The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1891-04-10
COLUMBUS CRITICISED.
ANOTHER VIEW OF AMERICAS DIS
COvERER BY A. p, DUNLOP.

A Few Plain Words About His Treat
ment OF tho Carib Race-1ngratitude
Par observation-disclosures Slaves for
Privileges - Ferdinand aud Isabella
Take the Bait--A Race Differentiated.
There is one fact worthy of note in
the coming four hundredth year cele.
bration of the discovery of the Ameri.
can continent namely, that not one sin.
gle specimen of the race Columbus dis.
covered will be on hand to defend him
self, writes A. p. Dunlop in the Sdtur-
day Reuieoc. Not alone has the Carib
been wiped from the face of the earth,
but the oldest inhabitants of the West
Indian 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 rs the best he had ever
seen, and says they received him with
overwhelming 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 Teutonc 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
ad vent of a 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 - whether
proved or not-that Mr. Columbus was
said by his son Ferdinand to have been
u 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
Vmeland
lie could readily reconcile Mr.. Co.
lumbus's way of d ing things by au-
thenticated dispatches from Columbus
to "Their Highnesses, Isabella and
Ferdinand, by reading copy of letter.
now in the Spanish archives. in which the
discoverer informs "Their Hi5hnesses"
that he was treated as Il brother by these
savage people, that they gave freely all
| they lad and cond acted him to their
gold mines. Tie C.rib might then read
the latter part of the dispatch, evidently
.rif ,l,,, ,.,.l
from the gold min s. and sug Sests "how
| easy it would be to overcome this un-
armed people and send them as slaves
to Spain.
Repudiating Columbus as a discov-
erer, he might, on the auspicious occa-
sion, 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 into slave specula-
ton more deliberately. Columbus
tempted the cupidity of the Queen with
untold treasures as return for her in
vestment. and in hi, first letter is re-
quest for ships loaded with provisions.
| to come licensed for the traffic of
slaves Did he get them? The an
swer now in the Madrid archives is:
Their highnesses will send the ves-
sell "
If the written account of these Span
| ish pirates be correct, the Carib orator
might say that II years after Columbus
arrived in the West Indies not one of
this prosperous race was alive, and he
could with truth point to the accounts
| left by the Dominican friar, La Casa,
who wrote that 10000 of them were
killed on the Lucanyan group inside of
n very short time either by the sword or
| the lash of the slave drivers.
The native West Indian might sum up
his argument by saying that us an ex
ample of deliberate treachery and cold
blooded cruelty and hypocrisy, the
worlds history has no parallel to Chris
topher Columbus, who exterminated a
race that he himself says received him
as zone sent from heaven, nor to his
side partner, who went into the real
estate and slave specul ton with hard,
cold greed for gold. and then permitted
the discoverer to end his miserable life
as a auper.