European Discovery of Americas? What’s your take on this?

[martycanuck]

I just read an article on CBC.ca. Please read before you comment. I’m just looking for opinions.

Clicky

The woman who is raising the issue is Indigenous. Certainly a sensitive issue for her and I can understand that. 

But I think it’s a bit of perspective. The Europeans did “discover” the Americas, for themselves at least. Before that they did not know it was there. It does not mean there were not peoples there already.

Is she being too sensitive? I feel like she’s reading too much into it because of her own background. 

Is the question perhaps poorly worded? I personally would not have been phased by this in the least. 

Interested on your takes on this one.

[Juli]

I can see your point because people say things like "I discovered an interesting coffee shop" or "There was a wreck on the interstate and the usual detour was incredibly slow, but I discovered a better detour" or an ad for a tourist destination may say "Come discover the excitement of (wherever)" and no one thinks that the person means that no other human being has ever seen those things. But when we're talking big, history-making discoveries, in medicine, science, whatever, yeah, it refers to the first time a human being has seen it or figured it out. In this usage, I would think that the qualifier "European" would indicate that it's not referring to the first human beings, just the first Europeans.

[MalcolmR]

Sept 14, 2019 3:21:23 GMT -5 Juli said:

In this usage, I would think that the qualifier "European" would indicate that it's not referring to the first human beings, just the first Europeans.

My thoughts precisely.

[frodi]

I'm with the writer on this one. From a European perspective they were looking for new lands to colonise for the indigenous basis it was the start of the end of their civilization. While the teacher probably did not set out to offend they should recognise that they did.
fair play to the student for having the courage to change the work sheet like that.

[Jim]

Well, Europeans didn't discover shit when it came to the Americas so she is completely right. There were millions of people already here. How can they say they found anything?

[graham]

To quote a line from Terry Pratchett:

It was so thickly forested, so creased by little mountain ranges and beset by rivers, that it was largely unmapped. It was mostly unexplored, too*.

*At least by proper explorers. Just living there doesn’t count."

The point is that there's an attitude of cultural arrogance which pats the natives on the head and says "Yes, you might live here, but you're not educated white men, so you don't appreciate the significance of anything, you need us to tell you how important this is..."

Regrettably, the question perpetuates that sense of superiority, implying that nothing that happened in North America was worth paying any attention to until the Europeans came along.

PS a few historical points:

1) The Vikings got to Newfoundland (which they called Vinland) around 1000AD and tried to colonise it, but eventually died off.

2) John Cabot of Bristol landed in North America in 1497 whilst Columbus was still sailing around the Bahamas and the Caribbean thinking he was in India.

3) Columbus never landed in North America.

[Ben]

Is the date when the Europeans found the Americas - including the people living there - historically significant? Of course.

What word would you like to use? They didn't begin colonizing the Americas in 1492. They discovered them. "Here there be dragons. Oh, wait, no, it's land." That someone else already knew about the Americas is irrelevant. The Americas became known to Europe (i.e. they discovered them) in 1492.

More revisionist history and politically correct nonsense.

[mank]

I agree with Ben here. I think this is a bunch of politically correct baloney. And, I agree with Graham's historical points. Does any of it matter? Is it going to change history? No. Did the Europeans who colonized America force the Native Americans out? Yes. Were the Native Americans abused? Yes. So what does all of this mean? What is going to change? Hasn't history taught us that countries tribes invade other countries and tribes and force their ideas and will upon the indigenous people? Aren't things like this still going on in Syria, in Africa?

I just wonder how over time we have all (not all of us) turned into some type of victim?

[martycanuck]

Sept 18, 2019 6:08:10 GMT -5 mank said:

I agree with Ben here. I think this is a bunch of politically correct baloney. And, I agree with Graham's historical points. Does any of it matter? Is it going to change history? No. Did the Europeans who colonized America force the Native Americans out? Yes. Were the Native Americans abused? Yes. So what does all of this mean? What is going to change? Hasn't history taught us that countries tribes invade other countries and tribes and force their ideas and will upon the indigenous people? Aren't things like this still going on in Syria, in Africa?

I just wonder how over time we have all (not all of us) turned into some type of victim?

That is not a bad point at all Mank.

[graham]

Sept 18, 2019 0:14:52 GMT -5 Ben said:

More revisionist history and politically correct nonsense.

Imagine a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect” - Neil Gaiman

The real "revisionist history" is the one that says that anything that happened before the White Europeans got there isn't important.

It was certainly historically significant for the people already there because that was when they started losing their lands, being colonised or forced into reservations and then back-stabbed and or exterminated.

This is not something to be celebrated.

[Ben]

Sept 18, 2019 6:49:17 GMT -5 graham said:

Imagine a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect” - Neil Gaiman

The real "revisionist history" is the one that says that anything that happened before the White Europeans got there isn't important.

It was certainly historically significant for the people already there because that was when they started losing their lands, being colonised or forced into reservations and then back-stabbed and or exterminated.

This is not something to be celebrated.

Who said anything about things happening before then not being important? I think it's especially important to learn the warlike history of the Native tribes, who routinely forced each other out of their land. If nothing else, we should learn from them that it's critical to protect your country's borders from illegal invaders if you wish to keep your country.

If, as you say, it's historically significant, then shouldn't it be learned in school? Did things or did things not begin to change in America in 1492?
Who's celebrating anything? This particular quiz doesn't address the Columbus Day holiday. It simply gives a fact and a year, and that the facts themselves have become offensive and therefore should be hidden/changed is the hallmark of the left.

I suppose one could call political correctness "treating other people with respect." One could also call war "peace" and freedom "slavery", if one were of a mind.

[frodi]

Sept 18, 2019 7:28:15 GMT -5 Ben said:

Sept 18, 2019 6:49:17 GMT -5 graham said:

Who said anything about things happening before then not being important? I think it's especially important to learn the warlike history of the Native tribes, who routinely forced each other out of their land. If nothing else, we should learn from them that it's critical to protect your country's borders from illegal invaders if you wish to keep your country.

"The warlike history of the native tribes".  Have you read European history from 1000 until 1945.  It was just one war after the other.

[graham]

Sept 18, 2019 7:28:15 GMT -5 Ben said:

I suppose one could call political correctness "treating other people with respect." One could also call war "peace" and freedom "slavery", if one were of a mind.

Clearly, however, ignorance is most definitely strength...

[Ben]

Sept 18, 2019 15:51:34 GMT -5 frodi said:

Sept 18, 2019 7:28:15 GMT -5 Ben said:

Who said anything about things happening before then not being important? I think it's especially important to learn the warlike history of the Native tribes, who routinely forced each other out of their land. If nothing else, we should learn from them that it's critical to protect your country's borders from illegal invaders if you wish to keep your country.

"The warlike history of the native tribes".  Have you read European history from 1000 until 1945.  It was just one war after the other.

I never said it wasn't. Were we talking about the history of Europe or America?

They fought a bunch in Asia and Africa, too.

[Jim]

It's only revisionist history because it's correcting a false narrative.

If you're going to credit any European with discovering North America, at least give credit to Leif Erikson. He landed on Greenland, and likely made it to Newfoundland, a full 500 years before Columbus set sail.

[Ben]

Sept 20, 2019 16:49:25 GMT -5 Jim said:

It's only revisionist history because it's correcting a false narrative.

If you're going to credit any European with discovering North America, at least give credit to Leif Erikson. He landed on Greenland, and likely made it to Newfoundland, a full 500 years before Columbus set sail.

Which part of the narrative is false?

Kudos to Leif, but Europe seems to have forgotten about his discovery by the 1400s, and it certainly didn't lead to the development of the Americas. He should be mentioned during the appropriate lesson, along with Vasco da Gama, Magellan, and all the other explorers who did neat things. But here are the facts, simplified:

• In the 1400s, Europe didn't know land existed across the ocean. They figured either it was the end of the earth or maybe India.
  
• Starting with the European explorer Christopher Columbus in 1492, Europeans discovered the Americas. Other people knew the Americas existed (e.g. those living there), but the Europeans in general did not, until now.
  
• This discovery, unlike any others, led directly to colonization and eventually to the entire western hemisphere as we know it today, which would not exist as we know it without those first discovery missions. Starting in 1492. With Columbus. (Who, like everyone else on earth, was not perfect.)
  

There is no possible way to talk about the history of the continent now existing without including the facts of its discovery by the Europeans. It is a foundational event.

And all this stupid quiz did is ask a date for this factual event which actually happened. The outrage is ridiculous.

[Jim]

Which part of the false narrative? The part where Columbus DID NOT discover America. Just because Europe forgot doesn't change anything.

The real truth is the Americas were discovered by nomadic Asian tribes when they crossed a frozen Bearing Sea and filtered down through the West Coast. Leif is the first known European to land here.

[mollypop]

Stupid question day is it?  Here's one for you - and on topic too.

In addition to Ardi, a possible direct ancestor, it is possible here to find hominid fossils from as recently as 160,000 years ago—an early Homo sapiens like us—all the way back to Ardipithecus kadabba, one of the earliest known hominids, who lived almost six million years ago.

Question:  Did the earliest hominids 'discover' the moon 6 million years ago simply by seeing it and knowing it was there, or did Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin 'Discover' the moon by planting a flag on it in '69?  Hey, at least they WENT there...

Kind of like Columbus planting the flag when he 'discovered' North America.  Did he really discover anything at all?  He simply went to a place 'his' people had never been before, just like Erickson and Neil and Buzz.

You can't find (discover) something that was never lost to begin with.

 - L -

[martycanuck]

Sept 21, 2019 9:54:50 GMT -5 mollypop said:

Stupid question day is it?  Here's one for you - and on topic too.

In addition to Ardi, a possible direct ancestor, it is possible here to find hominid fossils from as recently as 160,000 years ago—an early Homo sapiens like us—all the way back to Ardipithecus kadabba, one of the earliest known hominids, who lived almost six million years ago.

Question:  Did the earliest hominids 'discover' the moon 6 million years ago simply by seeing it and knowing it was there, or did Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin 'Discover' the moon by planting a flag on it in '69?  Hey, at least they WENT there...

Kind of like Columbus planting the flag when he 'discovered' North America.  Did he really discover anything at all?  He simply went to a place 'his' people had never been before, just like Erickson and Neil and Buzz.

You can't find (discover) something that was never lost to begin with.

 - L -

That’s simply not possible MP. There’s a book that says Adam and Eve were the first people ever on earth....

[MalcolmR]

I'm sorry folks, but you are arguing semantics. Discover has a number of synonyms. From the Collins dictionary:-

discover (dɪskʌvəʳ )
Word forms: 3rd person singular present tense discovers , present participle discovering , past tense, past participle discovered
1. verb
If you discover something that you did not know about before, you become aware of it or learn of it.

You do not have to be the first person to discover something, to be able to say you discovered it.

[mollypop]

Yeah, there's also a book that says 'global warming' will kill us all in the next few years too.

People lie.

 - L -

[graham]

Sept 21, 2019 14:53:56 GMT -5 martycanuck said:

That’s simply not possible MP. There’s a book that says Adam and Eve were the first people ever on earth....

*cough* Lilith *cough*

[graham]

Sept 21, 2019 15:58:02 GMT -5 MalcolmR said:

You do not have to be the first person to discover something, to be able to say you discovered it.

Yeah! I just discovered that if you have a round object, it makes moving things much easier...!

[Ben]

Sept 22, 2019 6:22:38 GMT -5 graham said:

Sept 21, 2019 15:58:02 GMT -5 MalcolmR said:

You do not have to be the first person to discover something, to be able to say you discovered it.

Yeah! I just discovered that if you have a round object, it makes moving things much easier...!

Graham's discovery of the wheel. Others already knew about it, but Graham just discovered it for himself. In much the same way, we say babies discover their toes.

Congratulations on your discovery, and thanks for helping make my point.

[graham]

Ben appears not to have discovered sarcasm...

[Ben]

Sept 25, 2019 4:34:34 GMT -5 graham said:

Ben appears not to have discovered sarcasm...

And if I did, it would be my discovery of sarcasm, despite the fact that others have already discovered it.

Deeper and deeper...

[graham]

Lol! You are getting desperate now.

Perhaps you can also tell us when you discovered how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...?

[frodi]

Sept 27, 2019 5:07:27 GMT -5 graham said:

Lol! You are getting desperate now.

Perhaps you can also tell us when you discovered how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...?

Everybody knows

[D]octors declare that in heaven a thousand angels can stand on the point of a needle.

Source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_the_head_of_a_pin%3F

Now I hope that that settles that!