Rereading history, today

"Land!" This was the cheer from the sailor Rodrigo on October 12, 1492. He was ecstatic because the first person to discover land could get a reward: 10,000 maravedis per year for life. But Rodrigo didn't get it. The reward went to his boss, the navigator Christopher Columbus from Genoa. He said he was the "first" to discover this land.

Columbus's goal was Asia. More precisely, a direct "sea" trade route from Western Europe to the East Indian markets. More specifically, the wealth Columbus promised the Spanish crown was in exchange for 10% of the profits, the title of Governor General, and the title of "Admiral of the Ocean".

The land that Rodrigo discovered by moonlight on the white sand beach is thousands of kilometers away from Asia. It is Guanahani Island in the Bahamas.

Columbus described his first encounter with the island's native Arawak people:

“They … brought us parrots, bundles of cotton, spears (made of reeds), and other things, which they exchanged for glass beads and eagle bells. They willingly exchanged everything they had … They were stout, strong, and handsome in countenance … They carried no weapons … They had no iron tools. … They would have made excellent servants … With only fifty men we could have conquered them all and made them do anything for us.”

Looking at the amiable Arawaks, Columbus noticed a detail that determined their fate - the small gold ornaments on their ears.

"...On the first island I found, I captured some of the natives, and made them study and give me information about these places."

After several promising expeditions in the Caribbean, Columbus returned to Madrid with a report in which he claimed to have reached Asia (actually Cuba) and landed on an island off the coast of China (actually Haiti).

"Hispaniola is a wonder. Its hills and mountains, its plains and pastures, are fertile and beautiful... its ports are excellent, its rivers are numerous, and its gold is plentiful..."

Such marketing worked. Columbus obtained 17 ships and 200 crew members and returned to "Asia" to find the "River of Gold". Thus, Haiti became the first European colony in the Americas - La Isabela.

Thousands of Arawaks were herded into pens guarded by dogs and heavily armed soldiers. “Let us continue to send to Europe all the slaves we can sell, in the name of the Holy Trinity,” an ambitious Columbus wrote.

On average, only 300 out of 500 Arawaks made it to Europe alive.

In the colonies, the Arawaks were sent to fields and mines; they were tortured and humiliated (raped, used as transportation, their bodies tested for sword sharpness, and made fun of); and failure to meet labor quotas was punishable by death.

The Arawak tried to resist, but they had nothing to oppose the colonists' army of muskets and swords. Those who resisted were either hanged or burned.

As a result of widespread violence and slave labor, the island's indigenous men and women fell into a state of chronic exhaustion and depression. Their fertility declined; a wave of mass suicides swept the people.

During the two-year reign of terror by the Europeans, the colonists sent 250,000 native Haitians to their graves. By 1515, only 50,000 people remained. By 1550, only 500 were left alive. By 1650, there were no Arawaks left alive on the island.

“Who in the future will believe this? Even I, a well-informed witness, find it hard to believe…”, wrote Spanish priest Bartolomé de Las Casas, who wrote a book that not only describes colonial atrocities in detail, but also shows the way of life of the Arawak people:

"…they lived in great communes…men and women could choose and leave their partners as they pleased…they had no trade…they fought on the impulse of personal grievances, not at the behest of captains or kings"

Understanding the other side of official history allows us to re-examine those who write history with a critical eye to better understand the historical basis of the struggle of the oppressed and the class against domination .

This post is related to the content of June 13, 2022: Reflection - The precious gifts brought by "others"

As we all know, most modern political thoughts, including capitalism, socialism, nationalism, liberalism, etc., come from the Enlightenment. Many people believe that it was Europe and the French Revolution that brought the values ​​of freedom, equality and fraternity to the world. However, the truth is more complicated than that. And what most people think of as "European values" did not originally come from Europe.

Until the 19th century it was almost impossible to find a European writer who did not consider democracy a terrible form of government, and almost everyone somehow managed to oppose the ideals of liberty and equality.

In the Middle Ages, Europe was a backward place, isolated from the world and populated by religious fanatics. Its rise began in the 15th century when Portugal sent a fleet to the coasts of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Americas.

What gave rise to the Age of Enlightenment? — The export of resources from the colonies, which paid for the technological breakthroughs in Europe’s metropolises. This breakthrough became a series of industrial and social revolutions that brought about the so-called modern world.

Most people are familiar with the highly simplified picture of colonialism: white people come, see half-naked "savages" with spears, kill them all, and take their land and resources.

The problem with this summary version is that it lacks some important details without which you cannot understand why Europeans, who used to think only in terms of monarchy and religion, began to shift to talking about freedom and equality .

Furthermore, this overview reduces the indigenous peoples of the colonies to objects of oppression, whereas these people were not just victims but also important historical actors who influenced the development of human civilization as a whole.

At the time of the "discovery" of America, there were about 60 million people, from very different peoples - each with its own culture, traditions, political models, etc. Some of them lived in small groups, others in the densely populated metropolitan civilizations of their time.

In other words, the image of so-called “savages” living in groups in tents and roasting human flesh around campfires was just a propaganda caricature of colonialism and did not convey the reality of the “open” America at the time.

Colonization lasted for several centuries, during which time the newcomers came into contact with the locals, learned their language and lived with them for long periods of time.

The Jesuits were the intellectuals of the Catholic world and left behind a rich testimony of their dealings with the "natives" when their mission was to convert the natives to Christianity. This was accompanied by constant disputes between Europeans and Native Americans.

“They think they are better than the French because, they say, you French are always quarreling with each other, while we live in peace. You are jealous and constantly slandering each other; you are thieves and liars; you are greedy and not generous or kind; as for us, even if we have only one piece of bread, we share it with our neighbor.”

These polemical books were printed in large quantities across Europe, capturing the imagination of a new generation and having a revolutionary impact on the development of European thought. It was in them that passionate debates were taking place on moral, legal and philosophical questions about what freedom is, what it means to be human, what rights a person should have simply by virtue of being born. These questions had to do with what Europeans were doing in the New World: what you could do, what you couldn’t do, how countries differed, what ways of life people had …

The encounter with the “other” prompted Europe to reflect on itself and abandon some of its traditions—for example, the supremacy of the church and the sacredness of the king.

In the face of Europeans, Native Americans generated a great deal of criticism of themselves, which fed into European criticism of the Old World.

In 1642, the Jesuit Lejon angrily recorded his conversations with the “natives”: “Hundreds of times they turned to me and laughed at our fear of the captain.” The natives mocked the European colonists’ acquiescence to the hierarchy.

And here is what Father Lermont wrote about the Aboriginals in 1644:

"I find it hard to believe that there are people in the world who are freer than they are, and who are less likely to submit their will to any authority. Their fathers have no power over their children, their captains have no power over their subordinates, and the laws of the country have no force on any of them unless they are willing and willing to accept these laws."

These words were not meant as hymns at the time – they were proof, the missionaries wrote in horror, of how “barbaric” these indigenous atheists were.

They wrote: “No challenge is greater than controlling the tribes of America. All these savages are subject to one law only—the Law of the Naked Ass. They are born, live, and die in perfect freedom, without any restraints. Any idea of ​​their controlling the passions is ridiculed. Their philosophy is to give unlimited freedom to the senses, while the laws of God, which we follow, impose limits on us…”

The missionaries were outraged that native women had complete control over their own bodies, that unmarried women had complete sexual freedom, and that married women had the right to divorce at any time... "The godless freedom of these savages," they wrote, "is the chief obstacle to their obedience to the laws of God."

"From the beginning, the savages knew no taboos. They were a purely free people. Each of them considered himself as important as any other; and they obeyed their chief only when it suited them personally."

The colonists were amazed at the social skills of the Native Americans. They expected to encounter a bunch of crazy savages, but instead they encountered people like this - their political setup included daily community meetings to discuss all the pressing issues of the day. Moreover, the power of their leaders was based on eloquence. So, institutionally speaking, they were well-received.

"There is hardly anyone among them who is not good at debate and argument." (Father Lejeune, 1630)

"These barbarians constantly tease us, pointing out the shortcomings of our city and how, in their opinion, all of them are caused by money. It is pointless to argue with them whether it is necessary to share property for the public good, and they laugh at any such considerations... just as they accuse us. They call us slaves, miserable souls - how can a large group of people be so degraded as to submit to one man [the king]... "

“They thought it was totally unacceptable that one person had more than another, and that the rich had better learn to respect the poor. They told us that the term ‘savages’ was more suitable for the colonists themselves…”

Missionaries recorded this as “pain and indignation.” But for European intellectuals like Rousseau, they would become the stars of the Enlightenment in the future, and their “radical criticism” of Europe would become a weapon to break the old world. In particular, unlike Eurocentric history textbooks, they repeatedly wrote and told the world that freedom, equality, and fraternity were what they learned from the “barbarians.”

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