Yeah, I know what I learned in school, and you know what you learned….
Fact is, though, Columbus never set
foot on the North American mainland—strictly speaking, he didn’t
“discover” America.
He “discovered” Cuba, Haiti/Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, other islands
in the Caribbean, Central American and South America during his four voyages
from Europe in 1492-1504.
Strictly speaking, as far as we know, Ponce de Leon was the first
European to put a footstep in the sand on an North American shore, in what we
now call Florida, in 1513.
….and, strictly speaking, none of the Spanish conquistadores discovered
America.
The First Peoples of the
American hemisphere got there first.
There were tens of millions of Native Americans in the North, Central
and South Americas at the time of the first Spanish contact and conquests. In
the Viceroyalty of New Spain—including Florida, the American Southwest, Mexico,
Central America and the Caribbean—an estimated 25 million indigenous people had
already created advanced cultures and civilizations. Perhaps there were a
similar number in the South American Empire of the Incas before the advent of
the Spaniards. Within 100 years, 95% of these original people of America were
dead as a result of war and disease.
The Spanish adventurers did not invade an empty wilderness. They
conquered and killed millions of the original inhabitants, and took their
riches and their land.
Let’s call it as it was.
Source:
Bernard Bailyn, Robert Dallek, David Brion Davis, David Herbert Donald,
John L. Thomas and Gordon S. Wood, The Great Republic: A History of the
American People, 4th ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1992), vol. 1, 7-14.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2014 All rights reserved.
