Happy Devil's Day (Or Christopher Columbus Day)

[Platinum Lantern]

What a great day indeed....

Today we celebrate Christopher Columbus's personal discovery of a land with already occupied by hundreds of thousands of native americans.

A Spanish missionary, Bartolome de las Casas, described first-hand how the Spaniards terrorized the natives.[4] Las Casas gives numerous eye-witness accounts of repeated mass murder and routine sadistic torture. As Barry Lopez has accurately summarized it, "One day, in front of Las Casas, the Spanish dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 people. 'Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight,' he says, 'as no age can parallel....' The Spanish cut off the legs of children who ran from them. They poured people full of boiling soap. They made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. They loosed dogs that 'devoured an Indian like a hog, at first sight, in less than a moment.' They used nursing infants for dog food."[2,pg.4] This was not occasional violence -- it was a systematic, prolonged campaign of brutality and sadism, a policy of torture, mass murder, slavery and forced labor that continued for CENTURIES. "The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world," writes historian David E. Stannard.[3,pg.x] Eventually more than 100 million natives fell under European rule. Their extermination would follow. As the natives died out, they were replaced by slaves brought from Africa.

To make a long story short, Columbus established a pattern that held for five centuries -- a "ruthless, angry search for wealth," as Barry Lopez describes it. "It set a tone in the Americas. The quest for personal possessions was to be, from the outset, a series of raids, irresponsible and criminal, a spree, in which an end to it -- the slaves, the timber, the pearls, the fur, the precious ores, and, later, arable land, coal, oil, and iron ore-- was never visible, in which an end to it had no meaning." Indeed, there WAS no end to it, no limit.

[After Shock Media]

He did not start it, nor end it.

[Sly]

I'm here now. I barely care about people killed 10 years ago, why would I care about people killed hundreds of years ago?

[brand0n]

dude shut the fuck up.

do you realize how stupid you make yourself look with this shit?

fuckin moron.

[Pleasurepays]

imagine what you could be if you focused your insecurity and bitterness into something positive instead of making pathetic and stupid racist commentary on a porn message board.

[Pleasurepays]

lets take this time to explore the reasons why you should be greatful you were born in the western world and not in africa. hmmm... which black african utopia might you have been from? rwanda? congo? sierra leone? liberia? ivory coast? sudan?

i wonder... which poverty stricken, people starving, AIDS infested, child soldier fighting, genocidal slaughterhouse might you have called home if it wasn't for the fact that you were born where you were?

[CaptainHowdy]

Sadly true I must say...

[Vendzilla]

history is full of stuff like this, do you think that the mayflower came to America for freedom of religion? But I'm not going to stop celebrating Thanks Giving!

[VXVhedpeVXV]

Originally Posted by Platinum Lantern

What a great day indeed....

Today we celebrate Christopher Columbus's personal discovery of a land with already occupied by hundreds of thousands of native americans.

A Spanish missionary, Bartolome de las Casas, described first-hand how the Spaniards terrorized the natives.[4] Las Casas gives numerous eye-witness accounts of repeated mass murder and routine sadistic torture. As Barry Lopez has accurately summarized it, "One day, in front of Las Casas, the Spanish dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 people. 'Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight,' he says, 'as no age can parallel....' The Spanish cut off the legs of children who ran from them. They poured people full of boiling soap. They made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. They loosed dogs that 'devoured an Indian like a hog, at first sight, in less than a moment.' They used nursing infants for dog food."[2,pg.4] This was not occasional violence -- it was a systematic, prolonged campaign of brutality and sadism, a policy of torture, mass murder, slavery and forced labor that continued for CENTURIES. "The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world," writes historian David E. Stannard.[3,pg.x] Eventually more than 100 million natives fell under European rule. Their extermination would follow. As the natives died out, they were replaced by slaves brought from Africa.

To make a long story short, Columbus established a pattern that held for five centuries -- a "ruthless, angry search for wealth," as Barry Lopez describes it. "It set a tone in the Americas. The quest for personal possessions was to be, from the outset, a series of raids, irresponsible and criminal, a spree, in which an end to it -- the slaves, the timber, the pearls, the fur, the precious ores, and, later, arable land, coal, oil, and iron ore-- was never visible, in which an end to it had no meaning." Indeed, there WAS no end to it, no limit.

I think I just came... thanks for the erotica!

[Mr Pheer]

go suck a bucket of dicks

[After Shock Media]

Most people still think he was trying to proove the world was round.
Nobody really cares and education is shit.
Who cares about a holiday though really?

What did you do last veterans day, or memorial day? Hell is the 4th of july just firecracker and bbq day to you?

[rodney25]

Thanks for that piece of history. Unfortunately, I have no time celebrating for that right now..