I hated that movie, and the other one that came out the same year. Much better was the joint Spanish-American miniseries that came out in 1985, with Gabriel Byrne as Cristoforo Colombo (they used the real names), Faye Dunaway as Isabella, Nicol Williamson as Ferdinand, Max von Sydow as King John of Portugal, and Oliver Reed as Martin Pinzon.

It was an absolutely spectacular historical piece, with most of the major players portrayed, and spanning five hours.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088916/

The bad news is that it has never been released on DVD, at least not to the American market. There is a Region 2 release from Denmark, in English with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles.

I agree, and I think it started right then and there. My point is that the best evidence indicates that Columbus himself wasn't involved.

I read a lovely book a couple of years ago (I can't remember the name offhand) that explained how English traders and military men tried to "free" the natives from Spanish abuses, then turned around and did the same things themselves. They didn't really care; it was just an excuse to get the natives to rebel. All they were really after was their piece of the pie.

Like the American-Spanish war!

This is what I love about subsim.
The ability for a bunch of intelligent people to have debates with each other! :sunny:

Thanks for the write up, Steve, I enjoyed reading it. It's amazing that it took years for CC to get his funding and voyage set up.

Very informative! Admittedly this period and topic is one of my weak areas in history, so I've learned something very good indeed here :)

Sadly, missionary work then was more about economics, first came explorers, soldiers, traders, then missions followed. One large recent debate I got into was how the gospel was spread based on economics, makes the more fundy believers rather upset.

However, there were some missionairies that were furious how the natives were treated and knew it would take decades if not generations to convert them, but that wasn't acceptable to the overall plan. Many of these were replaced by more political religious figures that pushed more a convert or die plan.

Ending, how can you blame the natives for refusing our culture and beliefs, we were killing them and taking all they knew, so they stuck with the old ways and most fought to their deaths through the 1800's.

I'm right in the middle of reading a whole series of books by naval historian Peter Padfield, making the case that virtually all exploration and all naval combat from 1450 through 1800 was about economics, and trying to get the big share of the pie. Vasco da Gama made the Portuguese trade to India work, mostly facing opposition from and waging war against the Muslim merchants who already had a monopoly on the trade in the area.

Those believers might be even more upset if they knew the real causes behind the Spanish Armada and the attempted invasion of England in 1588. King Phillip II of Spain had been married to Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII. Mary was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon (herself the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella!), and she was trying to restore Catholicism as the primary Faith, at sword's point, of course. When she died her younger sister Elizabeth became Queen, and being the daughter of Anne Boleyn she was of course a good Protestant. At that time if she married she would likely relinquish all her power to her husband, so she played several Royal suitors off each other, promising to marry several, or at least promising to think about it. Phillip got so annoyed that he petitioned the Pope to give him men and money to subjugate England. The Pope told him he would get nothing, because his enterprise had nothing to do with religion and faith, being rather about greed and revenge. When Mary Stuart, "Queen of Scotts" was executed for plotting against her cousin Elizabeth, then the Pope started demanding that Phillip go and attack England.

Then there were the Anglo-Dutch wars of the 1600s, but in that case both sides freely admitted that they really were wars to control trade by sea.

Sure Cortez and others killed the kings and chiefs, and wiped out major civilizations, but mostly the Spaniards weren't so much interested in killing the natives as enslaving them. After all, free labor was needed to mine all that silver so "good" Englishmen like Drake and Hawkins could steal it from them on the way home. On the other hand I'm not sure if the colonists at Jamestown did anything to deserve being slaughtered by locals in 1607. Details are sketchy at best, and the Europeans never had a monopoly on killing people to get their goods and land.

It's a cruel world.

Very good stuff Steve. It's funny how much more complicated the story is than what you learn in school. So much personal and political intrigue.

One thing that always amazed me was the time line. From the landing on San Salvador in Oct. 1492 to the conquest by Cortés was a little over twenty years. This to me seems like a very short time considering the lines of communication and supply. And again a lot of intrigue and personal ambition to stir the pot. Rather than a conquest by Spain, it was a group of very ambitious individuals looking for fame and fortune. And there was a lot of competition as to who would lead this adventure.

Yes and it's not at all strange that it was about money and religion.

A book I read a few years ago that I found interesting.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...t_of_New_Spain

A first hand account of Hernán Cortés' conquest by one of his conquistadors, Bernal Díaz del Castillo. Amazing and controversial story. And yes, it is a cruel world.

What made me fall in love with history was the realization that these were real people, doing real things and living real lives. My biggest regret is that this didn't happen for me until I was almost 40. I've read biographies of American heroes (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and most recently John Marshall), British kings and leaders, histories of civilizations and nations and genres (Grand Prix racing from 1892 to the 1970s) and of course naval history, including the development of different ship classes and the history of fire control at sea. There is so much to learn. I hate walking into our big Salt Lake City library, simply because all I see is thousands of books that I'll never get to read.

My late friend Rocky once said that it wasn't until he was 30 that he was possessed by a desire to find his old high-school history teacher and beat the crap out of him for making it so boring!

No, it's not, but it came as a surprise to me. I just don't think that way, and finding out that others do forced me to realize that there are people far different from me.

Never heard of it, but it's on my list now. Thanks! :rock:

Glad to hear you at least realized it yourself. There are plenty of people who won't and to them, it seems to me, history is not about what human beings have done or quite as often failed to do. It's a series of events, series of names, series of numbers, series of anything you can imagine. Neat, separate blocks that they then start categorizing: us and them, good and evil, black and white. It's a scary way to approach the past.

Us historians are not above the blame for this. Things are changing here, it's seen everywhere on the field (pedagogy, research, museums, you name it), but it won't happen in a day. More like in a generation or two and where it goes from there, nobody knows yet.

"In fourteen-hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

What more does anyone need to know?
:rotfl2:

It depends. Who did he vote for?

:rotfl2: :rock:

SS,

Have you been to the Jamestown settlement? I do some metal detecting about a mile from it when I go hunting in Va.

I love history, always have, mostly the Civil War era. I've been metal detecting for about 25 years. The more I dug from the ground, the more I studied.

Lately, I've been into hunting indian relics, mostly arrowheads. One of my good friends has a massive indian relic collection. Since he was a kid he has picked up 1000's of them on family land, usually after they plow. His collection has been studied and several museums have asked for it. Now I'm a big fan of our local indian history. We've been told most of what he has is from the Keyauwee tribe, although he also has lot's of stuff from what appeard to be later Cherokee.

Nope. Never been to Virginia, though I almost moved there in 1998. One of the many places I've always wanted to see.