Spain should have to reabsorb the descendants of their colonists who are now throwing themselves into our cities, these soggy spawn of the Spanish Conquistadores whom our border agents have to fish outta the Rio Grande.
And as for the unmistakably African illegals (the ones who didn’t fly to Mexico from Africa so they could stroll in here) who are tumbling off those buses: Spain brought its share of Africans to the new world, but Portugal’s colony Brazil holds the numerical record.
So don’t put em on 1AM planes bound for Wilkes Barre, Pa: put ‘em on flights to Madrid! It’ll be much easier, more “humane”: they already speak the language.
Or Portugal—right now it’s like Ireland was before the “Celtic Tiger”: everybody leaves, they have to if they want work other than in the vineyards. Which leaves quite a lot of job openings in the vineyards.
This Columbus Day, let’s remember that when his discovery was made, Spain and Portugal, the great navigators/ voyagers, had divided the globe between them. Compared to their militaristic and evangelistic colonizing, Jamestown was just a buncha campers.
I want OUT from under the “white man’s burden”. And I think I know whose turn it is to shoulder it for a change.
So Gracias, Spain ! Obrigado, Portugal! YOU bozos deserve a turn holding up the sky of opprobrium.
Rand Simberg has republished James C. Bennett’s (the person most responsible for the concept of the Anglosphere) essay from 13 years ago, “Celebrating The Wrong Italian”, in which he contrasts the way Columbus is remembered and commemorated in Latin America vs. the United States.
He suggests that people in English-speaking U.S. and Canada should commemorate another Italian, Giovanni Caboto.
Moving to England, he adopted the English style of his name and became known to history as the discoverer … John Cabot.
Not only did Cabot’s discoveries spark the great stream of human migration that became the English-speaking New World, he was himself a precursor of the millions of Italians who crossed the Atlantic to North America and became part of the English-speaking world, to its and their own enrichment.
Largely wrong. The mostly white conquistador and later colonists form a Latin American ruling class that sends its mostly Amerind and African descended underclass here to relieve pressure and send back remittances. Compare the Dominican population in the US with:
The conquistador descendants can come legally (student or work visas) or semi-legally (visa overstays), often cynically claiming affirmative action preferences as “Latinos” and continuing their overclass role.
Well, stout Cortez with his eagle eye whelped at least one child on an Indian woman. So did Pissarro. I can’t be arsed to research ‘em all this minute, but: so don’t tell me the blood of the conquistadores doesn’t run in these border-crashes’ veins.
Anyway it was Spain and Portugal who conquered and enslaved those natives and stole their land, as the Left would put it, and imported a buncha Africans to Central and South America , so let’s see ‘em clean up their mess, say I.
If anyone wants to brush-up their Spanish, here is a collection of short, but coherent essays how conquest and later relationships with Europe and the US look from Mexican perspective:
The content is very suitable for audio book format.
Christopher Columbus put a bunch of men in three wooden boats and ventured out west not knowing where they were going or what they would find.
They discovered a New World populated by a civilization living 5,000 years behind the rest of the world, who hadn’t developed a written language yet, and raped, pillaged, sacrificed, and ate each other as a matter of course.
Columbus brought Christianity and western civilization to that New World which led to the creation of the most advanced society in world history.
The Stone Age tribesman lost and Western Civilization was born.
Exactly. He is our Jacob, our culture-bearer, the first name we learned in school! Standing at Columbus’ tomb in Seville, Spain, I wept a bit. I couldn’t believe no other Americans seemed moved.
I often wonder what woulda happened on the North American continent if not for the European conquest. Would North America be like Africa, still mired in tribal warfare?
People tend to think of the societies extant here when the conquest began as infantile. But the first thing I remember learning in Anthro 101 is that “primitive” societies have existed just as long as our own. They’ve been evolving, too. And whatever culture they have is the best they could come up with? ( hee hee, no, of course we don’t look at it that way. Mos’ly.)
In a few weeks I’m going to take a trip along the Columbia and Snake Rivers “in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark” , an American Cruise Lines touts it. So Ive been reading up on Lewis and Clark, to whom I haven’t given much (okay, any) thought since 5th grade.
There were a LOT of Indians out in the Louisiana Territory in 1804, even despite the ravages of smallpox. And they were very friendly to the white men, they welcomed them, didn’t see them as enemies—because they wanted trade! they wanted guns, ammo and whiskey and ornamental things like blue glass beads, which they’d trade in exchange for furs, esp. beaver, and on quite a few occasions, for their women or at least their sexual favors.
Lewis had a standard speech he made when they first encountered a tribe: you have a new “father” now, your Spanish and French fathers have sailed away across the ocean. Your new father President Jefferson wants to make you happy! He wants you to trade your furs for all the wonderful weapons and clothing and whiskey you want!
BUT, in order for him to do that, YOU must make peace with your neighboring tribes. White men will not trade with you if you are in a constant state of war with other tribes! Be peaceful, get trade! Make war, and your new father will never send white men to trade with you again!
Tribal war was their entire way of life. After Lewis concluded one such spiel, a brave raised his hand ( or whatever) and said:
We cannot be a nation if we do not have a chief. And we choose our chiefs based on their deeds in war. So if we no longer make war, we will not have any chiefs, and we can no longer be a nation.
My bio of L&C doesn’t record how the Corps of Discovery Captains countered this logic. Great book if you’re interested: “Undaunted Courage” by Stephen E. Ambrose.
