Tea at Trianon: The Historical Falsification of Columbus’ ‘Crimes’

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, October 17, 2021

The Historical Falsification of Columbus’ ‘Crimes’

From The American Spectator:

There are misconceptions, some of them benevolent, some malignant, some neutral, that, repeated, persist for a very long time in spite of their not being true. One such misconception is that Christopher Columbus set out on his voyage to dispel the popular view of his time that the world was flat. In reality, that idea was an urban legend that originated in the mid-1800s. No one, as far back as the Ancient Greeks, really thought that the earth was flat.

But there are other misconceptions about Columbus that are extremely malignant. In recent decades, Christopher Columbus has been demonized. He has been called a war criminal, a thief, a rapist, a bumbling fool, and someone who carried out genocide. These accusations have supposedly been the basis for the recent vandalism and destruction of statues in America of Christopher Columbus in the cities of Richmond, St. Paul, Baltimore, Miami, Wilmington, San Antonio, Sacramento, St. Louis, Detroit, Trenton, Buffalo, Boston, and Providence (in Providence, the vandalism was done by a middle school teacher). In states controlled by Democrats, Columbus Day has been replaced by Indigenous Peoples’ Day, particularly during anniversaries of his discovering the New World (an instance of cultural appropriation), while some Republicans in Congress are trying to replace Columbus Day with Juneteenth Day. (Read more.)