workingclasshistory:

On this day, 3 August 1492, Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain for the “Indies”, with disastrous consequences for the people who already lived there. There are popular myths that he discovered the United States and proved the earth was round. However he never even set foot in North America, and the fact that the earth was a sphere had been known since the days of the ancient Greeks, although Columbus himself believed it was pear-shaped. He landed in what is now known as the Bahamas, where he and his crew were greeted by the indigenous Arawak people, who lived in village communes and held all property in common. Right away, Columbus began imprisoning and murdering the indigenous people, and enslaving them to try to find gold. The Arawaks began fighting back, but couldn’t beat the Spanish with their advanced weaponry and armour, and so many began to kill themselves and their children to save them from a worse fate. Within just two years, half of the 250,000 indigenous people on Haiti were dead. More colonisers came, and the genocide of the native population continued across the Caribbean and the Americas. Despite all this, today in many places, indigenous communities survive, thrive and continue to resist. This is Howard Zinn’s account of the “discovery” of America and what happened to the local population: https://libcom.org/history/columbus-indians-discovery-america https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1180717088780106/?type=3