him things that they value, right, 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.400 they're assuming he's not being Yeah, they are assuming he's 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:26.360 not being an asshole, or like, oh, we gotta give 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:28.200 him some nice stuff. He's given us all this nice 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.800 stuff that we've never seen before, Like they're giving him 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.920 nice cotton thread and like live parrots, which Columbus thinks 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.279 they're delicious. Um, he is. You gotta give him credit 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.880 with one thing. I don't know this is I found 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.000 this compelling. At least a lot of the Spaniards, especially 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.680 once they start settling in these islands, refused to eat 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:47.800 the local food. It's actually a massive problem. They have 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.360 to like keep shipping livestock over from Spain because people 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:53.960 decide that like their cuisine is gross. Columbus is not 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:55.640 one of those guys. He actually gets sick a bunch 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.280 because he will eat anything these people hand him, which 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:04.440 credit where it's due. That's how you're supposed to travel. Yeah. Um, 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.920 so one item he would give them in return are 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.920 these tiny hawks bells. And these are like if you're 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.720 doing falconry. These are like little bells that you tie 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.160 the tight of birds and used to track them. Um 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.240 when they're like flying away. I guess it's just a 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.000 thing that it was easy to get a lot of 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:20.680 so that they could have a shipload of these to 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.120 hand out. But he gives out a lot of hawkspells, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.560 and that's going to be noteworthy later, so just keep yeah, 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.360 there the live strong bracelets of the era. If the 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.520 lives strong bracelets lead directly to a suicide genocide, yes, 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:39.160 here the people who lived on the island that Colmas 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.280 had discovered and then taken possession of for the Crown 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:47.080 were Taino's members of the arrow Wok group. Um. Now, 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.240 over the coming days, he met with many different like 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.680 people on this island, many different kinds of arrow walks. 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.280 Because there's all these different right, like, it's pretty broad population, 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:58.840 you know. Um, and I think these are kind of 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.280 like grouping by by languages. Um. And these guys gave 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.080 him a bunch of gifts of unknown types, you know, 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.520 we get he writes down some of them, um, but 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.280 usually he just writes his hewn as like they gave 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.360 us trinkets. We don't actually know what that means. They 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.200 may have been like handing him works of art, decorations, 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.480 clothing stuff that like could be because these people believe 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.400 a lot of them, at least believe that he's like 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.400 a like some sort of celestial visitor. Right, so it's 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:28.360 possible they're giving him like cultural artifacts of significant value 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:30.320 to them. Um, and he's just like, yeah, they just 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:32.360 gave me some crap because it's not gold, right, Like 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.760 that's the only thing that he actually ever seems to notice. 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:39.320 He calls their gifts tedious fishing around his ridiculous panelers, 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.839 what do I got? What do I got it? Yeah? Yeah, 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.600 the only things that he like shows any appreciation for 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:46.920 are the small pieces of gold jewelry that he sees 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:49.640 on some of their bodies. Um. Now it's worth noting 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.240 that our friend Carol Delaney absolutely fawns over the descriptions 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.800 Columbus rites of people in geography. Um. She glosses over 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:58.480 the fact that he like she She talks about like 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.920 what a good like anthropy, pological attention to detail that 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.360 he does that he has, which is interesting because he's 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.760 also like dismissing all of these different gifts they're giving 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.359 him his trifles, which I would say is bad anthropology, 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.640 but I'm not an anthropologist here. Um. So, in short order, 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.320 Columbus takes his little fleet away from this first island, 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.400 which is probably San Salvador Um. And heads towards Cuba, 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.040 which he thinks is Japan, right, um, and he will 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.400 think that until the day he dies. They were his 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.480 last words. And yeah, I mean, look, it's you're runningto Cevicha. 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:33.880 You think it's sushi. It's happened all of us, you know, 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:39.160 the same food basically. Um. Yeah. So yeah, he he 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.960 decides that, and and part of the reason why he's 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.880 so like fired up to get to Japan number one, 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:47.240 he's still looking for that great con right, He's still 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.880 looking for like some evidence of these massive Asian civilizations 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:52.600 that he knows you're supposed to be here and supposed 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.040 to be ready for Christianity. Um. And the other thing 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.800 is that based on his kind of like these conversations 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.199 he's having with the locals, and they're not really conversations 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.160 as well as much as like kind of gesture based discussions, 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.920 but he kind of puts together that the gold he's found, 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.640 the little pieces of gold, came from that island. So 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:12.560 he's like, all right, that's where the gold comes from. 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.120 And obviously that's the number one thing. So as he 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.920 leaves this first island and heads for Cuba, he captures 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:20.600 a bunch of people and takes them with him. These 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.000 are random locals that he imprisons on his ship to 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.120 ask his guides. Now, in her book because She's Terrible, 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.480 Carol Delaney describes these people as willing and eager guests, 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.600 friendly natives excited to show the white people around. This 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.200 is not true. These captives told Columbus that there was 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.559 an I like. Part of the evidence for the fact 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.319 that these people were not willing guests is that they 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.560 teld Columbus like, as they're sailing to Japan Cuba, they 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.960 tell Columbus there's an island on the way, and they're like, oh, yeah, 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:48.680 we've seen people there and they have like these huge 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:50.720 gold bracelets that they were on their arms and legs. 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.560 It's the most gold anyone has it. While, well, we'll 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:56.880 take you there. Well will introduce you to them, right, 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:58.840 And as soon as they get to the island, all 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.040 of the Tano prisoners he's taken run the funk away. Um. 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:07.719 They absolutely they fucking escape. Um. So he's annoyed by this, 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.760 and he sends an armed party to the shore to 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.600 recapture them or to capture somebody else. Um. He also 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:16.880 he can't he feels like since he's gotten close to 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.559 the island, he can't go past it without taking possession 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.360 of it. Right um, The exact way he writes this 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.840 is that it was my wish to bypass no island 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.000 without taking possession. This is another thing Carol fails to mention. 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.600 So I'm going to quote from Lawrence bear Green's book 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.200 next quote. He dispatched several seamen in hot pursuit of 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.360 the fugitives, chasing them ashore, but as he ruefully noted, 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.679 they all fled like chickens. When another dugout canoe innocently 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:43.680 approached with a man who came to trade a skein 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.079 of cotton, some of the sailors jumped into the sea 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.440 because he wouldn't come aboard, and sees the poor fellow 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.880 as a replacement detainee. Observing from his vantage point on 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.080 the poop deck. Columbus sent for him and gave him 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.280 a red cap and some beads of green glass, which 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.720 I placed on his arm, and two hawkspells which I 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:01.640 placed on his ears. That is the standard issue trinkets 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.040 of little value. And I ordered him back to his dugout. 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.560 So his plan here was to bait the hook. He 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:09.760 wanted the locals to approach him with trust so that 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.320 he could capture more of them. So he like takes 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.320 this guy, puts him back on his boat with a 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.160 bunch of trinkets and sends him off, um hopefully so 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:18.880 that he can like question the others about gold and 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.920 all that stuff. And this tactic is pretty successful. Um. 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.880 People are generally very friendly for him. Um. And there's 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:27.600 a few reasons for this. Some of it is that 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:29.800 he is giving people gifts from time to time, and 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:31.280 so they'll go back and be like, there's some dude 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.640 and he's handing out ship, let's go meet him. Um. 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:35.880 And the other reason is that as club is kind 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.600 of surmised, they saw him as and his men as 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.440 quote men who came from the heavens. Now, it is 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.439 hard for us to know precisely what their beliefs were here, right, 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.720 We don't have the kind of context that we would 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.560 like because they are genocided. Um. It he took all 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:59.400 their art and ship and overboard. Yeah. Um. It is 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:01.920 generally accepted that the people indigenous to a lot of 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.600 these islands had popular beliefs. And again you're talking about 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:06.720 multiple groups of people right there, all into these kind 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:08.880 of broad language groups. But that doesn't mean they're like 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.079 they're often at war. They have different opinions of each other, 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:17.120 like right there there anyway, Um, it is uh very 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.320 likely that some of these people had popular beliefs that 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:24.400 divine or divinely inspired beings were going to visit them 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.800 one day, and it was kind of like a prophecy. 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.920 Some times. It may have been kind of like an 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.880 apocalyptic prophecy maybe sort of. You might even view it 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.319 as a little bit like kind of Christian rapture like readiness, 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.000 you know, which is not. There are beliefs like that 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.640 all over the world. It's courts almost every religion. Yeah. Ultimately, um, 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.400 just that at some point in the distant future, we 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.840 will meet this magical thing that's we always it's human 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.720 nature to want to eventually meet or connect with or 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.040 be one with the thing you made up. Yeah, yeah, exactly, 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.720 And it's one of those things. So they're they're probably 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:04.000 were some prophecies that sort of led some subset of 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.360 the people he's meeting to believe that he and his 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:11.360 Spaniards are divine visitors or celestial visitors or some something 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.520 ethereal and other worldly. It's also worth noting though, that 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:16.520 whenever we talk about prophecies like this, there's like a 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.440 nasty tendency to act as if these beliefs are universal. 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.200 It gets flattened. So we say, the people of these 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.000 islands believed this or that, and we're talking about large, 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:29.320 decentralized groups on many islands. Human beings just don't work 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.280 that way, right, They don't all believe the same thing 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.200 just because they all live in the Caribbean. Um. And 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.720 oddly enough, there's a passage from Carol Delaney's book that 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.440 does a decent job of making this clear. It's one 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:41.960 of the little pieces of kind of insight we get 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.200 into how varied beliefs might actually have been on the ground. Please. 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.360 This is the beginning of Robert's turn to pro Carol 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.360 Delaney's super pro Well, you know, I just I haven't 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.760 found this anecdote and the other stuff read about Clumbus, 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:56.840 and I found it fascinating because it answered this question 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:58.920 I always had as a kid, when you'd hear like, oh, 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:01.000 they believed this or that, and it's like, well they didn't, 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.240 all right, because we don't, you know, like there must 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.320 have been sex and schisms and anyway, I find this interesting. 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:08.600 At one stop, an old man who had heard of 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:10.840 Columbus approached him with a desire to engage in a 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.200 theological discussion. Perhaps he had heard that Columbus was interested 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.560 in religious beliefs, or he may have cleverly used this 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.280 dialogue as a way to protect his people. Columbus, for 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:21.320 his part, must have jumped at the chance to have 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.680 a discussion with a learned native about their beliefs. They 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.080 talked about the soul and what happens to it after death. 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:29.480 The old man explained that his people believed that any 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.200 injury to the body also affected the soul, and begged 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.080 Columbus not to injure any of the people. Columbus assured 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:37.320 him that he only hurt bad people because that was 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.520 what his sovereigns had commanded. Unlike others who believed Columbus 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:42.840 was some kind of god, this man told Columbus that 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.080 to his face, that he was quote mortal like everyone else. 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.680 Columbus was not offended and wrote that the old man 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.640 expressed his thinking with excellent judgment and courage. So that's 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:55.200 interesting to me. Yeah, you get these little like hints 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.160 of the variety of beliefs and thoughts that might have 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:04.480 existed in this population, just the recurring motif of don't worry, 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:11.880 I only hurt bad. The core of all Western he is, Yeah, 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.040 he is. You might we talk a lot on this 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.320 show about like whiteness and the fact that whiteness is 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.120 like an idea with shifting boundaries that changed over time. 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.920 But you might say Columbus was the first white guy. 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:27.120 Like he sounds like one for sure. Yeah, he's got 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.880 like the talk. He's got it all right. You could 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:31.760 you could put this guy in like the George Bush 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.400 White House and he could be delivering fucking press conferences 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:38.280 on carpet bombings. It's great. Um. So, as much as 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.920 she tries to paint him as an unbiased, open minded 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.560 cultural anthropologist, Columbus's own writing makes it clear that his 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.960 only interest in these people was using to find and 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.520 mind gold for his Jerusalem goals. He wrote very little 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.360 about their actual culture. He brushed over their Again. You 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.520 have to remember that what he said about their religion 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:57.880 is they don't have one, right because he didn't he 0:16:57.920 --> 0:16:59.960 didn't understand it. So he assumed that they were just 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.880 like a blank slate ready for Christianity. Um. He ignored 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:07.600 their social order almost entirely. He didn't really understand the 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.159 way they were ordered and who was in charge. He 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.320 showed very little to no interest in their agriculture except 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:15.600 to rape about the quality of their their food, and 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:17.440 even that may have been kind of out of desperation 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.600 as much as anything, because as the days will on, 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.920 they keep not finding gold. Right, they get these little trinkets, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:24.919 but there's no sign of these gold mines that he 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:26.840 had told the King and Queen were going to be 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:29.600 here and like huge quantities. So he may have been 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.520 playing up the only stuff that he thought was a value, right, 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:34.960 because but yeah, he doesn't care about the people or 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:36.720 their culture. So it's like, well, the food is pretty good. 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.280 Maybe we can take just imagining flying saucers coming and 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:44.119 we're all excited about first contact. And aliens arrive and 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.439 they're like his rp's open to order a bunch of 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:49.359 ship and we're like, do you want to have like 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.840 cultural interchange? And they're like, don't bother us. I don't 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.400 care about that, dude. Yeah, and then one of them 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.679 writes home it gets like asked by his boss, so 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:01.680 do the do humans? Is like religion a big deal 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:03.360 for them? No, I don't think so, man, I don't 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:06.480 really think it's a big deal armies though they got 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:10.239 the mates two of these things for six collegues. It's 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.320 it's like walking around Jerusalem looking for a fucking sandwich, 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.800 being like, Wow, these people don't have a religion at all. Meanwhile, 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.320 you have an abduction quota and it doesn't matter who 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:28.000 doesn't have numbers. Well, we are getting to the abduction quotas. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.760 So the main thing that he does in his writing 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.199 here rather than again, Carol Laney is like just fucking 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.200 hard as hell about trying to portray him as like this, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:40.480 this like anthropological savant um. I think Lawrence bear Green 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.760 gets it more correctly when he describes Columbus as writing 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.600 about the new world that he's found as a quote 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.320 tabula rasa in which his sovereigns would leave a lasting 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:52.920 imprint of empire. Columbus wrote that quote your highnesses will 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:55.399 command a city and fortress to be built in these parts, 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.040 and these countries converted. And I certify to your Highness 0:18:58.119 --> 0:18:59.520 is that it seems to me that there could never 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.520 be under the son lands superior to them, and fertility 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.560 and mindfulness of cold and heat, and abundance of good 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:07.760 and pure water, and the rivers are not like those 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:11.119 of Guinea, which are all pestilential, which is obviously Portuguese 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.040 have guinny. Right, So he's trying to he's he's he's 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.160 not to the fact, to the extent that he describes 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.560 all of this lovingly, He's not doing it out of 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.240 legitimate interest. He's doing it to try to make it 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.840 attractive to the King and queens. Sales pitch, sales pitch. 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.920 He's shown no interest in learning these things. No, he's 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.119 it's gold. It's just it's a sales in part because, 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:34.720 as per the deally as with him, if this turns 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:36.800 into a colony and there's trade, he gets like a 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:39.960 quarter of the profits forever, right Like that's part of 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.800 why he's trying to sell them on this place. Everything 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:46.080 he's writing is like he's like a fucking um, I 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:50.280 don't know if you yeah, he's he's, he's, he's a salesman, 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.359 right Like. That's what he's trying to sell is this 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.880 land other people live on. And part of the way 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.240 he's selling that is like and they're barely even real, 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:59.119 like they don't here, they don't care, like they do 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:01.359