Goodbye, Columbus: Seattle Commission wants name stricken from holiday

[Chan790]

31. My ruddy brownish ancestors would contest that.

They (Cree and Pequot) were already well aware the Americas were here. They were also pretty well aware that Europe was there too since the Vikings had invaded NE North America several times...nothing good ever came to this part of the world from that part of the world as far as they were concerned. The Asian peoples seemingly were fairly well aware that the Americas were here too...there's some record to that effect in Japanese and Chinese histories though they deemed it not worthy of their attentions or exploration. Indigenous Inuits and Aleuts lived on both sides of the Bering Gap, those in Russia certainly would have been aware. There's some evidence of limited coastal traverse between Africa and S. America too. So it's worth questioning...if everybody but you knows something, is that really that big of an accomplishment to discover? Or is it a sign of previous ignorance?

It's seemingly more damning that everybody else knew the Americas were here and managed to not ravage and destroy them...and it took Europeans less than 2 centuries to utterly overrun them. There's nothing worth celebrating about the genocide and near-extinction of an entire ethnicity of people.