Christopher Columbus: What Really Happened

Bad Crayfish Productions

Check out my new video about the First Thanksgiving on my new channel, "Uncivil History" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ociHVDWxDaY&t=2s Subscribe for more videos: http://goo.gl/Z8E50 An educational animation which recounts the four voyages of Columbus. Hope you enjoy! Bibliography at bottom of description AUTHOR'S NOTE: This video is meant to give a non-bias account of the events which unfolded when Columbus and his crew made contact with the people of the Caribbean. Of course, I was not able to fit everything into the video; I had to omit details, such as the fact that the Taino were not the only people that Columbus encountered (there were also the Ciguayo tribe and Carib cannibals). A second particular is that not all fault should lie directly on Columbus' shoulders. His crew of 1,200 for the second journey consisted partly of convicts and landless nobles, the worst type of people with which to build a settlement. Another fact is that Columbus grew up in societies (Genoa, then Portugal) that kept domestic slaves. I have no political agenda for making this video. I am a student of history and I have tried to give an account of Columbus' journeys that is as close as we can possibly get to the truth. I will I admit that I am not a fan of Columbus. I think he was cruel, even for his time. We cannot judge a 15th-century human from a 21st-century perspective; but even for the 15th century, he was an awful arbiter. Sources: Bergreen, Laurence. Columbus: The Four Voyages. Viking Penguin, 2011. Carman, Harry J., and Harold C. Syrett. A History of the American People. Vol. 1. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952. Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. 1492; The Year the World Began. Harper Collins e-books, 2009. Hale, Edward E. The Life of Christopher Columbus from His Own Letters and Journals. Rockville, Maryland: Arc Manor, 2008. Haywood, John. Historical Atlas of the Medieval World. New York: Metro Books, 2000. Jotischky, Andrew, and Caroline Hull. Historical Atlas of the Medieval World. London: The Penguin Group, 2005. Loewen, James, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Touchstone, 1995. Lybyer, A. H., "The Ottoman Turks and the Routes of Oriental Trade," The English Historical Review, Vol. 30, No. 120. (Oct., 1915), pp. 577-588. Mann, Charles. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Morison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. Boston: Little Brown and Co. 1942. Phillips, William & Phillips, Carla, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pickering, Keith. The Columbus Navigation Homepage. http://www.columbusnavigation.com/cctl.shtml Pohl, John. The Conquistador: 1492-1550. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2001 . Sale, Kirkpatrick. Christopher Columbus and the Conquest of Paradise. London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2006. Scafetta, Joesph Jr. Columbus and the Indians: Friend of Foe? http://www.osia.org/documents/Columbus_FriendorFoe.pdf The Most Important Maps Since the Dawn of Printing, Part I: Tradition and Innovation. Arader Galleries. Udovitch, A. L. '"Levant Trade in the Later Middle Ages'", The American Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 1 (Feb., 1986), 92. Varela, C. Cristobal Colon: Textos y Documentos Completos. Madrid: Alianza, 1984. Vignaud, Henry. "Columbus: A Spaniard and a Jew", The American Historical Review, Vol. 18, No. 3 (April, 1913), pp. 505-512. Wilford, John Noble. The Mysterious History of Christopher Columbus: An Exploration of the Man, the Myth, the Legacy. (1991) Young, Filson. Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery. Vol. 6. London: E. Grant Richards, 1906.