I thought the "Colmbus was a no-good bastard" movement had sort of died down, but here it is, as strong as ever:
This drastic decrease in the indigenous populations of the Americas, later brought about the trans-Atlantic African slave trade, and was followed by indentured Chinese labor after slavery's abolition. The thirst of cheap labor and the blood of the indigenous, Africans, and Chinese, still stain the soil that is the foundation of development in the New World.
However, this is not the history that is taught in schools throughout the United States. Our children do not learn of the brutality of the explorers, of Native American history and its traditions, nor do we pay homage the cultures that ruled for centuries before Columbus' arrival.
I don't know where this person has been -- it certaily can't have been in American schools, where the curricula have been loaded down for years with the lesson that the world was beautiful before the lousy Americans came along and ruined everything, and it was Columbus' fault the Americans came along. Columbus was a man of his times, better than the worst of them, not as good as the best, and few things are more tiresome than listening to someone beat up on a guy who's been dead for hundreds of years in a futile attempt to make me feel guilty.
