Truths & Lies
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Native American Truths & Lies
Painting: J.
Cooday (Tlingit)
I . Columbus didn't discover anything and wasn't first.
- American Indians were here first.
- Other cultures may have been here before A.D. 1492 ,e.g. Asian, Afro-Phoenician,
N. European.
II. Columbus was not just curious and noble in motive.
- Columbus wanted gold, wealth and power.
- Columbus exploited and exterminated Native Americans.
III. Columbus and his crew nor Native Americans saw the earth as flat.
- This was started by the American novelist, Washington Irving, in 1828.
- It was and is used to create an image of a bolder and smarter Columbus with a primitive
crew and Native Americans.
- Native Americans and the Columbus crew were quite aware of the roundness of the earth as
seen when a ship disappears over the horizon.
IV. The population of the Americas was not a few 'roving bands' in a wilderness.
- George Catlin (1840) estimated that North America had 14 million people in 1492; but
James Mooney (1921) and other anthropologists concluded that only 1 million Native
Americans lived in North America.
- Current figures (A.D. 1492) are:
North America 14 million
Meso-America 46 million
South America 43 million
V. Native Americans were not backward and primitive.
- The implication that few Native Americans lived here contributes to
the'primitive image'.
- Native Americans of the Caribbean were not naked simpletons in awe of
Columbus.
- When the Santa Maria was wrecked off Haiti, Columbus elicited the aid of
the nearest native
American leader, Guacanagari, who resupplied
Columbus and unloaded the
wrecked Santa Maria before it sank.
- Native Americans made many contributions to Europe and the world during tha last
500 years. The exchange of ideas and technology is now called the
Columbian
Exchange.
Copyright © S.J. Crouthamel
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