Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1890-11-11
ANOTHER VIEW OF CoIUMsus.
A Few Plain Words About His Treatment
of the Carib Race.

There is one fact worthy of note in
the coming four-hundreth-year celebra-
ton of the discovery of the American
continent, namely, that not one single
specimen of the race Columbus discov-
cred will he on hand TO defend himself,
writes A. l.. Dunlop in the Saturday Re
cic,c Not alone has the Carlb been
wiped from the face of the earth, but
the oldest inhabitants of the West In
dian Islands have not seen half-breed
even of that race, nor do any of them
remember having been told that they
existed in the time OF their fathers or
grandfatherS. Columbus writes of these
people as the best he had ever seen, and
says they received him with ovcrwhelm-
ing kindness. He says. too, that they
were numerous, and that every island
from San Salvador to Santo Domingo
was thickly inhabited.
Could one of these guileless savages
arise to say few words at the opening
of the Worlds Fair he might somewhat
disarrange the mantle OF glory which
the Saxon, Celtic and Teutonic races
have so prettily arranged around the
historic figures of Christopher Columbus
and Queen Isabella. The gentle savage
might first ask why the mighty people
of North America were celebrating the
advent of man who had nothing what
ever to do with the discovery of what is
now the United States. He would have
no record of his own people-who have
not even left trace of their existence
behind them-but he might have looked
into the enemy's camp for information,
and there he would find-whcther
proved or not-that Mr.. Columbus was
said by his son Ferdinand to have been
a pirate, or the descendant OF
one, who was constantly on the move,
and who, in the fifteenth century,
visited the home of the Vikings, and
there heard the story of the discovery
of Vineland He could readily recon-
ellie Mr. Columbus way of doing things,
by authenticated dispatches from Co.
lumbuS TO "Their Iighnesses, Isabella
and Ferdinand, by reading a copy Of a
letter, now in the Spanish archives, in
which the discoverer informs ''Their |
Highnesses" that he was treated as a
brother by these slave people, that they
gave freely all they had and conducted
him to their gold mines. The Carib |
might then read the latter part of the
dispatch, evidently written as soon as
Columbus returned from the gold mines,
and suggests chow easy it would be to
overcome this unarmed people and send
them a slaves to Spain"
Repudiating Columbus as discovcrer. |
he might, OH the suspicious occasion, go |
even further, by asking why Columbus
or Isabella should be admired or held up
as examples for the youth of the land?
The Republican party might also be
told that no two persons in the worlds
history ever went in slave speculation |
more deliberately. Columbus tempted
the cupidity of the Queen with untold |
treasures as return for her investment |
and in his first letter is request for
ships loaded with provisions, to come
licensed for the traffic of slaves" Did |
he get them? The answer now in the
Madrid archives is: Their Highnesses
will send the vessels"
If the written accounts of these Span
iSh pirates be correct, the Carib orator
might say that twelve years after CO.
lumbuS' arrival in the West Indies not a
single one Of this prosperous race was
alive, and he could with truth point to
the accounts left by the Dominican
Las Casas, who wrote that 10000 of
them were killed on the Lucanyan group
inside of very short time, either by
the sword or the lash of slavedrivers.
The native West Indian might sum up
his argument by saying that as an exam
pie of deliberate treachery and cold
FLOODED cruelty and hypocricy the
worlds history has no parallel to Chris
TOPPER Columbus, who eXterminated a
race that he himself says received him
rs zone sent from heaven" nor to his
side partner. who went into the real
estate and slave speculation with hard,
cold greed for gold, and then permitted
the discovcrer to end his miserable life
pauper.
Deserving of CONFERENCE.-The l. no ar
ticIc winch so richly deserves the entire conf
dence OF the community as BRowS's BRONCHIAL
TnocmEs Those suffering from Asthmatic and
Bronchial Diseases, Coughs, and Colds should