ndrosen

There’s no denying that Christopher Columbus was a bold explorer, but he was not a notably ethical man, and that is not merely applying the viewpoint of a later age that he could not have imagined, but judging him by the standards of some men in fifteenth and sixteenth century Spain. Yesterday, October 12, was the anniversary of Columbus’s first landing in the Americas; tomorrow is the federal holiday when I don’t have to go in to work, although I will, to avoid falling too far behind at the start of the new quarter and fiscal year. Some jurisdictions are declaring this Indigenous People’s Day, which is well and good, although I think we might also commemorate Bartolome de las Casas, who spoke up for the Indios when he might have remained an ecomendero, and lived in luxury by exploiting them.