An Ode to Columbus

The First Modern European

In America, we are nearing that special day where a once-beloved national — or more accurately, civilizational — hero is crucified by Libtard vultures — be them Siberian-American "First Peoples" or self-righteous White Liberals à la Adam Conover. Columbus finds most of his support among Italian-Americans, although the fact that Columbus Day’s supporters are forced to defend him on the grounds of him being nothing more than the symbol for immigrants who came to America centuries later is itself somewhat demoralizing. Although I will not pretend Columbus was some sort of pacifist, that was twisted by the nebulous “Black Legend” which Tradcath Mestizos of La Raza never shut up about, there are also many lies about him made up by his political enemies and the 16th century favela-world homosexual Jew Bartolome de las Casas.

Speaking of Jews… I think we need to talk about the new “documentary” coming out of Spain which is mostly focused on attacking all claims that Columbus is not Spanish, and more particularly, not Catalonian… It then concludes by saying Columbus was a Catalonian Jew. The authors of the documentary are long time supporters of this theory and it obviously serves Nationalistic purposes, as Spaniards have for a long time been irked by Columbus’s Italian-ness.

I cannot say anything for certain about the methodology, because what was said in the documentary (from what I hear — I can’t speak Spanish) is actually rather sparse. The genetic evidence is mostly centered around disproving Columbus’s links to other families theorized to be related to him, with vague and contradictory claims of Columbus’s DNA being “western Mediterranean”, but the haplogroups of his son being “compatible with the Jewish theory”. Columbus’s remains are literally dashed to pieces, they look like this:

…And for 20 years, attempts to extract DNA from them had failed, so I have a feeling that whatever DNA we are going to get is not going to be of the highest quality. The documentary makes no mention of the use of autosomal DNA, it only mentions Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA. And it doesn’t mention Columbus’s Mitochondrial DNA, but that of his son (mtDNA is passed through the mother, so it’s pretty much irrelevant).

If you want to see my general grievances with the claims of the documentary, read here:

If you want to see the grievances of experts upon watching it, read here. Many have already criticized it mere hours after its premiere.

The actual scientist involved doesn’t even really make strong claims that Columbus was a Jew, he says that he is of “Western Mediterranean origin” (Jews are genetically Eastern Mediterranean) with his son having Y-DNA and mtDNA compatible with the Jewish theory, it is very vague. He says nothing can be said for certain as the investigation is incomplete.

I am still thoroughly of the opinion that Columbus was an Italian from Genoa. Columbus never claimed to be Italian, it was the people around him who knew he was Italian. If he was a Jew, or of partial Jewish ancestry, then I would suspect he is not a Sephardic Jew from Valencia, but an Italian Jew or a Sephardic exile. But, I don’t believe Columbus was Jewish. If he was, he was probably born of conversos as late in life he was quite zealous and desired to lead another crusade into the Islamic world. Columbus’s connections with the Jews of Iberia are not telling of anything — Jews had a large presence in mercantile circles at the time, and Columbus was a navigator. Educated men of the time also tended to have connections with Jews and with Jewish mysticism. Many Renaissance men were indulged in Kabbalah, it was arguably just as much a Christo-Islamic discipline as a Jewish one. Please be careful, some Jews today can still use Kabbalic magic to raise armies of zombies to their side. Practice your rune magic. It will protect you, bruder…

Anyways… Back to the main point — let’s ignore the ancestry debate behind Columbus. Regardless, I hold to my opinion that he was one of the greatest men who ever lived. First of all, he was a brilliant navigator, he was not an “idiot”. He did not get the measurements of the earth wrong, he got the measurements of Asia wrong based on European sources for how long it took to travel from Europe through Asia (ex: Marco Polo).

Even by Columbus’s measures, he landed far too early. He initially suspected that the larger island that Injuns kept talking about, “Cuba”, could be Japan. But he knew he was somewhere east of Japan. Columbus had very good reason to suppose that he would reach Japan, albeit based on wrong information. But, he was also an extremely skilled voyager.

People don’t realize the guts and skill it takes to navigate the open ocean when you have only a vague idea of where you’re going. Surviving 3 months’ voyage is difficult enough on its own, and the terror of the sea is what kept the Vikings close to shore. Not to discount Leif Erikson, he was also a legendary navigator. Also, I have heard credible stories that Basques and other fishing cultures of Europe were already fully aware of Newfoundland by the time Columbus made his voyages. This history stack exchange thread talks about the possibility of pre-Columbian post-Viking fishing on the North American coast by… Wait for it… ENGLISHMEN!!!

It is strange that Leif Erikson day didn’t gain more popularity, as it was started similarly to Columbus Day. Except by Scandi immigrants instead of Italians. Columbus was pretty much on route when he hit shore, and had stopped a mutiny on his ship in the middle of the Atlantic. Columbus, despite often being imagined as a sort of Farquaad-esque figure, was reported to have been tall, with prominent cheekbones and an aquiline nose, having red or blond hair that began to go white after he reached 30, and bluish or green eyes. His skin was understandably described as ruddy and sunburnt.

Da Gama’s voyage some years prior was also impressive, but was much closer to shore. What is even more impressive is that Columbus would go on to make 3 more voyages to the Americas, including when he was an old man ridden with gout. Columbus knew at least five different languages — Italian, Spanish, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. He used astronomical knowledge to predict a lunar eclipse in order to convince native peoples that he was supported by divine providence. He was not just the discoverer of various European islands, but also the first European to interact with the Mayan civilization during his fourth Voyage.

It is that spirit, that maxim… Plus Ultra… That defines the Faustian Civilization Spengler puts forth. I would say, men like Columbus, but also Da Gama, Magellan, Cabot, Vespucci, Pizarro, and Albuquerque, they embody the spatial element of this change. The spirit does not even limit itself to Western Europe, it is just as the Spaniards are colonizing the Americas, and the Portuguese are sailing to India, that the Russians are making their marches into Siberia. The temporal element is embodied by the intellectual advancements. The development of linear perspective in Italy, the usurpation of the title of the world’s tallest structure by Europe’s Cathedrals beginning in the high middle ages, and the simultaneous discovery of Calculus by Newton and Leibniz. That’s not even the only groundbreaking mathematical discovery that was found by two people at around the same time in Early Modern Europe. The same thing happened with the Cartesian plane. Created both by Descartes, and by Fermat. What is shocking is that it seems three different peoples were using the Americas for stuff by the time Columbus arrived — the Polynesians (recently proven genetically, they were in contact with South American cultures), the Vikings, and perhaps European fishers and whalers contemporary to Columbus. And yet, it was following Columbus that explorers really started mapping out an entire new continent, seeing what went beyond the islands Columbus first landed on.

As far as the supposed “brutalities” of Columbus… In terms of pure numbers, it is largely made up. There were probably no more than 50,000 inhabitants of pre-Columbian Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, which immediately throws out most of the “death tolls” attributed to Columbus and may even suggest that the island’s indigenous population increased under the rule of Columbus. There is no doubt that Columbus was very open to using the locals for forced labor or selling them into slavery, as he offered them in such regard to the crown multiple times. However, the Taino and Caribs were already killing each other regularly and selling each other into slavery, and it was probably the Taino who spread the idea to Columbus that the Caribs were man-eaters (where the term Cannibal comes from). Verrazzano was reported to have been killed and eaten by Caribs, which gives us an identifiable victim of this alleged cannibalism not long after Columbus’s death, so I wouldn’t be that surprised if the Caribs really did consume human flesh.

On a side note, there does seem to be a sort of natural state of cannibalism which human societies gradually move out of as they develop. Peoples during the paleolithic tended to eat their fellow human beings, albeit sometimes only their foes or only their naturally deceased peers. But, it is an alarming characteristic of the paleolithic. Neanderthals participated in cannibalism, judging by precise cut marks on their bones. Paleolithic Europeans used human skulls as bowls and cups, and also ate people. It was the Mesolithic Western Hunter Gatherers (descended from Epigravettians) who virtuously defeated and replaced the man-eating Magdalenians. Also, I have heard that WHGs were much more aniconist than their predecessors. You don’t find “venus sculptures” among them so much, although I do recall that the Iron Gates Hunter Gatherers had these little fish people they sculpted.

A lot of the cruelties attributed to Columbus were made by his political enemies who wanted to usurp power in the Americas for themselves, or they are from Bartolome de las Casas, who says a lot of terrible things about the Spaniards in the Americas to bolster his demand for getting rid of Encomienda. While there are reports of Columbus committing atrocities by these political enemies, there are also stories from Columbus about his enemies committing atrocities and stories from people with Columbus about Columbus reigning in his soldiers and attempting to prevent Spanish atrocities against the indigenous people. The rebel Francisco Roldan lists Columbus’s demands that his soldiers follow “poverty, chastity, and obedience” as one of the grievances that sparked their splintering. This is complimented by Columbus’s claims accusing Roldan and his men of raping local women. If I recall correctly, a lot of Roldan’s men were freed prisoners so it wouldn’t be surprising.

Francisco de Bobadilla, the man who had Columbus arrested, did so partially on the grounds that Columbus and his brothers had hanged 5 Spaniards for committing brutalities against the indigenes. Also, there are claims (by de las Casas) that Columbus was cutting off the noses and hands of indigenes who didn’t deliver enough gold. This is false and this law was actually probably a law of Guarionex, a Taino chieftain who supported Roldan’s revolt against Columbus.

Yeah so actually Columbus was a truecel and stopping his men from racemixing

TL;DR (watch whole video or else you will think I am a cringe weaboo ESL FNF pedo)

The spirit of Columbus, and his contemporaries, did exist prior to the birth of Spengler’s “Faustian Civilization”, but only in a limited capacity. The Greeks had a less extreme form — perhaps one could call it the “Hermetic Spirit” or the “Herculean Spirit” based on the Greek heralds of ocean colonization. But the Greeks never passed Gibraltar, warranting the Latin maxim “Non Plus Ultra” with respect to the Pillars of Heracles. And ironically in the wake of Alexander, this spirit of the Greeks fell into severe decline. The Greeks settled themselves as local despots of the orient, constantly quarreling with each other. The driven, ideological Greek city-states of the 6th and 5th century fell under Macedonian clannish politics. Greek writers themselves lament the orientalization (culturally) of the rulers of the Greek east. Greek philosophy descended into the recitation of trivia. The Romans, despite their imperial ambitions, certainly did not have the Faustian drive. Being expansionist does not make a culture “Faustian”, some people choose to selectively forget this when thinking of their favorite ancient groups (which is weird because being “Faustian” is a double-edged sword). Every culture is expansionist. No, the beginning of the modern “Western Civilization” required a mixing of the Greek and the Germanic, and I will give Christians credit that the Church played some role in this process as well.

For Americans in particular, I think that Columbus should be considered a national hero despite never setting foot in America. It was always pretty obvious historically why Columbus was a national hero. He was the European who initiated European settlement in America, and America was seen as the crystallization of this European colonial program. In an age where Native Americans are, for no good reason, considered to be “The First Americans” (American in this context being used colloquially to refer to the people of the United States) and being an American has to do with being enthusiastic over vague, ever-shifting values detached from any religion or heritage, there is no place for Columbus. Not even among conservatives, because according to them America is simply an idea, and America was imagined as a nation bound by “ideas” in 1776, and the colonists who lived in America prior to 1776 are only relevant to our nation insofar as they shared these ideas, or prototypes of these ideas. And somehow, every value that 20 years ago was liberal is now actually part of what the founders intended our country to evolve into. Yes, Thomas Jefferson may have believed wholeheartedly that the White and Black races were incompatible, but somehow subconsciously he MUST have believed otherwise! it was this nebulous geist that was living inside him that possessed him while writing “all men are created equal” okay? Hmm, I think not… I think it’s just not that deep.

Expect something on the Pilgrims in November. I’m not as fond of them as I am of Columbus, but I’ll still go to bat for John Calvin. You know, sigma calvinists ou algo. My family was Calvinist on the male line originally, until someone converted to popery if I remember correctly. Not sure.