"Don't blame Columbus for Indians' troubles"
 
by:   Howard Kleinberg
 
in:   Cox News Service
 
 
      American Indian groups and their sympathizers have targeted
as racist a traveling national historic exhibit recognizing
Christopher Columbus' journey of almost 500 years ago.  They feel
the exhibit honors a man whose legacy is a genocide far greater
than that practiced against Jews at the hands of Adolf Hitler.
      Say what you want about old Chris--that he was a dreamer and
a bumbler--but there comes a time when revisionist history drives
me straight for the barf bag.  And this is one of those times.
      Although my family did not arrive in America until 100 years
ago, after the destruction of most of the native North American
population, I always have felt a sense of guilt about it.  This
is brought about simply by my being white.
      Nevertheless, I am not going to hold Columbus responsible
for that any more than I would hold Frederick the Great respon-
sible for Auschwitz.
      Certainly, those who followed Columbus to what became known
as the New World are responsible for the horrors visited upon the
natives of today's North, Central and South America but this took
place over hundreds of years.
      Some of the worst years for the North American Indian came
in the 19th century, 400 years after Columbus died.
      Nevertheless, North American Indians are picketing the
Columbus exhibit.  Indian activist Russell Means calls it "crap,"
while another claims the exhibit is "just another European
interpretation of history."
      The latter, despite its pejorative connotation by the
protester, is precisely what the exhibit is intended to be.
      Over the centuries, proper blame has been laid at the feet
of the Europeans who came here to plunder, enslave and murder. 
It is documented.
      Columbus' mission, while certainly interested in riches, was
primarily for a trade route to the Far East.  He stumbled onto a
new land but went to his grave thinking the world he had encount-
ered was, indeed, the Far East.
      It is alleged that Columbus and his crew introduced count-
less new diseases to the native populations they encountered and
few will argue with that.  In return, it should be pointed out,
the natives introduced the Europeans to tobacco and if we're
going to start laying blame for long-term gifts of death and
disability, we ought be including that.
      If we are to dismember Columbus' memory, then we ought to
deal in the same way with all history.  And the natives of the
New World are not immune to a little negativism.
      They were a warlike people.  Some early Caribbean tribes,
such as the Caribs, were cannibals.  North American Indians
constantly warred with each other, treated prisoners harshly and
plundered.
      In Meso-America, entire populations were enslaved, sacri-
ficed and other eradicated by other Indian nations.  Some of
those civilizations have been credited as being advanced, yet
part of the ritual of those so-called advanced societies was to
cut the hearts from their victims or to throw young maidens down
bottomless wells in the name of religion.
      No civilization in the history of this planet is without its
transgressions.
      But this latest assault by North American Indians is going
too far.  Their demand that Columbus' alleged atrocities be
included in the exhibit is abrasive.
      Ever since planning began to commemorate the anniversary of
the Columbus voyage, responsible organizations have included in
their plans exhibits, lectures and seminars on the people who
were here to greet Columbus on the beach.
      That is as it should be.
      As to genocide at the hands of the Europeans, that ought to
be included somewhere as well, although I don't believe the
Columbus exhibit is the place for it.  Tales of the Spanish
conquests that followed Columbus are a more likely place and the
history of the growth of the United States westward is a prime
topic for such talk.
      But while we're planning to tell the story of genocide in
the Americas, I hope someone will include the destruction of the
Mayan and Toltec civilizations--well before Columbus ever hoisted
anchor in Palos almost five centuries ago.
 
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