https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEw8c6TmzGg
A nuanced view of Columbus- while not focusing on the day in particular, it's an interesting, if middling, view on the man.
Knowing Better is actually a really great YouTuber, and yes, this video was pretty good.
I do also recommend History Buffs' video on it though, as he has the opposite view and is also rather convincing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQWSwUbnofw
To anybody thinking Knowing Better is going to repeat lies, or something, you should know he has made plenty of videos criticising Hoover and other people for racist acts.
His videos, while well edited, aren't very good (but that's par for the course for history youtubers).
As explained in this AskHistorians thread. And some equally valuable discussion in this BadHistory post.
using google translate and injecting personal assumptions is a pretty bad look ngl.
If you're really correct here, it really shouldn't be hard to find historical linguists backing your side. There's dudes on the internet who'll help you for free even if you're a big youtuber.
https://youtu.be/Xd_nVCWPgiA
Stefan Molyneux is seriously nuts, he's basically a skinhead Alex Jones.
Yeah he's legitimately awful.
This is your daily reminder that simply citing your sources isn't the end all be all (it should be a baseline for your claims), but what those sources are actually matter.
I really doubt this guy agrees with Stefan Molyneux's opinion my dudes. His other videos have talking points that Stefan would get really upset about, probably throwing insults around. It is entirely possible he didn't know he was and was just looking for a soundclip.
Onto the meat of the video it does get some things right whilst also getting some things wrong. His translation point is really shit and felt like he was stretching. He should've just limited it to "Columbus wasn't some monster, he was really about average for his time".
Quoting from the AskHistorians post I linked:
How he talks about "genocide" is an indicator that his work may be not accurate or trustworthy. His suggestion that it's a simple linguistic issue regarding intent, and not a complicated matter that speaks to power, colonization, and patterns, ignores volumes of writing, especially by Indigenous authors and historians. [Parenthetical note that Zimmerman wasn't found "innocent." The jury returned not guilty verdicts on all counts.] This explores the different arguments about the use of the word and despite 6 minutes of earnest talking-into-the-camera by what appears to be a Columbus truther, cannot be simplified it into a yes/no question. That said, the creator of the term "genocide" cited European interactions with North American Indigenous people as an example of the term.
this seems very much to align with Molyneux, and should be setting off red flags for anyone. He also claims that Encomiendas weren't slavery. On paper, sure - but in practice? It was slavery all but in name.
I do agree on HistoryBuffs though. He often gets things wrong, and doesn't cite his sources (and it does often feel like Wikipedia is his source).
It's almost like ameteur youtube historians aren't a replace for doing the real work of learning real history.
I still don't see how this guy can be alligned with Stefan Molyneux in any way when some of his other videos include constant reminders about the American Civil War being about slavery, calling out people like Jordan Peterson for misrepresenting the holocaust, and other things that would make that skinhead's blood boil. I do not disagree his usage of word meaning and translations is a bad arguement though. What I think he's getting at is that Colombus didn't voluntarily commit genocide on the native populations.
Which is flatout wrong.
From one of the answers I linked to in my post:
"I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of Their Highness. We shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as Their Highnesses may command. And we shall take your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contract him."
This was to be read to the Native peoples the Spanish encountered after 1510.
This is from the same answer I mentioned above
Wherever the marauding, diseased, and heavily armed Spanish forces went out on patrol, accompanied by ferocious armored dogs that had been trained to kill and disembowel, they preyed on the local communities - already plagued-enfeebled - forcing them to supply food and women and slaves, and whatever else the soldiers might desire. At virtually every previous landing on this trip Columbus's troops had gone ashore and killed indiscriminately, as though for sport, whatever animals and birds and natives they encountered, "looting and destroying all they found," as the Admiral's son Fernando blithely put it . . . More than 50,000 natives were reported dead from these encounters by the time the Admiral had recovered from his sickness. And when at last his health and strength had been restored, Columbus's response to his men's unorganized depredations was to organize them. In March of 1495 he massed together several hundred armored troops, cavalry, and a score or more of trained attack dogs. They set forth across the countryside, tearing into assembled masses of sick and unarmed native people, slaughtering them by the thousands" (p. 70).
If that isn't Genocide, I don't fucking know what is.
Unfortunately I don't really know how this guy (the knowingbetter guy, I don't know his name) would respond to this argument. I think I remember from the video he claimed that it was mainly his men acting out on these abuses. I don't share his opinion and I'm afraid I'm not very knowledgeable about early European voyages to America. What I was mainly getting at was that he did not seem like the kind of person to try to downplay genocide or whatever it is Stefan does in his free time. What I gathered from the video was that he thinks Columbus isn't some uniquely evil person in this time of history as many of the contemporary governors of Spanish colonies as well as other rulers around the globe were just as bad if not worse. The idea being that Columbus is blamed for what Europeans did after his death is unfair to him or something. Not my favorite video I gotta admit.
Colombus instituted slavery in the New World, so he can be blamed for that, and his men went off killing so many Native peoples with his permission. Columbus owned many slaves, traded in slaves, set up what would become the ecomonida system in the Americas, and was otherwise an outright disaster to the Americas. What he was doing was unique. For example, originally the Spanish crown didn’t even want slavery in the Americas (although their view did change over time, in part due to Columbus’s actions). Of course he didn’t personally kill all those Native peoples (but he did rape, murder, and mutilate many on his own). that doesn’t mean he doesn’t shoulder the responsibility for what happened, as it happened because of him.
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