The following notes were made after viewing a TV special entitled “THE WEST”.
It was excellent and very informative.

The presentation was a panorama of history extending from the arrival of North America’s first settlers, presumably the Indians based upon current research, and depicting the humanity - and inhumanity - of them and of all the later arrivals through the Spanish, the Mexicans, the Eastern colonists and the European immigrants.

Indeed, the inhumanity perpetrated by each succeeding group on their predecessors rose at times to a level of genocide no less heinous than the most recent examples in Hitler’s Germany and in “modern”Africa.

As the plight and fate of the American Indians unfolded before the irresistible force of Western expansion, this viewer wondered whether there was any glory left to the story of the West after the exploits of Lewis and Clark.  The story - as told mainly from the viewpoint of the Indian - is tragic, depressing and shameful.  It appears that events were played out in the absence of active direction or even passive acquiescence from Washington.  The country’s leadership seemed itself to be an impotent spectator.

Toward the end of the twelve hour series, and before reaching for the Prozak, I found myself wondering whether it had to have been that way.  Did the American Indians have to be nearly annihilated for this country to achieve its Manifest Destiny?  Could they have seen the inevitable sooner and thereby adopted and integrated into the most recent new dominant culture, as some of their successful ancestors had done and as did all the successful immigrants to this melting pot?  The U.S. Government did attempt to promote that through an Indian version of the Homestead Act.  And Christian missionaries, although autocratic, cruel and rigid, did try to provide Indian children with the upbringing, educational and spiritual tools needed to enter the White Man’s society.  But probably the attempt was made too late, after a long series of damnable broken promises had shattered all basis for trust on the part of the Indians toward the White Man.  What a shame.  What a waste of a noble People.

Is there a lesson here for present-day America?  If so, it is not to be found in the demonization of Christopher Columbus, or in the clamor for “reparations” for slavery - reparations paid in the Civil War.  Rather, I suggest that those groups within the larger African-American and Hispanic minorities who have been resisting the honest desire and efforts of the “White Man” to absorb and integrate them into mainstream society - as continues to take place successfully with most immigrants and ethnic groups, may pause thoughtfully before the history of the West.  Marginalization and permanent second-class status  would be just as tragic, and totally avoidable.

Especially after the events of September 11, let’s stop with the “hyphenated Americans”.  We’re all Americans, some of us lucky to be able to draw also upon another heritage as well for identity and strength.  The enemy is not within, but out there.  And we are no longer victims, by-standers, hostages...we are all soldiers.
Let’s do our duty, each in our own personal way.

GS

• From antiquity, hunter/gatherers probably did not practice slavery (another mouth to feed).  Slavery began when they became more pastoral and agricultural.  There was a marked increase in slavery when they went from subsistence to a market economy, and when they began forming cities.
• Sources of slaves were capture, force, punishment, birth, sale of  persons in debt,  awards or for chieftains
• Slavery was a universal institution in the world, lacking opposition until the mid-16th and early 17th century.   St. Thomas Aquinas considered it a “product of original sin”.  The Catholic Church and other Churches, including the Eastern Church and the Reformation Churches, did not completely disapprove, but to sought to mitigate its excesses.
• Slavery already existed in the Americas, especially in Central America, at the time of Columbus’ arrival.  (See Cortez’s description of what he found in the Mexico City of the Incas).
• The “West Indies”, including the Greater and Lesser Antilles - the islands of the Caribbean Sea and discovered by Columbus, had been settled  about 2 Million BC by primitive Indians, hunter/gatherers from Central and South America.  Initially they were the Ciboney.
• A second group, the Arawaks, came from Venezuela and seized many islands during the 1st century AD, pushing the Ciboney back to the hinterlands.  Some of the Arawak tribes in the Guianas practiced cannibalism.  The Arawaks were the natives “discovered” by Columbus.
• Between 1000-1500 AD, the Carib tribes from the Guianas and Venezuela seized some islands from the Arawaks.
• The Arawaks were by that time a peaceful people, involved in agriculture and pottery, with a relatively elaborate social structure headed by hereditary chieftains.
• The Carib  had a less elaborate social structure.  Their lives centered about warfare, including cannibalism.  When they conquered the lesser Antilles, they killed the Arawak men, married their women, and adopted the Arawak language.
• Columbus found on his second voyage that the Arawaks had killed the men whom he had left there on his first voyage (they probably had it coming).  He took about 500 natives back as slaves, partly to “Christianize” them and probably mainly to justify the expenses of his voyages in view of a relative paucity of gold found.
• Columbus explored all the West Indies, successfully colonizing only the parts controlled by the Ciboney and the Arawaks (easier than the Caribs).  The Spaniards who followed impressed the Indians for work - until 1550, when the system of forced labor was ended by the Spanish Crown, partly in response to the long-standing opposition of Catholic missionaries working in  the New World.  In fact, Columbus himself was sent back to Spain under arrest and in chains during his third voyage because of his poor administration of the colonies and because of reported brutalities performed in his efforts to maintain order.  (“A good Admiral, but a bad Governor”).
• The Spaniards brought the first Negro slaves there in the 16th century - not many,  because the mines became exhausted, and because they went into cattle ranching, which required less labor.  The main influx of Negro slaves occurred in the 18th century by the action of the French.  Meanwhile, Sir John Hawkins had made slaving voyages in the 1560’s.
• The Ciboney gradually died out.  The Arawaks declined in numbers and assimilated with the Europeans.  The Carib lasted longer; but they also declined and assimilated more with the Negroes.
• Sugar, rum and slaves led to much conflict among the major powers (Dutch, British, French, Spanish).

Thus, Christopher Columbus was a great seaman, a great navigator, a great Admiral, a fine organizer  and businessman, a poor administrator, a faulted man of his age.  He did what he did - and did it first - by virtue of extensive readings,  broad professional  experience on the seas from the age of 14, keen observation and deduction, (including regarding the flotsam he noted on the waters around the Madeira Islands, where he lived for a time with his family).  His was a discovery about to be made by any other good seaman with his ability and drive - it was inevitable.  And it led directly to  what we call “the modern world”, with all its good and evil.

On balance, he is and should be one of the giants of history, much more for good than bad.  That the “Native Americans”  (besides us, children of immigrants born in America) should consider their “discovery” one of the low points of their history is understandable.  But that history began with Adam and Eve and is still unfolding.  It is not history that is good or bad - history merely is.  it is human nature that is good and bad; and we are all a part of that.  let’s celebrate it whenever we can, each in our own ways

GS