Teacher Says He Won’t Lie To Students, Teaches The Untold History Of Columbus, His Tweets Go Viral
“Knowledge is power.” The original author of this quote is debatable, but the idea itself is nothing but the truth regardless. It is only through knowledge that humans can actually come to make the right decisions.
Nathanael Madden, a teacher at Cold Spring Elementary in Potomac, Maryland, decided to break with tradition and to tell the real history of Columbus and Columbus Day to his 4th-grade class. Madden tweeted about this and posted a handful of responses from his students. It went viral.
Bored Panda got in touch with Nathanael Madden, who was more than happy to elaborate on the matter. Madden is currently a 4th grade teacher with a passion for educational justice and equity, who teaches literacy skills such as reading, writing, and research.
Nathanael Madden, a teacher at Cold Spring Elementary, taught his students the untold history of Columbus
Image credits: Nathanael Madden
Back in 2016, Madden was strongly moved by awful acts of racial injustice and police brutality hailing through the country. This made him question whether he knew enough about this topic and whether it has been taught properly. As a teacher, he felt a duty to know more about the matter of racial inequality.
So, he hit the books. After some eye-opening research came Columbus Day and Madden decided to tell the true history of Columbus as a slave trader, murderer, and colonizer in his class. Following the lesson, he asked the students to reflect upon what they heard: what new information have they learned, how has this affected them, and why is it important to learn?
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
Madden posted a handful of the students’ responses on his Twitter account
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
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Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
Madden concluded his string of tweets by saying how proud he was of his students
Image credits: thel0rdbyr0n
“School is often a very confining and controlling place for kids, and I want to create a space for students to feel liberated by learning,” explained Madden. “I want all students to feel that they are free to be who they are and that they have a place of belonging in my classroom.”
He continued: “This also means that we can’t ignore our world’s current realities, as well as how everything has been impacted by historical realities. Through my teaching, I constantly encourage and challenge my students to be critical questioners and critical thinkers so they can be active and informed participants in our world.”
Columbus Day is a national holiday in much of the Americas as well as Spain, Italy, and ethnically related locations. The celebration honors Christopher Columbus, a 15th century explorer, and his arrival to the Americas in 1492.
However, there is an often untold side of the history of Christopher Columbus. Few mention the slavery and serfdom systems Columbus put together to systematically subjugate the American Natives. Besides that, there was violence towards the American Natives and Spanish colonialists. And, to top it all off, many of the Natives died because of diseases that the expeditions introduced to the newly-found continent.
Students also made posters to commemorate Indigenous Peoples’ Day and to honor Native Americans
Image credits: Nathanael Madden
The class also made posters and plastered them all over the school to honor and to show solidarity with the Natives. Some students even went so far as to write to the school’s administration in hopes of changing the holiday celebrated at the school.
When asked if his colleagues, the parents of students or others in the school reacted in the same way his students did, he said: “The reaction has been almost entirely positive for me and my classroom, but I know this is not the case in much of the country.”
“For so long, particularly in the US, the story of Columbus as a heroic explorer has been the dominant narrative, erasing and ignoring the voices of Indigenous peoples who have known the truth for centuries,” elaborated Madden. “As we grapple with the myths of American exceptionalism and start listening to the voices of different marginalized groups, we can uncover the truths of history.”
Image credits: Nathanael Madden
Maryland is one of almost half of the US that observes Columbus Day and recognizes it as an official holiday. The students decided to flip it around and to instead celebrate Indigenous People’s Day—a holiday that is celebrated by just three states at the moment: New Mexico, Maine, and South Dakota (where it’s called Native American’s Day).
The young educator’s viral tweet serves as an inspiration and a wake up call for all teachers to not shy away from showing the entire picture of things: “I am not the first person to teach this history and I will not be the last. I am following in the footsteps of others, primarily Native educators, scholars, and activists, and I hope others will follow in their footsteps as well.”
Madden concluded our interview with the following: “What it really boils down to is this: will we lie to our youth or will we tell them the truth? What I’m hoping to see as a result of the tweets is that teachers, as well as all other adults, will stop underestimating children. Kids are brilliant and they can think deeply, critically, and creatively. They have a beautiful sense of justice and injustice, and they have the capacity for great empathy. And they can handle a lot more than we give them credit for, including the often hard truths of our history.”
Image credits: Nathanael Madden
I say get rid of Columbus day. There are so many other Italian men and women to celebrate who contributed to the building of America without enslaving people. I have written many, many letters to my city council about getting rid of Columbus Blvd and bringing back the original street name: Delaware Ave. So far, no bites!
I doubt about the importance of Italy here since he started the travel on Spain because a "reyes católicos" mission.
Load More Replies...Teaching the Howard Zinn version is not "telling the true story". If anything, it is a less nuanced and accurate version than the traditional story. Teaching kids that historical figures are either cartoon heroes or cartoon villains does them a disservice. We should teach kids the actual facts of history, not just versions edited to promote a particular political view.
So you have citations to the less cartoony and more actual factual version of the story? From what I can tell what you call cartoon villainy is more 'You cannot make this s**t up', comma, 'Fact is unbelievable because fiction has to be believable' villainy.
Load More Replies...following a lynching in New Orleans where a mob had murdered 11 Italian immigrants, President Benjamin Harrison declared Columbus Day as a one-time national celebration. The proclamation was part of a wider effort after the lynching incident to placate Italian Americans and ease diplomatic tensions with Italy.
Tell that to the 'Clovis' people who were wiped out when ''Native Americans'' arrived and took over! Pretty sure none of those were European! Meaning all groups of people assimilate or wipe out weaker groups not just Europeans!!!
Load More Replies...I'm surprised you don't teach kids the truth in the US. The whole world wonders why you celebrate a genocidal maniac, but it's simply because you don't tell your kids the truth. Same with Thanksgiving. Celebrating native americans helping you, before you took their land, slaughtered most of them and put the remainder in reserves. Quite amazing.
It's still pretty amazing how he tried to sail to Asia and failed, but insisted the people were "Indians" so hard that the term stuck.
Well, he believed it himself. It's easy to be convincing when you are convinced of it yourself.
Load More Replies...Presentism: The Logic Fallacy applying today's morals to yesterday's actions.
In Australia we have a similar problem - we were always taught in school that the Aboriginal and First Nation's people were hunter-gatherers, turns out that was a lie white settlers made up so that they could invade the country, as the aboriginal people were seen to be practicing agriculture and something about English laws meant that if they (the aboriginal people) were seen to be cultivating crops and living in permanent housing then they were counted as people and the Britts had to leave Australia alone.
I'm not sure where this guy got his degree, but he teaches exactl as much b******t, as people did before him, just from the other side. Won't go too much detail, but here is a good video about this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEw8c6TmzGg
As an American of Italian decent, Columbus Day makes my blood boil. Of all the people to celebrate, we get this jackhole? I won't shop at any store that offers Columbus Day sales because it is sick and twisted. What makes it all the more upsetting is that all of the horrors he committed were retold in his own diary. He was so horrid, that he was arrested and sent back to Spain - but the King and Queen liked all the gold he was bringing in, and they pardoned him.
I am Native American, in Cherokee, and on the Dawes Rolls and a legal citizen of the Western band of Cherokees. I've had people tell me, it's a conspiracy theory. After I told them to do their own research, they never talked to me again. I have shared what I have learned with my children and will with my grandson when he is older. I share things I have learned with anyone who wants to know. The truth is not always pretty, we are suppose to learn from the past. If we don't learn the truth, the past will repeat itself.
Load More Replies...I agree this man was a horrible person and you can discover something where people already live. I wish the would not celebrate him at all. I have no love for Columbus he was a horrible example of a human being kids need to know the truth
This is hardly groundbreaking, nor is this story "untold". I'm 46 and heard this story 30 years ago. But, if this helps him sleep at night by patting himself on the back for the good thing that he's done for humanity, good on him. But, it would be nice for people to realize that history is not a cartoon. "Good guys" don't exist and Columbus didn't have an evil mustache that he twirled as the Native Americans were dying.
How beautiful the Spanish horses that rode the Sioux in the westerns John Wayne starred. By the way, where are the descendants of the natives in North America today 🤔
BORED PANDA UNITE!!! Get Rid of Columbus Day and Make Election Day A Federal Holiday (Upvote me and share with a friend!)
So if he didnt even stand on mainland, and claim it is his. Then Canada should be Norwegian/danish/Swedish, since vikings set foot there first, to my knowledge.
Plus America was named for Amerigo Vespucci, Columbus didn't even reach the mainland!
Load More Replies...Will he also teach them that the Crusades started when Turks occupied a part of the Christian Byzantine Empire, seizing control of modern-day Israel, which had no Muslim holy places back then ? And that, after the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire spent 400 years attacking Eastern and Central European countries ?
gotta love when a teacher indoctrinates your kids in their belief system and ideology. moral relativism anyone? you cant apply today's standards to different periods of times in the past. times change, common practices change, what is accepted changes. As another poster said, slavery was going on in America way before Columbus came over.
The notion that Columbus was a heroric explorer is also a "belief system and ideology," it just happens to be a fabrication. If you would prefer that children *not* be taught that genocide is bad, you just might be a counterexample to the argument that "practices change."
Load More Replies...I'm gonna change 'columbus day' to indigenous people's day on all of my calendars
I'm all for Native American's Day. They get no recognition in this country. Kudos to Teach for telling it like it is instead of the glossed over curriculum drilled into today's youth as fact.
Someone should teach the real story of Texas revolting against Mexico. In 1826 Mexico passed a law banning slavery but held off the full enactment until 1836 because of the known disruptions it would cause to the economy. In 1836 Texas revolted to protect their "property" from being taken. The revolution was led by the rich plantation owners.
All Native Americans from the Spanish colonies were free and protected by laws since 1512. USA, a nation created over the indiscriminate extermination, did not even exist yet. Please people, use your brains and don't believe all the lies of those who manipulate you
Load More Replies...What a polarising topic. I think a lot of educated people have voiced their views. not sure why there is so much down voting. 'A product of their time' is hard position to defend, especially when 'of it's time' is not an historic anomaly but continues in our life time.
To be a teacher he is pretty dumb, should abstain himself of teaching history if he cannot put people in their historic age context. As judging people of the ice age for the extinction of X species, sitting comfortable in your home. After all he open the world crossing the unknown (publicly not that hadn't been known before) sea and "publicly" discovering a new world in three nutshells, and the people who he met weren't angels either. as with Hernan Cortés Monroy Pizarro Altamirano, he arrived to a land recently conquered by Aztecs, still battling to keep their Empire and sacrificing as much as 20.000 war prisoners in the flower battles to the war god. And even that has to be put in the context of their own history. History is not to judge what our ancestors did, because we really don't know what they went through, it's to admire what they did to change their time.
You American people lying during decades about Columbus to keep eyes away from your own true genocide against native american people. Too sad.
Christopher Columbis was a peadophile . He ran one of the biggest child sex slave business in the history of huankind.
Our country has a habit of rewriting history. Those that hide the truth of history, are destined to repeat it, and then the people say, how could this happen?! Where evil is committed and not stopped, it will. Eco e pervasive among our leaders, so that the evil done by these men,is accepted, and they become rich from the lies they tell... let truth ring, so freedom can reign.
Such genocides and enslavements are happening today, this day, every day, in countries where the US Military is scoping out land to steal and resources to plunder for $T globalist corporations, while they tell our children that they are fighting for our freedoms. And we now have to thank them for this or be ostracized. One day we will be waking up to this fact, as we are now waking up to Columbus. Next is St. Patrick. Our entire "official" history is a pack of lies. Study it. Study history for yourselves. You will find that public school history is not our history at all.
I completely agree. We are always happy to condemn the atrocities of the past while ignoring those happening now.
Load More Replies...I am coming across more instances of generational differences in history. We have older family members going through grandpas stuff. Some of it based on history since he was a history teacher. One was a poem praising Christopher Colombus. I was raised with the same historical account, but I know better. I was asked to illustrate it but I just couldn't. I'm sure he would have wrote a diffetent poem if he had the internet back then. It is pretty scary how history is often taught.
Columbus day doesn´t celebrate Columbus as a person, it celebrates his accomplishment of reaching the Americas. He did bad things, but the only reason why we are here is because of him.
There is so much that is taught that is untrue. I make sure I teach my children and grandson what I have researched myself. It's sad and angers me the lies that are taught.
And lets not forget, Columbus wasn't first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Erikson
Just answer a very simple question: how many Sioux, Cheyennes, Blakfoots or Cherokees can you see nowadays walking in the streets of London?. As Spaniard I have seen so many different ethnic groups from South and Central America in thee streets of Madrid and Barcelona that it is hard to remember their names. Is it possible that Spaniards did a poor job on their quest to genocide after all?
Oh, another north american that commits to a holy endeavor after 'seeing the truth'. I suspect there is also something about his personal life that manifested this way. Look, I am Spaniard (for the ones on the other side of the Atlantic Spain is a country in the south of Europe) and we have enough resources to learn about the lights and the shadows of our own history: school, books (try them), documentaries, etc ... If you want to speak about the 'atrocities' committed by the bloody Spaniards maybe you should read about Hernan Cortes, and then, only then, you will understand that these men where soldiers who stumbled upon a civilization that was already at war with other native groups. Spaniards died, natives died, Spaniards committed atrocities and natives committed atrocities back. Yet the Spaniards failed to wipe out completely the south hemisphere, as opposed to their anglosaxon counterparts, which did a very efficient work on the field, hardly every reported in history.
People have been enslaving each other since the beginning. It’s a great evil. Slavery is in every culture. The United States of America’s is the only nation that fought a very bloody war to end it. Thousands of white Americans died violent deaths to end slavery. There are more people being held in slavery now than in any other time in history. White men, 750,000 of them, gave their lives to end slavery. Just as many brown people enslave others as any other race. If you’re trying to paint whites as evil and other cultures as good then you’re going to create more resentment. We shouldn’t forget the holocaust but let’s also remember that Americans love freedom and we corrected our mistake. Let’s not forget to teach them the truth about our Founding Fathers and their core beliefs. They owed slaves. Are we going to erase them from history too?
I just learned on Netflix Explained that pirates were slave traders too!
I've read through all the comments & replies, some folk get very heated on the subject of slavery, but remember that the practice of enslaving the people you conquered dates back to Biblical times, Abraham's wife didn't conceive so he had a child by his slave Hagar. All those early nations practised slavery. To get back to Columbus, it was the Age of Exploration, for looking for new sources for trading purposes, mostly to exploit, at that time the spices of the East were the drawcard, Marco Polo went over land, while the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, all vied with each other to reach the East first. Columbus thought he'd go the other way round, so when he reached land, he thought he'd reached India, so the indigenous people must be Indians, right? Just my pennyworth.
Riddle me this... If Columbus discovered "America", then why is America named after the explorer Amerigo Vespucci? BTW... the closest that Columbus actually got to what is today known as Mainland USA, was Haiti... and it was not Native Americans that he genocided to near non existence... it was the Hispaniola people of Haiti/Dominican Republic. Oh yeah... and Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself ;p
Nothing like being so PC that you impose your moral compass on people who lived centuries ago. BTW, Native Americans were not known for their kumbaya love of their fellow Indians, whom they enslaved, tortured and wiped out any chance they could get.
And yet, when it comes to more recent historical individuals, the political beliefs (shared with the SJW mindset) of said individuals gives them a free pass in the SJW universe of historical and out-of-context-with-the-world-of-the-times revisionism.
I' ve always had teachers that taught the real story of Columbus. I'm actually surprised everyone didn't teach it that way?
Same here for the most part, but not until middle school and high school.
Load More Replies...It is hard to believe that some American schools still teach that Columbus discovered America let alone honor him with a holiday.
With all respect, If you’re reading this I want you just to think about it and if you want investigate more. I’m Spanish, and I don’t know how true this is, but what I DO know, is that: 1. It was another time, people didn’t have the same moral values 2. The Spanish let the Indians turn to Catholicism, and meanwhile, the English shot them on sight. 3. We offered them new technologies and jobs 4. Meanwhile, the french started trading with African Slaves 5. All of the West Coast was Spanish, but the USA didn’t think of it this way and conquered it. So, I don’t know if this post is entirely true, but I think that if they “teach” that, they should also teach how the English shot every moving thing they saw, they didn’t care if it was a tribe or a Buffalo. If you’ve read all the way down here, I want to thank you. I encourage you to investigate about this (if you want) Sorry for my English btw
You do bring up the interesting point that morals were way different then. It is always a good thing to try to take into account and judge people by the standards of the day. That being said, many people aren't taught the whole story of Columbus. Whether it being a time or resources issue most people just learn he "discovered" the continent between Asia and Europe and then the details are skipped over. The details are important too. It tells a complete story about who we were and where we came from. That goes for all of the aspects of history you touched on. I don't know the correct way to do this, but perhaps Columbus Day should change to mark a huge occasion that changed the world while also recognizing the harm it caused to a group of people. It should be a remembrance day and not a celebration. Even though you should judge people based on the time they lived, our values have changed and should reflect that in what we celebrate.
Load More Replies...More liberal b******t from Bored Panda. yay and hooray for a left wing government teacher brainwashing kids to hate America. So brave. So woke. “Indigenous people” murdered each other without remorse, raped and enslaved women from rival tribes, and pillaged the land so badly they had to move from place to place. But moronic left wing self loathing cuckolds like this guy cream themselves over it
Just saying that you're a genocide apologist and go away.
Load More Replies...I wonder if this teacher also taught his children that you can't arbitrarily judge the actions of people in the past by today's standards. I'd say given the messages he shared on twitter, that he didn't.
Wonder if any parents or school administrators approved of his idea, or if they gave him a load of s**t instead. I suspect the latter, considering the present revisionist climate. Back in the day, I was taught the sugar-coated, pro-white, one-sided, one-dimensional version of American history, and it bored me to tears. Once historians started telling the truth about historical figures, warts and all, my interest level increased exponentially. They. Were. Human. Beings. Not. Gods. They made mistakes, they had moments of weakness, they had personality traits that were less than admirable; some were total d***s, and others were unbelievably ruthless and cruel or criminally insane. And they were the products of very different times, with very different acceptable norms. Though many of them tried to change some of those norms, they also maintained others. A good example of this is their missed opportunity, at the creation of the United States, to abolish slavery and make women equal to men.
Okay, I get it. Columbus bad, indigenous people noble saints. There's a certain inevitability to it though. Do we think if not for Columbus the Americas would still be unknown? That Indians would still be hunting Buffalo? It was a different time that we'll never understand and Columbus was no different than most other old world explorers. If you start playing the what if game read about the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs. They had a lot of moral similarities to Columbus.
Oh good lord, no he didn't. Greyhounds are an English breed, bred in England. To hunt rabbits. Not humans. Weren't even a "breed" until after Columbus. Good lord... Even if he did have dogs, they wouldn't have been Greyhounds!
Load More Replies...Columbus kept diaries. He talked about his evil deeds. His atrocities are well documented. Don't be willfully ignorant, Bruce!
Load More Replies...Ugh... As if this somehow justifies their enslavement and genocide. Yuck..
Load More Replies...Finding America's what? What settlement did he create? You call people names yet are blissfully ignorant of facts. Columbus did not find the Americas. The first humans to discover the Americas came across from Asia during the ice ages. The first Europeans to discover the Americas were the Vikings, who landed in Newfoundland (Canada) about 500 years before Columbus sailed. As for settlements - Columbus did not settle anything. He tried establishing a fort (La Navidad) as a base for gold pillaging but that was destroyed and abandoned a year later. I suspect your name really describes you well.
Load More Replies...I say get rid of Columbus day. There are so many other Italian men and women to celebrate who contributed to the building of America without enslaving people. I have written many, many letters to my city council about getting rid of Columbus Blvd and bringing back the original street name: Delaware Ave. So far, no bites!
I doubt about the importance of Italy here since he started the travel on Spain because a "reyes católicos" mission.
Load More Replies...Teaching the Howard Zinn version is not "telling the true story". If anything, it is a less nuanced and accurate version than the traditional story. Teaching kids that historical figures are either cartoon heroes or cartoon villains does them a disservice. We should teach kids the actual facts of history, not just versions edited to promote a particular political view.
So you have citations to the less cartoony and more actual factual version of the story? From what I can tell what you call cartoon villainy is more 'You cannot make this s**t up', comma, 'Fact is unbelievable because fiction has to be believable' villainy.
Load More Replies...following a lynching in New Orleans where a mob had murdered 11 Italian immigrants, President Benjamin Harrison declared Columbus Day as a one-time national celebration. The proclamation was part of a wider effort after the lynching incident to placate Italian Americans and ease diplomatic tensions with Italy.
Tell that to the 'Clovis' people who were wiped out when ''Native Americans'' arrived and took over! Pretty sure none of those were European! Meaning all groups of people assimilate or wipe out weaker groups not just Europeans!!!
Load More Replies...I'm surprised you don't teach kids the truth in the US. The whole world wonders why you celebrate a genocidal maniac, but it's simply because you don't tell your kids the truth. Same with Thanksgiving. Celebrating native americans helping you, before you took their land, slaughtered most of them and put the remainder in reserves. Quite amazing.
It's still pretty amazing how he tried to sail to Asia and failed, but insisted the people were "Indians" so hard that the term stuck.
Well, he believed it himself. It's easy to be convincing when you are convinced of it yourself.
Load More Replies...Presentism: The Logic Fallacy applying today's morals to yesterday's actions.
In Australia we have a similar problem - we were always taught in school that the Aboriginal and First Nation's people were hunter-gatherers, turns out that was a lie white settlers made up so that they could invade the country, as the aboriginal people were seen to be practicing agriculture and something about English laws meant that if they (the aboriginal people) were seen to be cultivating crops and living in permanent housing then they were counted as people and the Britts had to leave Australia alone.
I'm not sure where this guy got his degree, but he teaches exactl as much b******t, as people did before him, just from the other side. Won't go too much detail, but here is a good video about this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEw8c6TmzGg
As an American of Italian decent, Columbus Day makes my blood boil. Of all the people to celebrate, we get this jackhole? I won't shop at any store that offers Columbus Day sales because it is sick and twisted. What makes it all the more upsetting is that all of the horrors he committed were retold in his own diary. He was so horrid, that he was arrested and sent back to Spain - but the King and Queen liked all the gold he was bringing in, and they pardoned him.
I am Native American, in Cherokee, and on the Dawes Rolls and a legal citizen of the Western band of Cherokees. I've had people tell me, it's a conspiracy theory. After I told them to do their own research, they never talked to me again. I have shared what I have learned with my children and will with my grandson when he is older. I share things I have learned with anyone who wants to know. The truth is not always pretty, we are suppose to learn from the past. If we don't learn the truth, the past will repeat itself.
Load More Replies...I agree this man was a horrible person and you can discover something where people already live. I wish the would not celebrate him at all. I have no love for Columbus he was a horrible example of a human being kids need to know the truth
This is hardly groundbreaking, nor is this story "untold". I'm 46 and heard this story 30 years ago. But, if this helps him sleep at night by patting himself on the back for the good thing that he's done for humanity, good on him. But, it would be nice for people to realize that history is not a cartoon. "Good guys" don't exist and Columbus didn't have an evil mustache that he twirled as the Native Americans were dying.
How beautiful the Spanish horses that rode the Sioux in the westerns John Wayne starred. By the way, where are the descendants of the natives in North America today 🤔
BORED PANDA UNITE!!! Get Rid of Columbus Day and Make Election Day A Federal Holiday (Upvote me and share with a friend!)
So if he didnt even stand on mainland, and claim it is his. Then Canada should be Norwegian/danish/Swedish, since vikings set foot there first, to my knowledge.
Plus America was named for Amerigo Vespucci, Columbus didn't even reach the mainland!
Load More Replies...Will he also teach them that the Crusades started when Turks occupied a part of the Christian Byzantine Empire, seizing control of modern-day Israel, which had no Muslim holy places back then ? And that, after the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire spent 400 years attacking Eastern and Central European countries ?
gotta love when a teacher indoctrinates your kids in their belief system and ideology. moral relativism anyone? you cant apply today's standards to different periods of times in the past. times change, common practices change, what is accepted changes. As another poster said, slavery was going on in America way before Columbus came over.
The notion that Columbus was a heroric explorer is also a "belief system and ideology," it just happens to be a fabrication. If you would prefer that children *not* be taught that genocide is bad, you just might be a counterexample to the argument that "practices change."
Load More Replies...I'm gonna change 'columbus day' to indigenous people's day on all of my calendars
I'm all for Native American's Day. They get no recognition in this country. Kudos to Teach for telling it like it is instead of the glossed over curriculum drilled into today's youth as fact.
Someone should teach the real story of Texas revolting against Mexico. In 1826 Mexico passed a law banning slavery but held off the full enactment until 1836 because of the known disruptions it would cause to the economy. In 1836 Texas revolted to protect their "property" from being taken. The revolution was led by the rich plantation owners.
All Native Americans from the Spanish colonies were free and protected by laws since 1512. USA, a nation created over the indiscriminate extermination, did not even exist yet. Please people, use your brains and don't believe all the lies of those who manipulate you
Load More Replies...What a polarising topic. I think a lot of educated people have voiced their views. not sure why there is so much down voting. 'A product of their time' is hard position to defend, especially when 'of it's time' is not an historic anomaly but continues in our life time.
To be a teacher he is pretty dumb, should abstain himself of teaching history if he cannot put people in their historic age context. As judging people of the ice age for the extinction of X species, sitting comfortable in your home. After all he open the world crossing the unknown (publicly not that hadn't been known before) sea and "publicly" discovering a new world in three nutshells, and the people who he met weren't angels either. as with Hernan Cortés Monroy Pizarro Altamirano, he arrived to a land recently conquered by Aztecs, still battling to keep their Empire and sacrificing as much as 20.000 war prisoners in the flower battles to the war god. And even that has to be put in the context of their own history. History is not to judge what our ancestors did, because we really don't know what they went through, it's to admire what they did to change their time.
You American people lying during decades about Columbus to keep eyes away from your own true genocide against native american people. Too sad.
Christopher Columbis was a peadophile . He ran one of the biggest child sex slave business in the history of huankind.
Our country has a habit of rewriting history. Those that hide the truth of history, are destined to repeat it, and then the people say, how could this happen?! Where evil is committed and not stopped, it will. Eco e pervasive among our leaders, so that the evil done by these men,is accepted, and they become rich from the lies they tell... let truth ring, so freedom can reign.
Such genocides and enslavements are happening today, this day, every day, in countries where the US Military is scoping out land to steal and resources to plunder for $T globalist corporations, while they tell our children that they are fighting for our freedoms. And we now have to thank them for this or be ostracized. One day we will be waking up to this fact, as we are now waking up to Columbus. Next is St. Patrick. Our entire "official" history is a pack of lies. Study it. Study history for yourselves. You will find that public school history is not our history at all.
I completely agree. We are always happy to condemn the atrocities of the past while ignoring those happening now.
Load More Replies...I am coming across more instances of generational differences in history. We have older family members going through grandpas stuff. Some of it based on history since he was a history teacher. One was a poem praising Christopher Colombus. I was raised with the same historical account, but I know better. I was asked to illustrate it but I just couldn't. I'm sure he would have wrote a diffetent poem if he had the internet back then. It is pretty scary how history is often taught.
Columbus day doesn´t celebrate Columbus as a person, it celebrates his accomplishment of reaching the Americas. He did bad things, but the only reason why we are here is because of him.
There is so much that is taught that is untrue. I make sure I teach my children and grandson what I have researched myself. It's sad and angers me the lies that are taught.
And lets not forget, Columbus wasn't first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Erikson
Just answer a very simple question: how many Sioux, Cheyennes, Blakfoots or Cherokees can you see nowadays walking in the streets of London?. As Spaniard I have seen so many different ethnic groups from South and Central America in thee streets of Madrid and Barcelona that it is hard to remember their names. Is it possible that Spaniards did a poor job on their quest to genocide after all?
Oh, another north american that commits to a holy endeavor after 'seeing the truth'. I suspect there is also something about his personal life that manifested this way. Look, I am Spaniard (for the ones on the other side of the Atlantic Spain is a country in the south of Europe) and we have enough resources to learn about the lights and the shadows of our own history: school, books (try them), documentaries, etc ... If you want to speak about the 'atrocities' committed by the bloody Spaniards maybe you should read about Hernan Cortes, and then, only then, you will understand that these men where soldiers who stumbled upon a civilization that was already at war with other native groups. Spaniards died, natives died, Spaniards committed atrocities and natives committed atrocities back. Yet the Spaniards failed to wipe out completely the south hemisphere, as opposed to their anglosaxon counterparts, which did a very efficient work on the field, hardly every reported in history.
People have been enslaving each other since the beginning. It’s a great evil. Slavery is in every culture. The United States of America’s is the only nation that fought a very bloody war to end it. Thousands of white Americans died violent deaths to end slavery. There are more people being held in slavery now than in any other time in history. White men, 750,000 of them, gave their lives to end slavery. Just as many brown people enslave others as any other race. If you’re trying to paint whites as evil and other cultures as good then you’re going to create more resentment. We shouldn’t forget the holocaust but let’s also remember that Americans love freedom and we corrected our mistake. Let’s not forget to teach them the truth about our Founding Fathers and their core beliefs. They owed slaves. Are we going to erase them from history too?
I just learned on Netflix Explained that pirates were slave traders too!
I've read through all the comments & replies, some folk get very heated on the subject of slavery, but remember that the practice of enslaving the people you conquered dates back to Biblical times, Abraham's wife didn't conceive so he had a child by his slave Hagar. All those early nations practised slavery. To get back to Columbus, it was the Age of Exploration, for looking for new sources for trading purposes, mostly to exploit, at that time the spices of the East were the drawcard, Marco Polo went over land, while the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, all vied with each other to reach the East first. Columbus thought he'd go the other way round, so when he reached land, he thought he'd reached India, so the indigenous people must be Indians, right? Just my pennyworth.
Riddle me this... If Columbus discovered "America", then why is America named after the explorer Amerigo Vespucci? BTW... the closest that Columbus actually got to what is today known as Mainland USA, was Haiti... and it was not Native Americans that he genocided to near non existence... it was the Hispaniola people of Haiti/Dominican Republic. Oh yeah... and Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself ;p
Nothing like being so PC that you impose your moral compass on people who lived centuries ago. BTW, Native Americans were not known for their kumbaya love of their fellow Indians, whom they enslaved, tortured and wiped out any chance they could get.
And yet, when it comes to more recent historical individuals, the political beliefs (shared with the SJW mindset) of said individuals gives them a free pass in the SJW universe of historical and out-of-context-with-the-world-of-the-times revisionism.
I' ve always had teachers that taught the real story of Columbus. I'm actually surprised everyone didn't teach it that way?
Same here for the most part, but not until middle school and high school.
Load More Replies...It is hard to believe that some American schools still teach that Columbus discovered America let alone honor him with a holiday.
With all respect, If you’re reading this I want you just to think about it and if you want investigate more. I’m Spanish, and I don’t know how true this is, but what I DO know, is that: 1. It was another time, people didn’t have the same moral values 2. The Spanish let the Indians turn to Catholicism, and meanwhile, the English shot them on sight. 3. We offered them new technologies and jobs 4. Meanwhile, the french started trading with African Slaves 5. All of the West Coast was Spanish, but the USA didn’t think of it this way and conquered it. So, I don’t know if this post is entirely true, but I think that if they “teach” that, they should also teach how the English shot every moving thing they saw, they didn’t care if it was a tribe or a Buffalo. If you’ve read all the way down here, I want to thank you. I encourage you to investigate about this (if you want) Sorry for my English btw
You do bring up the interesting point that morals were way different then. It is always a good thing to try to take into account and judge people by the standards of the day. That being said, many people aren't taught the whole story of Columbus. Whether it being a time or resources issue most people just learn he "discovered" the continent between Asia and Europe and then the details are skipped over. The details are important too. It tells a complete story about who we were and where we came from. That goes for all of the aspects of history you touched on. I don't know the correct way to do this, but perhaps Columbus Day should change to mark a huge occasion that changed the world while also recognizing the harm it caused to a group of people. It should be a remembrance day and not a celebration. Even though you should judge people based on the time they lived, our values have changed and should reflect that in what we celebrate.
Load More Replies...More liberal b******t from Bored Panda. yay and hooray for a left wing government teacher brainwashing kids to hate America. So brave. So woke. “Indigenous people” murdered each other without remorse, raped and enslaved women from rival tribes, and pillaged the land so badly they had to move from place to place. But moronic left wing self loathing cuckolds like this guy cream themselves over it
Just saying that you're a genocide apologist and go away.
Load More Replies...I wonder if this teacher also taught his children that you can't arbitrarily judge the actions of people in the past by today's standards. I'd say given the messages he shared on twitter, that he didn't.
Wonder if any parents or school administrators approved of his idea, or if they gave him a load of s**t instead. I suspect the latter, considering the present revisionist climate. Back in the day, I was taught the sugar-coated, pro-white, one-sided, one-dimensional version of American history, and it bored me to tears. Once historians started telling the truth about historical figures, warts and all, my interest level increased exponentially. They. Were. Human. Beings. Not. Gods. They made mistakes, they had moments of weakness, they had personality traits that were less than admirable; some were total d***s, and others were unbelievably ruthless and cruel or criminally insane. And they were the products of very different times, with very different acceptable norms. Though many of them tried to change some of those norms, they also maintained others. A good example of this is their missed opportunity, at the creation of the United States, to abolish slavery and make women equal to men.
Okay, I get it. Columbus bad, indigenous people noble saints. There's a certain inevitability to it though. Do we think if not for Columbus the Americas would still be unknown? That Indians would still be hunting Buffalo? It was a different time that we'll never understand and Columbus was no different than most other old world explorers. If you start playing the what if game read about the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs. They had a lot of moral similarities to Columbus.
Oh good lord, no he didn't. Greyhounds are an English breed, bred in England. To hunt rabbits. Not humans. Weren't even a "breed" until after Columbus. Good lord... Even if he did have dogs, they wouldn't have been Greyhounds!
Load More Replies...Columbus kept diaries. He talked about his evil deeds. His atrocities are well documented. Don't be willfully ignorant, Bruce!
Load More Replies...Ugh... As if this somehow justifies their enslavement and genocide. Yuck..
Load More Replies...Finding America's what? What settlement did he create? You call people names yet are blissfully ignorant of facts. Columbus did not find the Americas. The first humans to discover the Americas came across from Asia during the ice ages. The first Europeans to discover the Americas were the Vikings, who landed in Newfoundland (Canada) about 500 years before Columbus sailed. As for settlements - Columbus did not settle anything. He tried establishing a fort (La Navidad) as a base for gold pillaging but that was destroyed and abandoned a year later. I suspect your name really describes you well.
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