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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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 Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:53 pm Post subject: Did Columbus Discover America? |
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http://www.thursdaysclassroom.com/15mar01/columbushoax.html
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COLOMBUS DID NOT LAND IN THE NEW WORLD
An essay by Michael J. Finley
The little poem says that "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" -- but did he?
In an article in "Archaeology" (January/February 1992) entitled "Riddles of Columbus", the respected historian William F. Keegan wrote: "In seeking the truth about Columbus, one encounters many more questions than answers". In fact, the "riddles of Columbus" may be much stranger than even Keegan is willing to admit.
We have only Columbus' own word to support his claim that he "discovered" America in 1492, and the "journal" he claimed to have kept of his voyage is deliberately vague and full of contradictions.
I cannot go into all the full details here, but a few examples should show that Establishment historians have systematically ignored overwhelming evidence that Columbus did not set foot in the New World in 1492.
Consider the following key points:
1. Columbus deliberately falsified the record. By his own admission, he reported incorrect daily sailing distances during his Atlantic "crossing". In his "journal" entry for 9 September 1492 he states, for example, that he "sailed this day nineteen leagues, and determined to count less than the true number". Historians agree that the sailing distances recorded by Columbus are confusing, even when he reports both allegedly "true" and "false" distances: See for example K. Pickering "The Navigational Mysteries and Fraudulent Longitudes of Christopher Columbus" (Haklyut Society, 1997).
Establishment historians offer several "explanations", but ignore the most obvious: Columbus was covering his tracks so that no one could determine where he actually sailed when he left Spain.
2. No archaeological remains that can be definitively linked to the 1492 voyage have been found in the New World. No one has ever found the wreck of the ship Santa Maria, nor the fort Columbus claimed to have built, nor any of the non-perishable trade goods he claimed to have lavishly handed out to the natives he encountered. A claim was made in 1991 that the fort, named La Navidad in his "journal", had been located in Haiti -- but the excavation was strangely abandoned, allegedly because of political unrest. Stranger still, the excavation was not resumed when peace returned to Haiti.
3. The location of Columbus' alleged landfall in the New World cannot be identified from the vague description and sailing directions given in the "journal". This is even more ominous evidence of a cover-up. As Keegan has observed ion his "Riddles..." article, "despite the passage of almost 500 years, the particulars of Christopher Columbus' claimed voyage of discovery remain unresolved. Since speculation about the voyage began, almost every island in the [Bahamian] archipelago has been identified as one of the four supposedly visited". Historians are disconcerted -- but the mystery disappears if Columbus simply invented his account of the islands he claims to have visited.
Even the native name of the island first reached by Columbus, "Guanahani", according to the "journal", sounds suspiciously like an invention, a word in Hindi or another East Indian language rather than an authentic Caribbean place name.
4. Columbus' description of the islands he claims to have visited is simply not a plausible description of the West Indies. He claimed, of course, to have reached the East Indies, somewhere off the coast of China. So, not surprisingly, he identified the people he met as "Indians". His description of them and their land is a curious mixture of characteristics that might apply to inhabitants of islands of the Far East -- and, interestingly, to the indigenous people of the Canary Islands just west of Africa, the closest inhabited islands to Columbus' alleged landfall that were known to 15th Century Europe. Consider for example his "journal" reports of the natives that "some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white".
In his famous Letter to King Ferdinand describing his "discoveries", Columbus wrote that on Hispaniola he found "people and houses without number", and claimed that the island "abounds in different kinds of spices, in gold, and in metals". In fact, the Taino and Lucayan people of the Caribbean built no population centers. They did not work in metals -- and none of the spices known to Europe from the "Spice Isles" of the east are native to the Caribbean. This description seems to be entirely a fabrication.
Columbus describes the natives he met as "well made, with fine shapes and faces". Had he actually seem them, how could he have missed the fact that "the foreheads of all Lucayan babies were flattened soon after birth, as the Lucayans believed that this improved the appearance"? (See G. Aarons' "The Lucayans: The People Whom Columbus Discovered in the Bahamas", Five Hundred Magazine, 1990).
Columbus' capacity for invention reached its most lyrical heights in his description of "Samatot ...city where the gold is." Columbus thought this to be an outpost of the Empire of the Great Khan. He claims to have been told that a rich and powerful king ruled in Samatot. His sailing instructions to Samatot are characteristically vague and even contradictory. Conveniently, he did not quite manage to reach the city -- as the shoals about the island were "too shallow for his ships", and the people lived (he claimed to have been told) "inland". (See Keegan's "Columbus and the City of Gold", Journal of the Bahamas Historical Society, 1984). Nothing in this description fits the simple tribal society of the Caribbean. And why would an adventurer bent on finding riches to plunder turn back at the very gates of the "City of Gold" -- if such a place actually existed?
5. The science and technology of 1492 did not made a successful Atlantic crossing very likely. The ships in Columbus' fleet were designed for coast-hugging trading voyages, not exploration of the open sea. He could only contemplate such a voyage at all because he believed the Earth to be much smaller than it actually is. He took his geography from Ptolemy, who wrote in the 2nd century A.D. Isn't it remarkable that he found the so-called "East Indies" just where he expected them from his study of Ptolemy -- not far enough west of Africa to have actually been any part of the Western Hemisphere?
Columbus' alleged route took him directly into the tropical doldrums -- a region of shifting or calm winds later avoided as a "sea of death" by sailing ships much better equipped for ocean crossings than those of Columbus. In this circumstance, we can perhaps begin to understand what really lay behind the Columbus Hoax.
We know that Columbus actually did reach the Canary Islands, which were already occupied by the Spanish. According to his own account, his men were near mutiny when the ships later became becalmed in the doldrums. It is not actually likely that Columbus failed to cross the doldrums, realizing that he could not sail on, and perhaps being forced to capitulate to his mutinous crews? But Columbus would forfeit further support for his expeditions from the Spanish Crown if he admitted defeat. Did he negotiate an agreement with his crew to overlook their crime of mutiny if they would collaborate his fanciful tale of discovery? Such behavior would hardly be surprising. Columbus was not a disinterested scientific explorer -- and indeed his goal was always personal wealth and fame. As Keegan notes: "Was Asia really his objective, or not? Some historians maintain that Columbus pursued more personal goals, among them the search for gold".
Ironically, the fantastic tale told by Columbus may have actually provided the impetus for successful voyages in the following decades, and for improvements in navigation and ship construction needed for oceanic crossings.
6. Finally, we cannot rule out the possibility that the truth about Columbus' faked "discoveries" was known to others, but protected by a conspiracy of silence. Is it perhaps as surprising as textbooks make it seem that the New World was not named for Columbus -- but for Amerigo Vespucci, a Spanish navigator who did not reach the New World until 1499? His voyages of discovery are not in dispute, nor have they ever been.
Given the lack of printed books or newspapers, and the lack of today's rapid communication, it would have been fairly easy for the Royal Court and other authorities to hide the truth and put forth the claims they needed to establish.
It is very relevant that Spain and Portugal were locked in a "cold war" at the end of the 15th Century, with the expected rich East Indies trade as the prize. Spain had good reason to manufacture a claim to the East Indies at a time when the Portuguese were ahead in the "Spice Race". The famous voyage of Christopher Columbus', whatever else it may have been, was clearly a Spanish propaganda victory. |
Furthermore, Columbus came from a wool working family. Why would someone from such origins be allowed to captain this voyage? Because they never planned on letting him actually sail around the world.
Columbus' motives are pretty obvious once you see the rewards he received for his "journey."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
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According to the contract that Columbus made with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, if Columbus discovered any new islands or mainland, he would:
be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea (Atlantic Ocean).
be appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands.
have the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands.
be entitled to 10 percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity; this part was denied to him in the contract, although it was one of his demands.
have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits. |
I've yet to see anyone answer these relevant questions. Can anyone here defend the "historical record" and show me proof that Columbus discovered America? Please, no more lies. Just facts. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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god discovered america.
duh. |
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sjrm
Joined: 27 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 7:50 pm Post subject: |
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| nahh, he was just the first to map america. vikings and indians were there first. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:29 pm Post subject: |
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All of your post refers only to the FIRST of four voyages. While he never set foot on the mainland, he was obviously sailing around the Caribbean. How else do you explain the fact he took Indians back with him?
Why does this sound so much like NASA didn't go to the moon? |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:23 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| All of your post refers only to the FIRST of four voyages. While he never set foot on the mainland, he was obviously sailing around the Caribbean. How else do you explain the fact he took Indians back with him? |
Either someone else got the Indians, and he picked them up in the Canaries, or the Indians sailed to the Canaries, where Columbus abducted them. Look, I can't provide all the answers for you. But until all of my questions are answered, you can't ask me any.
| Quote: |
| Why does this sound so much like NASA didn't go to the moon? |
To paraphrase, there are suckers born every century. It's the same cabal that has been trying to fleece us for thousands of years. The Templars, Zionists, and ruling elite. |
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Guri Guy
Joined: 07 Sep 2003
Location: Bamboo Island
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:30 am Post subject: |
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The Vikings came to America first among Europeans as far as I know. The native peoples were there first obviously coming over the Bering land bridge.
There is solid evidence that the Chinese discovered America in 1421. There is a good book I have been meaning to read for a while on the subject.
That leaves Columbus in 4th place, if he even discovered it at all. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:55 am Post subject: |
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| Guri Guy wrote: |
The Vikings came to America first among Europeans as far as I know. The native peoples were there first obviously coming over the Bering land bridge.
There is solid evidence that the Chinese discovered America in 1421. There is a good book I have been meaning to read for a while on the subject.
That leaves Columbus in 4th place, if he even discovered it at all. |
But did anyone in Europe know this? No. So the point remains. Columbus did not discover, or re-discover, America. In fact, Columbus himself never claimed to have discovered a new world. Throughout his latter day life, he continued to profit from the "discovery" yet refused to grant any interviews about his findings. Suspicious? More than just suspicious. Outright fraudulent. |
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mateomiguel
Joined: 16 May 2005
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:05 am Post subject: |
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conspiracy theorists really make me sick. Have you ever thought that ambiguity in Columbus' logbook about travel distances and directions might have to do with the inaccurate tools that he used to measure distances? There was no GPS for Columbus, he was just guessing using actual knots of wood to measure knots and a sextant? to measure latitude only, can't measure longitude. Sailing around that time was a very inaccurate endeavor, that's why it was so very hard to get to the New World for europeans.
Haven't you ever heard the saying, "Don't ever attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence."? Any inconsistences in Columbus' log can be explained with inaccurate tools and perhasp a lazy captain. That doesn't mean its a OMG GLOBAL HISTORICAL CONSPIRACY to hide the truth. Ten thousand ships following in Columbus' footsteps cannot be all in on the conspiracy. And the Caribbean, or West Indies, was the place exploited first by all those who came after Columbus. So he must have discovered *something*. |
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Bibbitybop
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| Want to know about the real Columbus? Read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. For instance, to test the sharpness of their swords, Columbus and his men would slice into the leg of a nearby native. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:22 am Post subject: |
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| OP: so what you're saying is Columbus didn't discover America, he just made it all up, then people took him at his word and sailed the Atlantic, and - bam! - the joke was on him because it turns out it was there just like he said! |
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Guri Guy
Joined: 07 Sep 2003
Location: Bamboo Island
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:37 am Post subject: |
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I believe he did go to America but he certainly didn't discover it. Their treatment of the natives was absolutely brutal I'll admit.  |
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own_king
Joined: 17 Apr 2004
Location: here
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| It is widely regarded as fact by most historians that Columbus landed in America, but certainly wasn't the first. The Viking were in North America about 400 years earlier. And some even contend (not as widely accepted however) that the Chinese did it before them from other direction. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| OP: so what you're saying is Columbus didn't discover America, he just made it all up, then people took him at his word and sailed the Atlantic, and - bam! - the joke was on him because it turns out it was there just like he said! |
Columbus, himself, never said that he had discovered new land. He always contended that he found a new route to Asia. People knew about Asia at the time, so that's what he used in his story. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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| mateomiguel wrote: |
| Sailing around that time was a very inaccurate endeavor, that's why it was so very hard to get to the New World for europeans. |
It was very hard. So given the technology, why would someone head off into the great unknown? It'd be a suicide mission. Remember, Columbus didn't come from a sailing family. His father was a wool worker. It'd be like choosing me to go to Mars.
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| Ten thousand ships following in Columbus' footsteps cannot be all in on the conspiracy. And the Caribbean, or West Indies, was the place exploited first by all those who came after Columbus. So he must have discovered *something*. |
Obviously someone found it / refound it. It just wasn't Columbus. |
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bluelake
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:40 pm Post subject: |
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Columbus never discovered America. My ancestors knew it was there all along.
Member, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians |
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