By Juan Montoya
Five hundred and twenty years ago natives of a Caribbean island woke up to find three boatloads of hungry (and lost) Europeans announcing to them that they had been discovered. What’s more, they said the land now belonged to them and their king.
The next five centuries would be devastating for the natives, who shared their food and resources with the new arrivals. From the very start, no matter how generous the natives (who the Europeans called Indians in the mistaken belief they had reached India) were, the white visitors always seemed to want more.
Over time, the leader, one Christopher Columbus, not only took their food and shelter, but he also implemented a system of tribute. The natives were perplexed at why the Europeans were so greedy for the yellow shiny metal they used as decorations.
As the Europeans become more avaricious in the quest for gold, they started demanding that the natives dedicate their entire days working in mines and river beds to search for the shiny metal. As time went on, the natives begin dying off from over work, new diseases against which they had no immunity, and at the hands of their cruel new masters.Needing more labor as the gentle tribes were decimated at the hands of the avaricious conquistadores, they persuaded Queen Isabella to issue a writ ordering that any so – called caribs, or cannibals, could be used as slave labor in their mines. Any native who resisted, it turned out, could be classified as a carib.
Columbus went to his death convinced he had discovered India and that China was not too far over the next mountain range. Subsequent conquistadores spread across the face of a land they called America and laid waste to entire tribes looking for treasure and plunder. The annals of the conquista are full of narratives where natives were torn apart by war dogs or burned alive when Spaniards thought they were holding out on gold deposits.
In one relato, a burial area that was on a platform was torn apart and the remains relieved of their gold burial ornaments.
Mexico City was leveled, as was the Inca nation. Unspeakable cruelty was perpetrated in the name of God, King, and civilization.
The so-called “Columbian Exchange” was a lopsided affair. The Old World got the riches of these nations, and “America” got disease and slaughter in return. The Old World got unimaginable wealth in the form of foodstuffs that saved entire European nations from famine (potatoes), and gave humanity a crop that would in time become the most important addition to the world’s granary – corn.
Today, corn, a wild grass domesticated by the natives some 15,000 years ago, is now the biggest cash crop in the United States, if not the world.
The United States, in turn, also adopted a policy of genocide against its natives. Those it could not kill outright, were dispossessed of their ancestral lands and forcibly moved across the country to unimaginably uninhabitable terrain.
The Cherokees and Seminoles were moved from the semitropical Southeast to the arid plains of Oklahoma. The eastern tribes were moved into the Black Hills and plains of South Dakota. The rest were packed into squalid reservations. To this day, some Native activists will not accept a $20 bill because it bears the face of Andrew Jackson, the president who defied the U.S. Supreme Court and removed the people from their lands at huge costs in lives of the old and young alike.
Somehow, the native people have been able to survive and their Great Spirit looked over them.
The Cherokees in Oklahoma found out that their reservations lay atop underground oceans of oil. And in the Black Hills, uranium and gold were discovered. And, as they were sovereign nations in treaty with the United States, they could have gaming on their squalid reservations. And they built casinos, and the people came. And they are still coming.
Next time you’re in Indian country and have a chance to visit one of their pow-wows, do yourself a favor and go. The beat of the drum and the chanting of the dancers resonate as one with the very rhythm of their Mother Earth just as it has since long before Columbus stumbled upon this continent and made his “discovery.”
8 comments:
what a darling baby, who obviously has parents who are proud of their heritage!
These days other illegal immigrants are landing on our shores; eating our food, taking our tax dollars, and professing their rights over this land. Nothing seems to have changed since 1492.
Your version of history is laughable. But even if things happened as you described, you should be glad Columbus did what he did to get us here. Else you'd still be tossing feces along with the rest of your family.
First of all, his name was Cristobal Colon and not Chistopher Columbus. Let's get that straight. Why must we always "Anglicize " a hispanic name. Why does Santiago become "Jimmy". Secondly, the Spanish conquistadors pale in comparison to the genocide committed by the Anglo conquerors who exterminated the Indian race. Get your facts correct.
He discovered America from a European point of view. Obviously, other people were already there. Juan, this stupid crap is raised every year by somebody, and it's old and boring.
And what of the native peoples? They were conquered and everything they had was taken. That was the way of the world in those days; they had been doing this to their neighbors for generations. If you were weak, you lost. Natives were weak and lost. Get over it.
This article does not deserve such insult as the 3rd blogger has expressed. Every writer has the priviledge of expressing his opinion, fiction or not, and you nor anyone can take that away. Just like the history books distort much of our Tejano history here in South Texas, why should anyone insult the writers' family? It is an insult to especially that beautiful child who will one day be able to read and see this article, because Juan printed it in good faith. Shame on you blogger 3 (Joaquin-or is that fiction?)
si se llama cristobal colon o chistoper columbus aqui en brownsville nos vale madre lo importante que el willy glz sigue jalando y el alcade y comisionaRIOS NO TIENE HUEVOS PARA CORRERLO YA BASTA DE MAMADAS Y USTED SR MONTOYA SIGA ESCRIBIENDO FELICIDAES
When this topic comes up, everybody does to their favorite hate corner and comes out swinging. It is a waste of time trying to grade the Spaniards and the Anglos on their treatment of the native people. Both of these groups did awful things to the native peoples, so what is the purpose in trying to decide which things were more awful than the othrs.
I have lived in South America and followed the bloody footprints of Pizarro and his men through the Andes. It was not pretty for sure. Neither is the genocide practiced against the natives in North America. Just no good about it anywhere.
I get so tired of everything ethnic and hates group trying to spin history to fit their particular bias and grevance. All of human history is replete with man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Nobody has a corner on doing that nor being the victim of that.
So, ax grinders of the world, give it up and spend you energies trying to see the good in others and making a postive contribution to the world in which you live.
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