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Re:1491: It’s likely that everything you know about American... by dragonwriter on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @08:53PM (#34168534)
> Whatever faults you’d lay at his feet were not only de rigueur for both Europeans and Muslims of his time,

No, they weren’t, which is why he was known as a notoriously cruel administrator by contemporary Europeans, which was a substantial factor in his being removed as governor, arrested, and returned to Spain in chains.

Re:1491: It’s likely that everything you know about American... by hattmall on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @09:50PM (#34168894)
This is also generally a fabrication. Columbus was a fanatic. This is how he was viewed and the claims of his cruelty were unsubstantiated allegations made by his enemies and the crown to avoid paying him the 10% that he was contractually owed. This was the reason for his removal as governor. Columbus returned in chains at his own insistence that if he were to be recalled to defend himself then he was a prisoner and it should be known that he was treated as such and afforded no special privilege.

Columbus the Four Voyages by Laurence Bergreen details this and many many more extremely interesting details about Columbus.

Re:1491: It’s likely that everything you know about American... by paisawalla on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @10:52PM (#34169333)
In addition to Europeans, the contemporary set I mentioned also includes

1. Arab slavers who made eunuchs of their captured (kidnapped) slaves, and

2. the Mesoamerican civilizations whose religious imperative was to keep their sacred pyramids constantly covered in flowing human blood

The corollary of your point, even if it was a fair and accurate assessment of Columbus' affairs, would be that Europeans were otherwise moral judges -- although by today's standards I'm sure you'd also condemn them just the same.

Columbus was a product of his times, as were the slavers and the natives.

Re:1491: It’s likely that everything you know about American... by dragonwriter on Thursday December 29, 2022 @10:50AM (#34173827)
“de rigeur for <X> and <Y>” means “required by current fashion for all of X and Y” not “practiced by some subset of X and Y”.

You seem to be retreating from the claim that Columbus’s behavior as governor was in line with the universal practice of his time to the much weaker and less controversial claim that it was both in some way influenced by the social context of his time and not uniquely bad in the contemporary (overlapping) “European and Muslim” world.

Which, sure, nice motte and bailey, Columbus was quite possibly not the single most abusive European and/or Muslim territorial governor of the late 15th Century.

(You also seem to want to argue about claims about Mesoamerican civilizations which I did not argue against, for whatever reason.)

Re:1491: It’s likely that everything you know about American... by paisawalla on Friday December 30, 2022 @01:04AM (#34182335)
Correct. Columbus's behavior was de rigueur for X=[those European engaged in exploration, settlement, and the slave trade]. It was also better than the equivalent behavior when X=[non-Europeans engaged in the same].