happy exploitation day!

i love sea navigation as much as the average person, and i'd love to do a ship building craft project and map out columbus' journeys...

here's a couple of quotes from The Howard Zinn Reader:

"... columbus saw the indians - not at hospitable hosts, but as 'servants,' to 'do whatever we want.'

he wasn't the first nor the last to expoit people. but how many other exploiters do we celebrate with a holiday?

a member of the crew who was made admiral by columbus wrote in his own journal:

"... i captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral [columbus] gave to me and with whom... i conceived desire to take pleasure. i wanted to put my desire into execution but she did not want it and treated me with her finger nails in such a manner that i wished i had never begun. but seeing that, i took a rope and thrashed her well... finally we came to an agreement."

so anyway, i'm sure we can find people with equal accomplishments who did not beat their newly taken slaves for not finding gold (in a gold-forsaken land)...