Monteph If by “inevitable,” he means forcing them to live in horrific conditions, deported from their natural homes and resources needed to treat their illnesses, suppression of their culture, banning their languages, and requiring them to work nonstop in the encomienda system (said system was even described by one historian as being worse than if they had straight up enslaved them). So no, it wasn’t inevitable, because most peopke do not work hundreds of thousands of people, many to death, as well as mass starving them, engaging in ethnic cleansing, torture and maim people (even those directly working for him) and be arrested for their atrocities.
I'm an anthropologist who studies colonial Peru, and can confirm that the encomienda system is absolutely horrific- it's hard to study the physical effects on individuals (intense joint degeneration from hard labor, early life stresses that affect mortality risk, etc) and know that they're manifestations of human suffering. The spanish forced them into inhospitable lands that couldn't grow crops, taking all the arable land for their plantations and livestock, forced them to work the plantations and evaporite mines, and drove the domesticated llamas the people relied on into regional extinction, among many, many other things. thank you for making such an in-depth video- i was surprised to see many of the same sources I used to write about spanish colonialism here!
@@johnwaas4864 surely yes, the Incas were an empire, but the problem is that many peruvians say today that spaniards and indigenous peruvians were equal and pretend to diminish the cruelty of the colonial regime. The incas were cruel to their enemies and their own people but they really were more fair and humane than the spanish crown, you can check that with the dispute of Valladolid which was given in colonial times.
@petoz2 It kinda was,Peru is 60% indigenous,the people dint just die off,the majority of Peruvians can trace their ancestry to the first settlers in the continent.
@@johnwaas4864 The horrific actions of an empire are not excused by another taking a similar action before them. The Spaniards weren't the first country to practice African slavery either, but that doesn't make it any less awful that they did.
@@rockstar450 but you're still deflecting the conversation at the hand which is about Christopher Columbus. So before going to the next step, since this videos about Christopher Columbus, why not talk about that since that came first!?
some of those ancient South American peoples don't get enough credit for their absolutely insanely precise architecture. Like we're talking about stuff that rivals ancient Egypt, and anyone who's nerded out on ancient Egyptian architecture and their buildings knows how mind boggling some of this is even by today's standards. and it stretches back way before anything we have records on, a lot of this stuff was already ancient by the time the Spanish arrived.
@@Sykoze Wow I had no idea. I was taught by my math teacher that the zero was invented in India in the 5th century, but I looked it up and that's totally off. Thanks for sharing this fact!
@@andytruss1259 Hey, always glad to share knowledge! Most of history is nothing like they teach in school, sadly - the Americas were considerably more advanced than Europe and Asia in a lot of important ways. Astronomy, diplomacy, architecture, math, and agriculture were all areas they were either equally advanced or had surpassed the old world. *Edit* I meant astronomy, I don't know why I typed philosophy. Probably because I'm stoned, both are heavily associated with the Greeks.
@@Sykoze Exactly, even by colonist's own standards the Americas a place where very "advanced" societies formed. Even more appealing to me though is the idea that advancement is kind of a meaningless word when talking about societies/cultures. Yes, human society evolves over time, and many European societies were indeed very far removed from the kinds of social organization they encountered elsewhere in the world, but crucially, evolution does not equal progress. Progress is always measured relative to a particular ethical perspective, whereas evolution, the change of society over time, is apparent regardless of perspective. Add to this the fact that societies don't all evolve along the same linear path and the whole notion of comparing societies based on advancement falls apart
@@andytruss1259 That's what I was getting at when I said they were more advanced in a lot of important ways. Even in modernity, people tend to think of civilisation as a series of stages centered around prevalent material technology, which is absolutely absurd. I'd argue that a civilisation's level of organisation, level of diplomacy with their neighbours, and ability to take care of the needs of their people far outweigh the material technology they can deploy when it comes to measuring their level of advancement.
Wow I came into this from Reddit where people said you were unfair and overly harsh. After watching this comprehensive breakdown of not only the bad faith arguments, but straight up lies in the original video, your tone is very appropriate.
Knowing Better has changed his stances very greatly recently, especially on the effects of colonialism and on Columbus. People can change, and Knowing Better's content seems to be much better, especially with talking about how horrible the US has been and his series on deconstructing and debunking the "Standard American History" mythos that has been pushed in school.
@@Planet.Xplor3r No he fucking hasn't lmao. Maybe on Columbus he realized you can't in good faith defend his actions. But his defence of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza is direct proof that he openly supports colonialism. The guy VOLUNTARILY joined the Iraq War.
Calling it genocide implies it was done on purpose,but the natives died from something neither they nor the europeans understood. Many europeans died from diseases like syphilis brought to europe from the americas,but no one calls that genocide.
@@macedonianfighter6987you‘re implying that the natives were only killed by diseases brought by the spaniards, even though the spaniards killed or enslaved most of the natives. It might not have been a genocide in the modern industrial sense but the spanish treated the natives as subhuman and their lives were nothing if worth to them.
A section of the Spaniard right seems to be currently propagating the sickening idea that their empire in the Americas was actually benevolent, and that the Spanish empire has been the victim of a historical smear campaign. I found this out after browsing in a local bookstore and finding a book called "La Leyenda Negra" (the black legend), where the author tries to basically say that the conquistadors were actually good because the Incas and the Aztecs were basically as bad as the n4z!s.
@F-35B LIGHTNING II fighter jet. #BlueLivesMatter Why do you prefer facts over feels? Seriously, you right-wing reactionaries just virtue signaling snowflakes. Why not exit your safe space, and actually see if what you are so convinced of is actually correct? You guys just seem so afraid of finding out that you are wrong that it really seems like you must already know that you are.
@F-35B LIGHTNING II fighter jet. #BlueLivesMatter "your first sentence is funny as it is you using your feelings to assume everything about me." Only because you have trouble reading. "I am not right wing" You virtue signal like a right-winger. I suspect it is more about the labels you prefer, rather than an ability to identify what it is that you believe. Again, feels over facts. Or you are utterly incompetent at presenting what you believe. "I barely listened to either video because i dont care what research a youtuber has to bring to a table." It wasn't the "TH-camr's" research but research from historians, who wrote books on the topic. The point stands that you don't care about the facts of the matter, but instead rely on your feelings. "We're talking about a man who lived hundreds of years ago and we are sitting here thinking we can dictate what thoughts he had based off of random papers, what a joke humanity has become." Again, if you cared about the facts, they were the thoughts the man wrote down himself in letters, etc. The ultimate 'joke' of humanity is you. A person who relies on their feelings, and is ultimately not only indifferent to, but hostile towards the facts. A snowflake who acts like their feelings are more important than reality. You just prove my point.
@F-35B LIGHTNING II fighter jet. #BlueLivesMatter "I virtue signal like a right winger?" Yes, anti-Black Lives Matter, anti-feminist, anti-Democrat, and the pro-military bit is a nice touch. All the signals you send out (none of which are relevant to the topic at hand), are embraced in the right-wing. If you look at ideological patterns, there are a number of other positions I think you would be likely to hold. "I proved your point? How's that? Because I request a side with more facts?" You aren't interested in the facts. That's why you feel you are qualified to speak on this topic while simultaneously making it clear you are not interested in understanding what the actual arguments are. You don't want to watch the video and actually analyze an argument. You just want to make claims with your feels. If you were interested in the facts, you would actually engage with the material in good faith, and be open to the possibility that you could be wrong. By metaphorically plugging your ears, you ensure your safe space within your echo chamber. No need to think or change your position. "So its funny how you get so upset saying i am putting feelings over facts when i am doing the exact opposite." I'm not upset. I'm more amused by you than anything. Your lack of self-awareness is amazing. "A FACT is that any document of columbus could have easily been fabricated and just been plastered as real. That is a possibility." I love how you pretend to be a skeptical, yet utterly fail at it. The question to ask yourself is what is most likely to be true, and what do the experts think about the documents? Rather than just picking whatever 'possibility' you like best with your feels. Just because you can imagine something doesn't mean it is likely to be true. "The fact that you read columbus's transcripts and only go with the violent translations that fit your agenda despite there are other peaceful translations is the very definition of putting feelings first." See, this is what happens when you pretend to understand an argument while simultaneously being completely ignorant because you can't be bothered to watch a video. How embarrassing for you. Knowing Better did a poor job with research, as there were letters in which Columbus talked about slaves which were omitted. The fact Columbus had previously been involved in slave trading was omitted. And also shipments of Native American slaves back to Europe was also omitted. And the fact that Columbus faced criticism and investigations into his treatment of Native Americans was omitted. Knowing Better simply relied on Google Translate, where the person who made this video is fluent in Spanish, so they can understand what Columbus wrote in the original Spanish. You think Google Translate is more reliable than a person who is fluent in a language? And then there are the historians and experts. You seem to judge experts with your feels. You accept expert opinion (even when it isn't 'expert', such as the case with Knowing Better) when it feels good, but you reject it (even invoking conspiracy theories if necessary) when it doesn't. It's very irrational and emotional of you. Also, a fondness for conspiracy theories, while not exclusively right-wing, is *VERY* popular on the right these days. It is extremely clear that if you like what is said, you will defend it, and if you don't, you will attack it. It has nothing to do with the content of what is being said, just your feels. You will just provide whatever post-hoc rationalizations you think you can in an attempt to justify your position. It's a great way to pretend to be rational while simultaneously being completely irrational.
It's funny that subject sounds similar to subjugate But in Spanish the word for subject is subdito and the word subyugar literally is a contraction of sub yugo ir "under the yoke"
I like how the defense of encomienda is "Well, they aren't private property, they are just forced laborers with no rights that face state violence if they resist" This is also Very Bad!
"I assert that the violence of the calumny of turbulent persons has injured me more than my services have profited me..." is Columbus whining about Cancel Culture all the way back in the year 1500.
I’m legit shocked that Knowing Better was the one who made that video. That was the first video I found by him, and I wrote him off pretty quickly. I found the rest of his videos later, and subscribed without realizing he was the same guy who made the Columbus defense. The difference in research and quality was mind boggling.
the Google translated quotes didn't really even contradict the existing translation. the incredulous indignation wasn't even warranted by the horseshit that Google spat out
So how do you explain the Italian translations that agree with his translation where "servant" wasn't intended as "slave" but as "servant of God" i.e. Christians?
@@ValleyoftheLeaf what do Italian mistranslations have to do with the original Spanish? gringo, there's people that speak Spanish. It's literally fucking obvious. but mostly, HE WAS A FUCKING SLAVE TRADER, that should be enough to explain his intent
@@marciaosullivan3200 except Columbus didn't come over to kill the natives as quickly as possible and the 90% death toll that happened was inevitable with or without Columbus leading or the most saintly explorer ever. Genocide requires intent, else wise it is not a crime.
I literally read sources translated from Spanish and in Spanish (because I can read but not speak Spanish) by a missionary priest who tldr said “holy shit this guy is a fracking near homicidal maniac and brutal to these people to where some are killing their kids and themselves to escape him”
What does anybody think of Tv Tropes claims in Fate Grand Order that Cristopher Columbus wasn't really that bad in the Rider Of Resistance in the section about Riders?
Time Stamps of Analysis: Part 1: 0:00 Introduction. Analyzing how an amateur historian does bad history. Columbus is an important historical character and event for many modern and present day reasons. 5:00 The use of certain terminology and language such as “Development” or Progress” is discussed. Use of the word “tribe.” Use of the word “discovery.” 10:00 You don’t need animal domestication to have large and dense cities or urban centers. 12:05 Small Pox epidemic didn’t cause the 90% kill rate until starting about more than ten years after Columbus’ death. Issues with the ethics of the relationship between the local population and European colonizers. 16:00 The “Inevitability argument.” 17:00 The “main refutation” begins. 19:00 The argument on the primary journal source of the discourse around the term “servant.” 21:00 Discourse analysis on the term of “subjugation” via the google translate app.
Part 2: 21:00-24:00 The Discourse analysis and more specifically the Ecomienda discourse analysis. 27:00 Death rate in Hispaniola during the Columbus Ecomienda resulted in huge death rates for the people who had lived there. 28:30 The obvious semantic “white washing” of the intentions and actions of Columbus towards the native people. 30:00 Columbus was intimate with the slave trade, used the word in his writings, and also had at least a 10% stake in all wealth exploitation or creation in “discovered” lands. 32:00 A random rant-note by Knowing Better on the semantics of “murder” via Intent via the Trayvon Martin case. 35:00 Analysis of the source of Bartolemu de las Casas, as a inconvenient counter to main stream narratives. 36:00 Columbus made the first 5 slave trade trips between the “old and new” worlds. 38:30 Columbus’s actions of promoting and boosting the cross-Atlantic ocean slave trade went against the normal ethos in Europe at the time. 40:00 Did Columbus actually “cut off hands” of the colonists for rape and sexual slavery? No source for this.
Part 3: 41:00 Source proves that Columbus treated people brutality for egotistical reasons, such as family name. Not out of “protecting indigenous people.” 44:00 and 45:00 Columbus source material explicitly states young girls as an economic unit for sale or trade. Columbus has multiple known instances of kidnapping women. 48:00 Bartolome de las Casa actual primary source on Columbus. 50:00 Strange argument on De Las Casas, around the claim of “altered diaries of Columbus.” 52:00 Historians since the 1930’s already basically settled the argument of “Diary Altered.” 54:00 The “black legend” myth, is a myth.
Part 4: 1:00:00 How many people did Columbus actually kill? Via the sources. 1:05:00 Responsibility ethos of Columbus: Yes, he was the highest political authority for a period of time on Hispaniola. 1:06:00 Was Columbus a “normal” type of person of the age? Were his actions “not that bad” in relative historical context? 1:12:00 The POV of native Americans matters. Columbus Day has heavy annotations and connotations. 1:16:00 Columbus is an important historical myth of the present day. History on Columbus matters as an identity marker and as a narrative of colonization in the Americas. (1893 Columbian World Fair Exhibition of Chicago, for example, the Devil in the White city, for example).
@@itsblitz4437 most people came to the video to watch it... Lmao sorry but I guess we enjoy the "raving" even though he's calm and respectable the entire time. 😅 I think you're just hopelessly rude... stop posting all over these videos
@@mortiag.9668 you really believe in him... I am not going to make any calims about most of what he say is right or wrong cause I don't have time for, but the first few minutes make it clear how much of a genius he is. He thinks that sophiscated society is the equavelce of advancement, in which I would say no it is not, it is just a trait of it. You have to realise that Genghes Khan's son was having a sophiscated society, as well as many other European cities before 1500s. Secendly, the fact that don't even have guns to support or defend them proves there technological advancement more accurately. Oh another thing... YOU NEED PACK ANIMALS FOR BUG SOCIETY... It is not possible to build one without fast and reliable connection. The part where he says that the native population was not wiped out to almost 90% is absolutely ridiculous. There is literally no reason why it will not happen and it is just one historian. Heck there isn't even hundred percent confirmaty among intellectuals in anything. That's is just one guy, some scientist still believe the earth is flat. I don't know how well his rest of the video is.. But if all of his other points are correct than these are excusable however I don't think that is the case.
@@goastlyarrowplays Yeah, a private citizen couldn't sell you. But a lord could replace you without paying, so they were much less likely to care about your health or wellbeing. If Haitian slavery is anything to go by, the cheaper slaves are, the more cruel their conditions tend to be.
The argument of "developed" peoples reminds me of a talking point I'm often met with resistance to when discussing biology. No organism is "more evolved" than another organism, that's a completely subjective term. All organisms are just adapted to fill a certain niche in their environment.
Exactly! And an organism being more primitive doesn't mean it's less adapted. Sharks haven't changed for hundreds of millions of years because they don't need to - they're already perfect.
I think the argument is that with more resources a society can develop more technologically, rather than biologically, so for example the Europeans ended up with superior weaponry because the territory they inhabited allowed them to
@@LimeyLassen Not 'perfect,' they just don't die based on some specific trait like they used to. Humans are similar, but far more extreme, surviving entirely regardless of our biological abilities.
@@tonywords6713 except that europeans were the first ones to perfect, manufacture, and utilize gunpowder in there weapons at any large scale. Thats like dismissing newtons work because he didn't come up with algebra.
During my childhood, when we learned about Columbus, he was depicted as a hero and we sang nice little children's songs about him. Learning about the atrocities that he was responsible for only fairly late in my life was shocking. I felt betrayed by my school system, that hadn't bothered mentioning any of that.
Last name First name still there’s a big difference between softening the blow of what someone did for a kid to understand, and glorifying that person.
I watched the KnowingBetter video first, and thought the bits debunking the "Columbus was an idiot who thought he was in India" were interesting, but once I got to the point where he tried to debunk scholarly translations by running them in Google Translate I felt like I had to get a second opinion...
I watched kbs vid first and his talk on the forced servitude of the native Americans is what did it for me, felt very reminiscent of "slavery was actually better for black people than freedom in Africa was" type of argument
This highly edited guy lost me #1 he cannot finish a sentence without 5 edits and his first argument is putting critical race theory into the study of history. That is extremely dangerous, I saw a documentary that had strong evidence a certain American Indian tribe were cannibals. Knife marks on bones, burn marks on bones, fork marks on the inside of skulls, bones broken after being cooked to get the marrow. The documentary actually had people arguing that this research to even start it was racist and was view with “a colonial” mind set. And when he’s arguing about pack animals, spawn points, disease, that is a dead horse brought by Guns, Germs and Steel. You know.. that highly popular book made popular by the movie Goodwill Hunting. Lol this guy is rubbish, his political views are obvious and destroying his view on history.
Well. Slavery was global. Everyone did it. So everyone was evil. So he wasn't more evil than anyone else. Just a person of the time. Now do you get the point?
@Juanito G that is another good point. Columbus is portrayed as an advocate of slavery because of your quote being missued to make him out to be an evil person. "SUBJECTS" were citizens of a kingdom. And not slaves.
@Juanito G literallt not true teabagger. Per his own writings he enslaved natives, killed huge numbers of tgem and he and his men took Children as sex slaves.
@@cdreid99999 The writer cites Columbus but does not give the source for where he wrote that, so there is no reason to trust him. If you cite someone, you put the source somewhere in the book that is accessible. He did not do that.
I did some research on the Valladolid debate once. The event took place from 1550-1551 in Spain in the city of Valladolid. As mentioned in the video, Bartolome de las Casa argued for better treatment of the indigenous natives against many opponents, including Juan Gines de Sepulveda. My real point in bringing this up is to say: during my research I came across remarks which spoke of the true intentions of the Spanish with regards to the natives. The Spanish had no intention of intermingling or intermarrying among the native population, they were only interested in the potential to make them good, loyal, Christian "subjects" of the crown, thus expanding the empire's influence. The Spanish certainly were interested in converting the natives, but would not have treated them as equals, even under the pretense of their shared Christianity. One of the points Bartolome argued was that the indigenous people actually have souls (in the Christian sense), which his opponent Sepulvada attempted to refute. What sort of treatment might one expect for the natives from Spaniards who believe these native people to be soulless and perhaps less than that of animals? It's clear the Spanish wanted to conquer and control the islands which we now know as the Dominican Republic, and forces the inhabitants into "subjugation," and the bad kind at that (is there a good kind?). Moreover, also mentioned in the video, the encomiendas, land grants essentially, included with the endowment an allotment of indigenous natives, who of which the holder of the encomienda could do with as they saw fit. Explain to me how this isn't slavery?
Also I love the European moral brow beating when a man loves anime girls making them feel like they’re gonna go to prison but their hero Christopher Columbus was literally breeding 9 year old girls lol.
I think Knowing Better's whole point was that it was "the Spanish" not Columbus, which is weak considering that he did exactly what they did but without the power of an entire country.
@@5_sets_of_triangle_pasta And indeed he was actually WORSE than what the Spanish crown wanted. Being a peon is bad enough, but Colombus wanted slaves! Instead of a caste of botton-tier peasants with no chance of social mobility or advancement, solely tools for the Dones, Colombus just used them as livestock. It kinda unraveled when part of that exploitation by the Europeans was sexual so we have Mestizos blurring social lines and leading to increasingly ridiculous racial castas.
Why is it that Knowing Better makes at least a dozen videos of how OTHER countries committed war crimes and are ‘playing the victim’, but the second someone wants him to make a video about a guy who caused the deaths of 100 million people, but helped ‘discover’ his OWN country, he just calls it ‘an exaggerated evil’?
He didn’t kill 100 million people. Not even a tenth of that during his lifetime. I don’t agree with KBs video but he is an exaggerated evil, because of comments like this where you just completely inflate numbers and statistics for the sake of a TH-cam comment.
I have to admit, I was sceptical. I do think that Columbus often gets used as a stand-in for colonialism and conquistadors in general in a way that tends to make people overstate their case with extraneous insults to his intelligence(ie. the "Columbus was an idiot who was terrible at navigation" meme is not really accurate--he knew about as much as people of his time knew about the size, shape and layout of the globe). Watching Knowing Better's video, those were the main takeaways I had--not that Columbus was an ok guy, but that his critics overdo the amount of cruelty and stupidity they attribute to him. Insofar as it made that point, I found the video worthwhile. What I should have considered more, and what I think is the most important point that BadEmpanada makes in this whole video, is the symbolic importance of Columbus. His name is irrevocably connected to the legacy of European colonialism, which means that even if specific criticisms of him are over-the-top, they serve a purpose in tarnishing what ought to be a more-widely derided history of colonial oppression. As Empanada rightly points out, many of KB's defenses against critiques of Columbus amount to him saying things like "X person was worse" or "this particular quote has less bad interpretations", which landed pretty well with me at the time (which I am somewhat embarrassed to admit). What I hadn't sufficiently considered before is that to debunk semi-comedic videos (the Adam Ruins Everything segment/Fake TED talk) and go after cherry-picked instances of people exaggerating Columbus' negatives isn't a particularly fair or productive way to go about making a historical video. If, rather than trying to make his argument respond to the question "Was Columbus as bad as Adam Conover says he is?", KB had started from a more neutral view, I think he would've found it far harder to make what amounts to a pro-Columbus case. Empanada did a good job pointing out that a fairer framing is whether or not Columbus was evil, which I think the evidence suggests that he was. Anyway, I feel like I am writing very unclearly and so I should probably just stop now. TL;DR: Thank you for this video BadEmpanada, you changed my mind on Knowing Better's video. I don't necessarily agree with how negatively you characterize his motives, but you have brought me around on the question of how the Columbus conversation ought to be framed, and how KB does a disservice by setting up his video the way that he does, making poor use of historical sources and not relying more on established historians who have studied the topic.
As an indigenous woman i really hope this woke you up and will change how you approach our history as Europe has done a lot to stomp on us and erase it.
Your first bit about navigation is wrong. About two thousand years before Columbus, Greek mathematicians estimated the size of the Earth to about 200 meters of its actual size. Spain had access to that knowledge in Greek, Latin, and Arabic during Columbus’ life. Columbus thought they were wrong. He thought that those Greek mathematicians had over stated the size of the Earth by four fold. And he oddly thought the Earth was pear shaped with Spain near the smallest edge making his trip super short.
@@waywornwyrm8135 knowing better actually does make a better case for his intelligence than his morality. CC didn't underestimate the size of the planet but the size of Asia. They didn't know how big Asia was. That's why when he landed short, he thought he was off the coast of Japan. Not because he underestimated the size of the ocean but over estimated the size of Asia.
Why are grown people so invested in Columbus being a cartoonish benevolent character like Santa Claus instead of a real historical figure with a lot of power and most likely did a lot of really bad shit anyway?
Because Columbus was a huge part of Catholic Italian immigrants 'becoming white' in the predominantly Protestant Northern European descended US of the early 20th century and late 19th century. Making him important was very advantageous to them, and accorded them the equality they needed.
@@donnalombardo4368 the crazy part Is why not use Marko Polo instead? oh wait it's because he went to China ain't it, and that is a no no in modern America
I wondered why KB has been making all kinds of new videos talking about the evils inflicted on people of color instead of defending colonialism. You must be why. Thank you
yeah his content has gotten a lot better over the years. i just wish he’d go back and address his columbus video. that’s what always threw me off about him in the first place.
@@jesusdontlikethatimgaybuts9493 From that other content I feel certain that any problems in KB video about Columbia was not a intentional desire to deceive because KB stans Columbia or something. I feel BE was too harsh on KB speaking to assumed motives of KB. Let's just stick to the issue pls.
I truly thank you for making this video. I actually fell for Knowing Better’s arguments without doing any research myself and needless to say I’m embarrassed. You gave me a lot of insight into how history is studied and talked about (I found the part in the intro where you talked about looking at history from a colonialist lens especially interesting, I never realised how coded the language we use was) and taught me more about an issue I knew little about but everyone and their grandma is trying to convince me wasn’t as big of a deal as everyone says. The colonialism defenders are everywhere these days and I really appreciate people like you who know a fair bit about history sitting down to make an hour and a half long video to explain these things to dumbasses like me. I love your content man, keep up the good work.
I really like how you touched upon the eurocentrism when it comes to "is this society very developed or not", because it rarely centers on the fact that "was this society sustainable?"
@@queenofdirt9082 this kind of religious environmental thinking is absolutely anti-human progress. "We must live a life of poverty to save the planet, yes, mother Earth is punishing us oh yes" Or maybe it is a matter of science, and we need to replace our fossil fuels with clean energy. It is 100% doable right now. France is a great model. We can replace all of our electricity with green sources within 10 years. Instead of ya know, not having stuff. Or becoming poorer.
I'm just now watching this so I can get to the thrilling sequel but I love that he thinks there must be some massive translation error overlooked by Everyone and the only way to verify what was really said is to run it through Google translate with a grain of salt. Its fucking spanish.
It's gerdarn moonspeak, not 'murican like we speak orrer here. Y'all ain't gots no clue what thems illegals be gabbin' about when yer fillin' up yer truck. An I sure as hell ain't never not gunna trust nobody what done speaks mexican. The google is the only way us good decent folks can unnerstand it.
Early modern Spanish my guy. Not to defend knowing worse. But the 1500-1700s is considered the Early modern period. Comparing to English it does have very many differences in the way the Spanish language was interpreted in the modern day. That being said. It's extremely ridiculous to me that knowing worse would think a Google translate app won't do a better job... Then historical linguistics experts and historians...
i cannot get over how he tries to worm his way out of being a colonizer by saying his ancestors arrived after the Indian Wars. "So, not me." fucking amazing
i'm sorry i got to the part where he puts a primary source into google translate to prove that it's been misrepresented and had to pause the video. this guy is a popular history youtuber?
Google translate wasn’t that off. I speak Spanish and it could be translated to serf like during the feudal age, subjects, or followers. It has no chance of it being slave. But when Knowing Better posted the video he had about 3,000 or 30,000 subscribers.
The thing is... that word should not be translated as slave, but was meant as a servant of God. He was talking about converting people to Christianity... not slavery. The Google Translate point doesn't matter and just obfuscates the fact that the translation is indeed WRONG.
To be fair, he's not just as much a history TH-camr, so much as a "True Facts" TH-camr. And not all of his "hot" takes are off the mark, even historical ones. But while at times he builds up to something good, he is very prone to veering off in weird directions, because he still holds some quite unexamined default views that influece his premises. And he very much isn't a historian. Or a scientist. So there's that, something to keep in mind, while watching how he tackles with the subjects he chooses to tackle. If our dear BadEmpanada would want to, I would very much be interested in a commentary of "Playing the Victim: Historical Revisionism and Japan". Good BadEmpanada. Gotta love the good, reasoned, founded work of a conscientious actual historian. If for nothing else, I thank that video Whtewash of Columbus for introducing me to this one.
Also, why would you use google translate for historical stuff? That's like using google translate for Shakespeare, a modern technology is not going to understand the context of languages back then. Language changes and the context can be very different.
@@TheWarwolf102 eh, the first one i guess. Though even there, Elastigirl would be jealous of how much of a stretch his reasoning for the "servants" bit was.
Great video. Thanks for doing this. My fiance is from Bolivia, and she's helped me understand the history and struggle of indigenous Americans. Honoring Columbus is really disrespectful to the descendents of the people he destroyed.
Yeah lots of people view civilizational development as linear despite it being anything but For example the wheel was only every independently developed twice in Mesoamerica and in Mesopotamia region an in many places it was abandoned in favor of camels
Also the kingdom of Benin built one of the largest planned cities in the world with street lighting paved roads and drainage systems without pack animals
And ‘m sure the Aztec in their gigantic capital capable of holding more people than any european city were really glad that the conquistadores showed them how to build an organized society instead of just being a "tribe".
Watched "Knowing Betters" video first... as you wisely suggested ...and then watched your presentation. Very effect process that reveals we can be brainwashed as passive viewers. Sincere and Respectful Thanks for Your Efforts, Gordon
Aboriginal civilisation lasted 60,000 years with continuity of art and culture. White Australia is barely 250 years old and the environment is already trashed. Will it last another 100 years? Not on the trajectory it is currently on. But when I use the words "Aboriginal civilisation", White Australians get so annoyed with me.
@@TheGingerMale You know I have been to Australia many times and I love the place. It's true, I have heard Australians say racist things out loud that astonished me. Things you wouldn't hear in UK, US. Even so I don't think Australia is more racist than UK or US. I just think Australians are naturally blunt and direct. In the US and especially UK people are much more reserved. You could know someone for years and have no idea.
Aboriginal Civilization consisted of two rocks stacked on top of each other, and a fire started by lightning 100+ years previous (which they’d just kept going because they didn’t know how to make fire). Not that high of a bar…
Como un hablante nativo de Español, en el momento que Knowing Better dijo que la traducción literal de un pasaje en Español era incorrecta, sabía que este iba a ser todo un viaje.
I am now impressed by how well my history teachers taught us in Form 1-3 after watching this video. I had no idea that so many people did not know this stuff. They never demonized Columbus, but I knew about almost all of this stuff at a high level.
I must say when I saw KB’s video on this topic It intrigued me since I knew nothing about the subject. I thought his take was interesting even though there were some red flags. This video imo picks apart fundamental logic deficiencies and faulty information very very thoroughly, my only complaint is that you didn’t make the video earlier. I can say You earned a subscriber mate. I’ve also followed the drama between you and KB (I like some of his videos) and I m happy to hear that it gets resolved
The problem is that he doesn't actually use any documentation or historical fact, but conjecture. He isn't actually providing any documentation to support his ideas. He only uses things like "contemporary authors" or "new historical theories". At least Knowing Better provides documentation and references. This guy even uses the idea of "maybe" a number of times. You can't use "maybe" as a refusal for an argument. At one point, he says that KB uses google translate to prove things. KB specifically states that google translate is wrong. Yet KB also says that it doesn't make sense. But this dude says that his own translation is right regardless of actual translations.
@@Sephirajo They are the real journal entries of Columbus, not what someone hundreds of years later thought he said, just like in Knowing Better's video. This mouth breather has no actual sourcing of his own, he just cites vague citations without actually providing anything except for saying things like "contemporary authors" or "new historical theories" like I stated above. If you just take this guy at his word, without any actual evidence, then you are being intellectually dishonest.
@@Sephirajo I’m not surprised at your reply. Just as devoid of proof as this video. But hey, laugh it up. It’s easier than admitting you might just be a sheep with confirmation bias
For me, when KB started criticizing professional translations, not speaking Spanish himself, and using fucking Google Translate as his tool, I lost it. It was especially galling to see him claim the translations were wrong when I was reading the Spanish myself and yelling, "Are you fucking kidding me? It says exactly what you say it doesn't!" Seriously, if you don't speak the language, you shouldn't criticize any translations. After that, it was just glorious watching you systematically take his video apart. I knew some of this and yet learned a lot more. It really was amazing to see just how much damage this one man did in such a short span of time. Man, they don't usually come that wicked. Is it more wicked that so many nominally less evil people have nevertheless tried to exonerate a man like Columbus? Seriously, never trust a centrist... They're "reasonable compromise" will pave a wide path to Hell!
Very well-researched video. I love your videos, and I wish I could donate. But I live in Ethiopia, where foriegn exchange is strictly regulated, so I can't (we can't use Patreon & similar services). Keep up the good fight :))
Well, the manifest destiny idea created a mentality that overlooked the immorality of colonizing the west for example. And in africa, atrocities were carried out under the pretense that they were spreading christianity and civilization to heathens. And Caesar invaded Gaul (and started a genocide) to "protect tribes" he was allied with.
@@Daniel-uk6yr I refuse to believe that people were just brainwashed. I believe they rationalized things in about the same way that we do today. Part of it is a genuine belief, and another huge part of it is REALLY convenient justifications. Like slavery was convenient so people were more willing to uncritically accept black people as less human than white people. It’s what they wanted to believe therefor they were sold on the idea easily. But much like today, I’m certain there was a significant chunk of people calling out the atrocities and immorality. Therefor we cannot excuse the behavior because they CHOSE to dismiss the arguments of people who opposed these actions.
Slavery was definitely seen as justified, genocide it's a bit trickier With genocide people didn't believe it was wrong in a sense that mass killing millions is morally abhorrent but rather that it's a very difficult thing to carry out and extremely inconvenient. It was way more beneficial to keep the population alive and have them work and fight for you instead. For example Alexander the Great could have never genocided Persia, but he could proclaim himself King of Kings and rule Persia instead. Kublai Khan was in a similar position in China, couldn't really genocide the native han population or bring and bring Mongolian settlers to replace them but he could proclaim himself Emperor of China and rule it instead. For most of history, the rule of strength was followed namely "the strong take what they can and the weak suffer what they must". In ancient and medieval times, if a city was sacked there was a good chance that said city will disappear, look at Troy completely destroyed by the Greeks, the entire population either enslaved or killed. Same thing with Carthage by the Romans. Antioch by the mamluks, Harappa and Mohenjo Daro were wiped out and we don't even know by whom. Even Rome itself was sacked by the Gauls in 390 BC, it's a wonder how the city did not disappear. Slavery was seen as something natural, and slaves were taken as war spoils by the conquerors, to them that was their war bounty. Slaver raids were also carried out by pretty much everyone everywhere. Bebers in the Mediterranean, Europeans on the western coast of africa, Turks in the Balkans and modern day Ukraine. Hell Caesar even boasted about capturing as many as 1 million Gaulic slaves.
I tried to find this video from knowing better and it appears that he has taken it down, along with the "response" video. I think your criticisms have had a positive effect. Thank you!
Also, 'ingenious' in the English translation he's using is wrong. 'De buen ingenio' means 'having a good temperament', just as 'tener un arranque de mal ingenio' means to lose one's temper. Referring to their 'good temperament' makes much more sense in the context of them supposedly being 'good servants' as well.
ingenio mean wit since spanish is still latin the in- prefix isn't negative prefix all the time ingenious isn't even mean un-smart, it just straight borrow for french that's one stupid point to mention anyways; the other points are strong
I didn't realize how inaccurate Knowing Better's video was, but as a total historical laymen I found his claims about the encomienda system just...bizarre. In my middle school/high school history textbooks they described it as a racialized caste system! There was no way the average Spaniard back then would view an indigenous American as equal to a peasant. The very reason why the Europeans even started bringing African slaves in large numbers is because they literally worked the native populations to death. Knowing Better's weird comparison actually reminds me of how I remember the California mission system is whitewashed in elementary school here ("you know, the Franciscans basically tricked the native Californians onto working on the missions without pay and were prohibited from leaving once they joined, so a critic might call it 'slavery:'" but the friars had the best intentions! They just wanted to introduce the uncivilized heathens to Jesus! And give them food and shelter!")
it might get lost in all the praise of the great content, but this is really well edited and must have been a ton of work for a video of this length. and yep, you just got into that at the end haha, wow. great job.
@@goblinstabba7105 Ofncourse it is. It’s celebrating a man who was condemned by many in his time for his severe brutality, exploitation, forced conversions of victims, enslavement, sexual violence, torture, mutilation and murder of an entire island of peoples that was eventually driven extinct. People like Queen Isabella was so horrified that in her will she wrote instructions on how to treat the natives humanely and to avoid allowing another Columbus-type from rising again.
@@henrymudgett2646 Columbus was definitely very evil, but when people celebrate Columbus Day, they are definitely not celebrating genocide and all those other evils. They are celebrating a man who did those things, but they are not celebrating those things that man did. When people celebrate/celebrated Columbus Day, the version of Columbus they are celebrating is a good version of Columbus, though that version never existed. I'm not saying it should be done, it shouldn't, truth should be known. But the people who celebrate Columbus on Colubumus Day are not celebrating the concept of genocide (plus all the other horrible things), that's a fact.
The 12 ways in which people attempt to deny genocide, made by Gregory Stanton (a professor known for his work on Genocide Studies): 1. Question and minimize the statistics 2. Attack the motivations of the truth-tellers 3. Claim that the deaths were inadvertent 4. Emphasize the strangeness of the victims 5. Rationalize the deaths as the result of tribal conflict 6. Blame "out of control" forces for committing the killings 7. Avoid antagonizing the genocidists, who might walk out of "the peace process" 8. Justify denial in favor of current economic interests 9. Claim that the victims are receiving good treatment 10. Claim that what is going on doesn't fit the definition of genocide 11. Blame the victims 12. Say that peace and reconciliation are more important that blaming people for genocide Yep, sounds about right to what idiots like to say about “hating wEsTeRn CiViLiZaTiOn.”
A very interesting thing I recently heard about is that agriculture isn’t even necessary for large settlements. Some large settlements have been found that used the cultivation of fish as the basis of their civilization, getting numbers on par with agriculture settlements.
Problem is, you can't scale fishing to a growing population. The more fish you eat, the less there will be in the water. As population grows, the more fish they will use, until the need surpasses the available resource. Agriculture on the other hand, does scale, you can expand it to match a growing population without depleting any resource.
Thank you for this video. It is well researched, sourced and explained and really shows the terrible points KB makes in his video, as well as correcting them and making a very educational experience on Columbus, especially for me, someone in a country where Columbus isn’t really taught (he isn’t related to our history). I really like some of knowing better’s video so it really sucks seeing a video like this, one so poorly argued and researched and I hope he sees his mistakes here and takes down his video, hopefully even correcting himself in a different video
Tenochtitlan was by essentially any metric you choose the single greatest city on the face of the planet when Cortes showed up. Population? Higher than any in Europe at the time. Architecture? They literally managed to build a Metropolis *on a lake* so yeah its mad detached from reality to insinuate that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas were any less 'progressed' than the Europeans, What they were is at an Armament Disadvantage. Nothing more.
Excellent video. I was fuming while watching his video and was about to do a response myself, but then the cold hit me and I found your video so I am spreading it around now.
When I started watching this I was expecting a whiney, subjective response. What I saw was a really detailed, rational response that's far more informative than Knowing Better. Definitely subscribing.
I was completely bamboozled by this video thank you for this work. I strongly appreciate this. I had recently shared this video on my facebook without reviewing it on Columbus day and I feel unbelievably embarrassed. (Also I wasnt defending Columbus day but felt I was correcting a round of falsehoods)
I think I understand the mentality behind wanting to defend Columbus. First of all, children are taught about Columbus as the person who discovered America from basically the beginning of elementary school, and we have an entire national day celebrating him. Since Columbus stated the colonization of America, and basically laid the foundation for the United States to have a population made up of people of European decent. And, being an American of European decent, which is most people, the idea that you being here not only did not need to happen, but shouldn't have happened, is a lot to take in. It's much easier to try to construe some tech-tree narrative about how it was both inevitable and unavoidable, as well as defending Columbus, in order to try to distance yourself as far as possible from the terrible things that actually happened. (Note Knowing Better's joke about how his ancestors weren't in America back then, which I think is a definite hint as to the underlying idea that he wants to distance himself as far away from the atrocities as he can) Thanks for the great and informative video, BadEmpanada. I hope Knowing Better sees it and learns something from it. After all, he has other videos about how countries like Japan and Turkey deny terrible things that they've done in the past, and realizing that you have the urge to do the same for your own country's history should grant a lot of insight in to why this happens.
Why shouldn't the Europeans be in America? You're judging ancient societies from your morals. Yes, people used to kill each other and worse. We've only recently realized that it's not something we should be doing, and mind you it's still not all of us. We're not any different from people who've lived 500 years ago, their morals were products of their respective societies. Native societies themselves while fell victim to European expansion were not any kinder or nicer. In fact I could well argue that myriads of genocides that we've committed over the centuries have helped to accelerate technological progress, which in turn enabled our population to balloon to 8 billion people and live nowadays in relative peace, with expectation of more peace and democratic rights down the line. In 2005 for the first time ever democracies became more numerous than autocracies. Whitewashing history is idiotic exactly as much as turning it into something shameful.
Damn, as someone who started my trip down bread tube with Knowing Better's videos, it's sad to see that this video was so poorly researched and made. I hope he takes it down.
Tooth I give you a ton of credit for admitting the obvious. So many of his fans still won’t admit their guy made a shit video. Crazy considering I was a fan of his until I saw that video for the first time.
Don't worry, this guy took a lot of sarcasm out of context, ignores quotation marks, forgets plain logic. Watch the response video to this "response video"
You have the wrong type of buffalo in the picture at the 10 minute mark. That one is an Asian water buffalo. You want a picture of an American bison, which is taller, larger, has a much bigger head, and is shaggier.
wow, that must have been a hell of a lot of work to make this video. thanks for taking the time to actually research the historical backgrounds. much more people should watch your video!
I’m absolutely floored that he used *google translate* as some infallible source, better than actual historians even if the original was inaccurate, it’s *so* easy to ask someone fluent in Spanish. Bc everyone knows that Google translate isn’t all that useful/nuanced I usually like knowing better’s videos but this is almost laughably misinformed/biased. I’m no columbus expert, but that Google translate bit, and ending his quotes w ‘blah blah blah’, specifically the part where Google translate is outright inaccurate which uhh, that’s a pretty big problem when ur trying to prove that the source is inaccurate. That alone-for me-destroys any validity his assertion might have had Edit: I love how he says ‘actually why do ppl WANT to columbus?’ like what? ‘aww chris I can’t stay mad at u, u rascal!’ tf?
@@rotisseriepossum His videos on "Indian Removal" and "Neo-Slavery" are pretty good, and they cite the work of actual historians which is a good change of pace.
From Spain, thank you very much for your work. Most people in Spain have faced imperial apologists when trying to adress this subject, there are so many of them :( In my case, my grandmas and some uncles and mates. You gave me some nice tools for christmas dinner discussions.
@@iz2333 I dread to imagine what it felt to be gaslit in a situation like that... back then they would talk about taking the sparkle from people's eyes...
Honestly, I was a Knowing Better fan, but that entire video just felt like all the arguing I’ve done over the years with closeted racist. The type of dudes who try to defend the Confederacy or Hitler by citing some technicality. The Steve Crowder type.
I don't think Knowing Better is saying the Columbus is a good person but he's not as bad as people were saying. People say he took slaves when technically thats not the truth. Doesn't mean it's ok and I don't think he was making that claim.
So glad my friend (SomerandomG33K sent me to your channel! So glad to learn so much about the real facts as opposed to the kind of BS the alt-right love to throw out.
This is mind-numbingly frustrating, I cannot believe he made that video, thank you for this! I'm also a historian, and it's like, it isn't hard to research this, why does everyone struggle?
@@AmorFatiMementoMori Lol its idiotic, let me drop my grad school name??? - I am studying mexico and guatemala, in grad school, it's silly because Bad Empanada also has credentials, and having credentials doesn't immediately establish ethos on the internet. Will it immediately change his mind? No. He's being antogonistic.
@@AmorFatiMementoMori I guess I just honestly don't see anything serious about TH-cam comments, it's feel like a silly thing to get pressed about -- but yes, I have studied Latin America history in my undergrad and I'm getting my MA in Arizona because I also work with border issues. Now that my ethos exists and I've answered in good faith, now I can rest in peace. Please read books about Colombus written by actual historians, not by people who think google translate is a source, because, knowledge is good as hell.
@@AmorFatiMementoMori Listen if you're only coming from this from watching Knowing Better and then Bad Empanada videos, that's not great. There's a lot of great resources online or at public libraries, but Knowing Betters video was really off--in a while that silenced and ignored Indigenous voices and actual history. Go pick up a book! I'm not going to list every reason here in the comments section when so many great people have written essays and books. If you want suggestions of things to read, I can give those. Colombus is a small cruel blip in a larger and crueler history and we can't play any part is erasing it.
I feel like the whole argument that colonizers want to make here boils down to “native no have the shooty shooty” which really opens up the conversation to talk about violence from a colonizers point of view, wnd how progress is literally monitored as “how much violence can I commit without any reciprocal advance”
conquistadors didn't really use guns or even their armor. however Europe was extremekly advanced in that time and had superior tech and science than the americas
Damn im shocked. I never saw this video and i used to watch Knowing Better a lot. He's the reason i have a lot of the belifes I have today. Maybe i should double check some stuff after this one.
literally same, that comment abou Zimmerman and Treyvon Martin threw me for a loop, but it all made since with his "not genocide on a technicality" argument. extremely disappointed
It's wild how much the Knowing Better video is just unapologetic apologetics for colonialism. Like he just says all this shit about the "historical context" without even thinking about what that history created. Even worse is just willfully ignoring how Columbus has become a symbol of colonialism, and that tearing him down is largely done as a way of tearing down the deification of colonialism in the Americas. Arguing that he doesn't deserve it is such a bad hill to die on.
Explaining the difference between manslaughter, and murder, as defined in the American Legal system isn't "justifying murder". he's explaining how someone could get found "not guilty", because of technicalities.
This is what I was thinking. This video is trying to argue that original is trying to justify and exonerate Columbus when all he's doing is explaining the exaggerations.
Yuwan “an exaggerated evil” not “completely not evil at all.” Slavery already existed in the Americas, along with human sacrifice. Everyone was doing bad shit back then. Quit being immature and see the big picture. For the record, I think CC was a big, steamy pile of doo doo myself, but exaggerating things doesn’t help anybody.
@@Llamasomenumbers Yeah. I totally agree. I can see what points this video is trying to make but it sways you to think one thing and one thing only. I really like the Knowing Better video because he presents the facts and tries to remain unbiased.
@@montiseas919 But he doesn’t at all. Are you not bothered by the number of historical evidence that Knowing Better specifically did not mention? When you make a video saying “Columbus wasn’t that bad” you can’t ignore far more damning evidence. KB clearly didn’t do his research well enough, and was just bothered by what he perceived to be too much Columbus hate, and so set out making a video having already reached a conclusion. The evidence is quite damning that Columbus was an exceptionally bad individual. Just because people might have been racist, doesn’t mean they all enslaved and killed tens of thousands. Columbus did.
I remember watching his video a couple months ago and deciding to research Columbus stuff on my own, spending a couple hours pouring through stuff. Now I'm not like a historian but there were easily and obvious things he left out of his video that I found just by googling around for an hour or two.
Even the algorithms are coming for knowingbetter. I had an ad for Amazon placed so that he said "you can't have a city without Also watching on mobiles sucks due to no adblock.
wow great video! Thank you so much for presenting a well thought out rebuttal of what are sadly some very common misconceptions. I love when ppl quote actual historians who spend their lives researching and studying a subject bc that work doesn't get enough respect in these days of alternative facts
I already thought that was a bad video, without even being able to refute most of the crap it in. Congratulations on turning it into a bottomless sea of "oof". (Edit: For the record, I like most of Knowing Better's _other_ videos. But seeing _that_ video first made me very wary of him.)
@@ongakira Most of South America also have it, it's just called dia de la hispanidad, Brazil doesn't, the same day is children's day and also a Catholic holiday, Brazil kind of have the same "celebration" of the arrival of the colonizers in April with the "discovery" of Brazil.
The encomienda system also tells us about the population of pre colonial America. There were so many people already living here, that the colonizers were just like "one of your basically slaves died? have another one, for free!". I point this out because it is popularly held that America was sparsely populated, while in truth it was chock full of people. Highly suggest reading 1491 by Charles C. Mann. It is a beautiful portrayal of the continent with all its peoples.
Also, when he talks about cities, it seems like an assumption that settling in larger cities is always better than being nomadic. Even though nomads tend to be healthier, and it is a lifestyle that in many cases is more adaptive because settled life depends on particular weather patterns and specific bodies of water not getting too polluted, drying up, or whatever. There's a pervasive anti-nomad bias, I'm noticing.
Hell, an argument can be made that a lot of industrialized societies have nomadic populations too. Think about long haul truckers, or other people who move around a lot. Maybe they lean a lot on sedentary people but nomads have always been a part of every civilization.
@@artemis_smith Yeah, an area of history I'm fascinated by is the history of various nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppes. They had such a huge impact on China, Europe, India, and the Middle East. But their history is mostly only written by settled people who saw them often as "savages" and "barbarians". But they had such a rich culture and their trade routes made the world what it is today. And like you said, now people in "civilization" still pay some people to live a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle. Pilots/ flight crews, your example of truck drivers, train crews, sailors, etc. There's even itinerant celebrities, like rock stars or great public speakers on tour. And the historical birth of settlement in larger cities was also the birth of wide socio-economic inequality and despotism. I feel like travel and freedom of movement across lands with different rulers should be a protected human right. It's human nature and beneficial to humanity.
In Ireland we had/have a nomadic population, Travellers or Minceir. They were also discriminated and legislated against by the english crown and later the Irish government. Their descendents nowadays are still doing worse than average by most social metrics and are mostly settled
I'm so glad you made this video. When I watched that KB video I was alternately stunned and furious and at certain points actually shouting at my screen. The part where he said that Columbus was forcing them to do what he wanted but it wasn't slavery because he didn't technically own them was just...unbelievable. I think maybe it drove so crazy because I wasn't expecting it; I've seen some of his other videos and I just had no idea from those that he would make a video like this. I actually checked the date on the video because I thought maybe it was another April Fools video.
This is an old video, and even he doesn't stand by it. In a video that came out shortly after this one he explained that he wanted to debunk some of the more ridiculous claims made against Columbus, but that he does not like Columbus and never will.
Thanks for this video, i was somewhat conviced by Knowing Better and i feal such an idiot for being deceive by the changes of the semantics and other false facts.
I went into this video skeptical and I remained so all the way till 26:32, that's a damning example of a technicality being used sweep away an atrocity
The first part, where you talk about the racist idea that non-european societies were less developed, reminds me of something I saw on diachrony classes in college: even by European standarts, a considerable amount of the people that were enslaved and colonized were miles ahead of the average European as far as scholarship, knowledge and scientific formation goes. For example, we have evidence showing that a considerable amount of the african people that were enslaved by Portugal and brought to Brazil were scholars and had extensive knowledge on philosophy and science. But since they spoke a different language, that was never taken into account. Let's not even begin to talk about pre-Colombian people that inhabited south America, that were extensively structured and had intricate knowledge, architecture and other things so it's SO good to see someone going against all that...
Just and FYI, the creatures called "buffalo" in the Americas are actually "bison", which are a distinct species from African, Asian and European buffalo. And while it is technically possible to domesticate them, large scale domestication is really not viable in most situations, they are large, aggressive, and require a lot of open land, most bison ranchers only keep small herds to produce meat for specialty butchers, hence why it's hard to get bison steaks unless you live in the Western US. In Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, its common for butchers and restaurants to have bison on menu, elsewhere less so.
However "undeveloped" you think a society is, there's never any justification for enslaving them and plundering their resources.
They didn't.
Nelson Thangjam Unless you somehow think it’s “jUsT hOw ThInGs WeNt BaCk ThEn,” and refuse to actually prove that fact.
@@Vraptor1 not once did knowing better say that tho-
Tokki •ᴗ• Are you stupid? He said it was “inevitable,” meaning it was normal in his eyes
Monteph If by “inevitable,” he means forcing them to live in horrific conditions, deported from their natural homes and resources needed to treat their illnesses, suppression of their culture, banning their languages, and requiring them to work nonstop in the encomienda system (said system was even described by one historian as being worse than if they had straight up enslaved them).
So no, it wasn’t inevitable, because most peopke do not work hundreds of thousands of people, many to death, as well as mass starving them, engaging in ethnic cleansing, torture and maim people (even those directly working for him) and be arrested for their atrocities.
I'm an anthropologist who studies colonial Peru, and can confirm that the encomienda system is absolutely horrific- it's hard to study the physical effects on individuals (intense joint degeneration from hard labor, early life stresses that affect mortality risk, etc) and know that they're manifestations of human suffering. The spanish forced them into inhospitable lands that couldn't grow crops, taking all the arable land for their plantations and livestock, forced them to work the plantations and evaporite mines, and drove the domesticated llamas the people relied on into regional extinction, among many, many other things. thank you for making such an in-depth video- i was surprised to see many of the same sources I used to write about spanish colonialism here!
@@johnwaas4864 surely yes, the Incas were an empire, but the problem is that many peruvians say today that spaniards and indigenous peruvians were equal and pretend to diminish the cruelty of the colonial regime. The incas were cruel to their enemies and their own people but they really were more fair and humane than the spanish crown, you can check that with the dispute of Valladolid which was given in colonial times.
Juan Manuel Rosas Caro as a peruvian I can confirm that sadly we have a good amount of hispanistas.
@petoz2 It kinda was,Peru is 60% indigenous,the people dint just die off,the majority of Peruvians can trace their ancestry to the first settlers in the continent.
@@johnwaas4864 The horrific actions of an empire are not excused by another taking a similar action before them. The Spaniards weren't the first country to practice African slavery either, but that doesn't make it any less awful that they did.
Ok? How does this relate to columbis himself?
What a fantastic video, well done!
Thank you for introducing me into Marxism
It's ma boi!!!! Visit South Africa!!!!!!!
Come to South Africa!
Imagine being considered as brutal and greedy by early spanish colonists...
Imagine being so ignorant as to don't known that spanish didn't made colonies but viceroyalities kingdoms...
@@franciscomolina9848 "technically, it's ephebophilia"
To judge the XVI century from whithin the modern moral,it's technically a fantasy of moral superiority.
Wrong is Wrong in any generation @@franciscomolina9848.
@@rockstar450 but you're still deflecting the conversation at the hand which is about Christopher Columbus. So before going to the next step, since this videos about Christopher Columbus, why not talk about that since that came first!?
some of those ancient South American peoples don't get enough credit for their absolutely insanely precise architecture. Like we're talking about stuff that rivals ancient Egypt, and anyone who's nerded out on ancient Egyptian architecture and their buildings knows how mind boggling some of this is even by today's standards. and it stretches back way before anything we have records on, a lot of this stuff was already ancient by the time the Spanish arrived.
They understood and had a representation for the mathematical concept of 0 before pretty much any other civilization.
Fuck Eurocentric history
@@Sykoze Wow I had no idea. I was taught by my math teacher that the zero was invented in India in the 5th century, but I looked it up and that's totally off. Thanks for sharing this fact!
@@andytruss1259 Hey, always glad to share knowledge! Most of history is nothing like they teach in school, sadly - the Americas were considerably more advanced than Europe and Asia in a lot of important ways. Astronomy, diplomacy, architecture, math, and agriculture were all areas they were either equally advanced or had surpassed the old world.
*Edit*
I meant astronomy, I don't know why I typed philosophy. Probably because I'm stoned, both are heavily associated with the Greeks.
@@Sykoze Exactly, even by colonist's own standards the Americas a place where very "advanced" societies formed. Even more appealing to me though is the idea that advancement is kind of a meaningless word when talking about societies/cultures. Yes, human society evolves over time, and many European societies were indeed very far removed from the kinds of social organization they encountered elsewhere in the world, but crucially, evolution does not equal progress. Progress is always measured relative to a particular ethical perspective, whereas evolution, the change of society over time, is apparent regardless of perspective. Add to this the fact that societies don't all evolve along the same linear path and the whole notion of comparing societies based on advancement falls apart
@@andytruss1259 That's what I was getting at when I said they were more advanced in a lot of important ways.
Even in modernity, people tend to think of civilisation as a series of stages centered around prevalent material technology, which is absolutely absurd.
I'd argue that a civilisation's level of organisation, level of diplomacy with their neighbours, and ability to take care of the needs of their people far outweigh the material technology they can deploy when it comes to measuring their level of advancement.
Wow I came into this from Reddit where people said you were unfair and overly harsh. After watching this comprehensive breakdown of not only the bad faith arguments, but straight up lies in the original video, your tone is very appropriate.
Why is he being so unfair to wholesome 100 Christopher Columbus 😔
Well,it's reddit.You can't expect much.
Knowing Better has changed his stances very greatly recently, especially on the effects of colonialism and on Columbus. People can change, and Knowing Better's content seems to be much better, especially with talking about how horrible the US has been and his series on deconstructing and debunking the "Standard American History" mythos that has been pushed in school.
@@tonyprice2256 Yep, it is.
@@Planet.Xplor3r No he fucking hasn't lmao. Maybe on Columbus he realized you can't in good faith defend his actions. But his defence of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza is direct proof that he openly supports colonialism. The guy VOLUNTARILY joined the Iraq War.
It's really disturbing how prevalent this "Native American genocide wasn't that bad, actually" mentality has become.
Calling it genocide implies it was done on purpose,but the natives died from something neither they nor the europeans understood.
Many europeans died from diseases like syphilis brought to europe from the americas,but no one calls that genocide.
@@Dragosflash I know because genocide was only defined in 1948 so before that year there was not genocide.
@@macedonianfighter6987you‘re implying that the natives were only killed by diseases brought by the spaniards, even though the spaniards killed or enslaved most of the natives. It might not have been a genocide in the modern industrial sense but the spanish treated the natives as subhuman and their lives were nothing if worth to them.
A section of the Spaniard right seems to be currently propagating the sickening idea that their empire in the Americas was actually benevolent, and that the Spanish empire has been the victim of a historical smear campaign.
I found this out after browsing in a local bookstore and finding a book called "La Leyenda Negra" (the black legend), where the author tries to basically say that the conquistadors were actually good because the Incas and the Aztecs were basically as bad as the n4z!s.
@@macedonianfighter6987 turn around and you cry about the uyghurs in 2020 lmao
Silly empanada Columbus wasn’t a racist because he thought the people he enslaved made for great slaves.
@F-35B LIGHTNING II fighter jet. #BlueLivesMatter You didn't watch this video did you #Bluelivesdontmatter
Yeah, a real jerk would have said they were bad slaves who did shoddy work.
@F-35B LIGHTNING II fighter jet. #BlueLivesMatter Why do you prefer facts over feels? Seriously, you right-wing reactionaries just virtue signaling snowflakes. Why not exit your safe space, and actually see if what you are so convinced of is actually correct? You guys just seem so afraid of finding out that you are wrong that it really seems like you must already know that you are.
@F-35B LIGHTNING II fighter jet. #BlueLivesMatter
"your first sentence is funny as it is you using your feelings to assume everything about me."
Only because you have trouble reading.
"I am not right wing"
You virtue signal like a right-winger. I suspect it is more about the labels you prefer, rather than an ability to identify what it is that you believe. Again, feels over facts. Or you are utterly incompetent at presenting what you believe.
"I barely listened to either video because i dont care what research a youtuber has to bring to a table."
It wasn't the "TH-camr's" research but research from historians, who wrote books on the topic. The point stands that you don't care about the facts of the matter, but instead rely on your feelings.
"We're talking about a man who lived hundreds of years ago and we are sitting here thinking we can dictate what thoughts he had based off of random papers, what a joke humanity has become."
Again, if you cared about the facts, they were the thoughts the man wrote down himself in letters, etc.
The ultimate 'joke' of humanity is you. A person who relies on their feelings, and is ultimately not only indifferent to, but hostile towards the facts. A snowflake who acts like their feelings are more important than reality.
You just prove my point.
@F-35B LIGHTNING II fighter jet. #BlueLivesMatter
"I virtue signal like a right winger?"
Yes, anti-Black Lives Matter, anti-feminist, anti-Democrat, and the pro-military bit is a nice touch. All the signals you send out (none of which are relevant to the topic at hand), are embraced in the right-wing. If you look at ideological patterns, there are a number of other positions I think you would be likely to hold.
"I proved your point? How's that? Because I request a side with more facts?"
You aren't interested in the facts. That's why you feel you are qualified to speak on this topic while simultaneously making it clear you are not interested in understanding what the actual arguments are. You don't want to watch the video and actually analyze an argument. You just want to make claims with your feels.
If you were interested in the facts, you would actually engage with the material in good faith, and be open to the possibility that you could be wrong. By metaphorically plugging your ears, you ensure your safe space within your echo chamber. No need to think or change your position.
"So its funny how you get so upset saying i am putting feelings over facts when i am doing the exact opposite."
I'm not upset. I'm more amused by you than anything. Your lack of self-awareness is amazing.
"A FACT is that any document of columbus could have easily been fabricated and just been plastered as real. That is a possibility."
I love how you pretend to be a skeptical, yet utterly fail at it. The question to ask yourself is what is most likely to be true, and what do the experts think about the documents? Rather than just picking whatever 'possibility' you like best with your feels. Just because you can imagine something doesn't mean it is likely to be true.
"The fact that you read columbus's transcripts and only go with the violent translations that fit your agenda despite there are other peaceful translations is the very definition of putting feelings first."
See, this is what happens when you pretend to understand an argument while simultaneously being completely ignorant because you can't be bothered to watch a video. How embarrassing for you.
Knowing Better did a poor job with research, as there were letters in which Columbus talked about slaves which were omitted. The fact Columbus had previously been involved in slave trading was omitted. And also shipments of Native American slaves back to Europe was also omitted. And the fact that Columbus faced criticism and investigations into his treatment of Native Americans was omitted.
Knowing Better simply relied on Google Translate, where the person who made this video is fluent in Spanish, so they can understand what Columbus wrote in the original Spanish. You think Google Translate is more reliable than a person who is fluent in a language? And then there are the historians and experts. You seem to judge experts with your feels. You accept expert opinion (even when it isn't 'expert', such as the case with Knowing Better) when it feels good, but you reject it (even invoking conspiracy theories if necessary) when it doesn't. It's very irrational and emotional of you.
Also, a fondness for conspiracy theories, while not exclusively right-wing, is *VERY* popular on the right these days.
It is extremely clear that if you like what is said, you will defend it, and if you don't, you will attack it. It has nothing to do with the content of what is being said, just your feels. You will just provide whatever post-hoc rationalizations you think you can in an attempt to justify your position. It's a great way to pretend to be rational while simultaneously being completely irrational.
A non spanish speaker google translating documents and immediately believing it will never not be funny
It's funny that subject sounds similar to subjugate
But in Spanish the word for subject is subdito and the word subyugar literally is a contraction of sub yugo ir "under the yoke"
I like how the defense of encomienda is "Well, they aren't private property, they are just forced laborers with no rights that face state violence if they resist"
This is also Very Bad!
"I assert that the violence of the calumny of turbulent persons has injured me more than my services have profited me..." is Columbus whining about Cancel Culture all the way back in the year 1500.
You can't even mutilate and enslave people without these SJW snowflakes complaining about it these days. Cancel culture really has gone too far, SMDH😤
@Kev_ Bot
Okay, crypto...
@Kev_ Bot Can't even fucking spell, ya fascist dunce!
@Kev_ Bot Bots should be short-circuited
So sad thoughts and prayers
I’m legit shocked that Knowing Better was the one who made that video. That was the first video I found by him, and I wrote him off pretty quickly. I found the rest of his videos later, and subscribed without realizing he was the same guy who made the Columbus defense. The difference in research and quality was mind boggling.
No, it's not. His research quality was the same. You're just biased against the conclusion he came to on his own research
@@harrybudgeiv349 it seems like knowing better also disagrees with his stance now since the videos delisted
Fun fact. If you watch _BadEmpanada's_ latest video, you will see that _Knowing Better_ had redeemed himself in his eyes.
@@extrahistory8956 why would it matter what they think?
@@extrahistory8956by being a Zionist?
My brain literally melted when he tried debunking fairly translated quotes with google translate and then using his own interpretation of them.
Yeah, because Google Translator is famous for spotting nuance accurately
the Google translated quotes didn't really even contradict the existing translation. the incredulous indignation wasn't even warranted by the horseshit that Google spat out
didnt even bother to ask a spanish speaking person
So how do you explain the Italian translations that agree with his translation where "servant" wasn't intended as "slave" but as "servant of God" i.e. Christians?
@@ValleyoftheLeaf what do Italian mistranslations have to do with the original Spanish?
gringo, there's people that speak Spanish. It's literally fucking obvious.
but mostly, HE WAS A FUCKING SLAVE TRADER, that should be enough to explain his intent
"Not technically genocide," is a pretty low bar.
No, it just wasn't genocide.
It's an exegerated evil you Could say
@@marciaosullivan3200 except Columbus didn't come over to kill the natives as quickly as possible and the 90% death toll that happened was inevitable with or without Columbus leading or the most saintly explorer ever.
Genocide requires intent, else wise it is not a crime.
@@lewisbilly12353 A 90% death toll has never been inevitable in all of history. You're talking out of you ass.
@@lewisbilly12353 oh no...
I literally read sources translated from Spanish and in Spanish (because I can read but not speak Spanish) by a missionary priest who tldr said “holy shit this guy is a fracking near homicidal maniac and brutal to these people to where some are killing their kids and themselves to escape him”
That's horrific
What does anybody think of Tv Tropes claims in Fate Grand Order that Cristopher Columbus wasn't really that bad in the Rider Of Resistance in the section about Riders?
Time Stamps of Analysis:
Part 1:
0:00 Introduction. Analyzing how an amateur historian does bad history. Columbus is an important historical character and event for many modern and present day reasons.
5:00 The use of certain terminology and language such as “Development” or Progress” is discussed. Use of the word “tribe.” Use of the word “discovery.”
10:00 You don’t need animal domestication to have large and dense cities or urban centers.
12:05 Small Pox epidemic didn’t cause the 90% kill rate until starting about more than ten years after Columbus’ death. Issues with the ethics of the relationship between the local population and European colonizers.
16:00 The “Inevitability argument.”
17:00 The “main refutation” begins.
19:00 The argument on the primary journal source of the discourse around the term “servant.”
21:00 Discourse analysis on the term of “subjugation” via the google translate app.
Part 2:
21:00-24:00 The Discourse analysis and more specifically the Ecomienda discourse analysis.
27:00 Death rate in Hispaniola during the Columbus Ecomienda resulted in huge death rates for the people who had lived there.
28:30 The obvious semantic “white washing” of the intentions and actions of Columbus towards the native people.
30:00 Columbus was intimate with the slave trade, used the word in his writings, and also had at least a 10% stake in all wealth exploitation or creation in “discovered” lands.
32:00 A random rant-note by Knowing Better on the semantics of “murder” via Intent via the Trayvon Martin case.
35:00 Analysis of the source of Bartolemu de las Casas, as a inconvenient counter to main stream narratives.
36:00 Columbus made the first 5 slave trade trips between the “old and new” worlds.
38:30 Columbus’s actions of promoting and boosting the cross-Atlantic ocean slave trade went against the normal ethos in Europe at the time.
40:00 Did Columbus actually “cut off hands” of the colonists for rape and sexual slavery? No source for this.
Part 3:
41:00 Source proves that Columbus treated people brutality for egotistical reasons, such as family name. Not out of “protecting indigenous people.”
44:00 and 45:00 Columbus source material explicitly states young girls as an economic unit for sale or trade. Columbus has multiple known instances of kidnapping women.
48:00 Bartolome de las Casa actual primary source on Columbus.
50:00 Strange argument on De Las Casas, around the claim of “altered diaries of Columbus.”
52:00 Historians since the 1930’s already basically settled the argument of “Diary Altered.”
54:00 The “black legend” myth, is a myth.
Part 4:
1:00:00 How many people did Columbus actually kill? Via the sources.
1:05:00 Responsibility ethos of Columbus: Yes, he was the highest political authority for a period of time on Hispaniola.
1:06:00 Was Columbus a “normal” type of person of the age? Were his actions “not that bad” in relative historical context?
1:12:00 The POV of native Americans matters. Columbus Day has heavy annotations and connotations.
1:16:00 Columbus is an important historical myth of the present day. History on Columbus matters as an identity marker and as a narrative of colonization in the Americas. (1893 Columbian World Fair Exhibition of Chicago, for example, the Devil in the White city, for example).
@@itsblitz4437 most people came to the video to watch it... Lmao sorry but I guess we enjoy the "raving" even though he's calm and respectable the entire time. 😅 I think you're just hopelessly rude... stop posting all over these videos
@@mortiag.9668 you really believe in him... I am not going to make any calims about most of what he say is right or wrong cause I don't have time for, but the first few minutes make it clear how much of a genius he is. He thinks that sophiscated society is the equavelce of advancement, in which I would say no it is not, it is just a trait of it. You have to realise that Genghes Khan's son was having a sophiscated society, as well as many other European cities before 1500s. Secendly, the fact that don't even have guns to support or defend them proves there technological advancement more accurately. Oh another thing... YOU NEED PACK ANIMALS FOR BUG SOCIETY... It is not possible to build one without fast and reliable connection. The part where he says that the native population was not wiped out to almost 90% is absolutely ridiculous. There is literally no reason why it will not happen and it is just one historian. Heck there isn't even hundred percent confirmaty among intellectuals in anything. That's is just one guy, some scientist still believe the earth is flat. I don't know how well his rest of the video is.. But if all of his other points are correct than these are excusable however I don't think that is the case.
This is a great and important video. Thank you for making it, and now I will have to take a look at your back catalog.
"Forced to work against your will but no one owned you"
I'm gonna do it....
"That just sounds like slavery with extra steps"
That’s what the feudal system was, but that’s not considered slavery. Don’t get me wrong it’s bad, but it’s not as bad as slavery.
@@goastlyarrowplays Yeah, a private citizen couldn't sell you. But a lord could replace you without paying, so they were much less likely to care about your health or wellbeing. If Haitian slavery is anything to go by, the cheaper slaves are, the more cruel their conditions tend to be.
So European style feudalism used in many European countries is considered slavery ? Interesting. Let's not forget serfdom, which is even worse.
What if we forced people to work to survive.
@@Gamerad360 Don't we do that already?
The argument of "developed" peoples reminds me of a talking point I'm often met with resistance to when discussing biology. No organism is "more evolved" than another organism, that's a completely subjective term. All organisms are just adapted to fill a certain niche in their environment.
Exactly! And an organism being more primitive doesn't mean it's less adapted. Sharks haven't changed for hundreds of millions of years because they don't need to - they're already perfect.
I think the argument is that with more resources a society can develop more technologically, rather than biologically, so for example the Europeans ended up with superior weaponry because the territory they inhabited allowed them to
tonywords in what whey didn’t they end up with superior weaponry?
@@LimeyLassen Not 'perfect,' they just don't die based on some specific trait like they used to. Humans are similar, but far more extreme, surviving entirely regardless of our biological abilities.
@@tonywords6713 except that europeans were the first ones to perfect, manufacture, and utilize gunpowder in there weapons at any large scale. Thats like dismissing newtons work because he didn't come up with algebra.
During my childhood, when we learned about Columbus, he was depicted as a hero and we sang nice little children's songs about him.
Learning about the atrocities that he was responsible for only fairly late in my life was shocking. I felt betrayed by my school system, that hadn't bothered mentioning any of that.
Yes because a group of middle schoolers should know about rapes and slavery
Last name First name they shouldn’t be singing about him at all
Last name First name still there’s a big difference between softening the blow of what someone did for a kid to understand, and glorifying that person.
Makes you wonder what else is white washed....
I feel incredibly betrayed as well....
Matt Angiono, that’s not the meaning of “white-washing”
I watched the KnowingBetter video first, and thought the bits debunking the "Columbus was an idiot who thought he was in India" were interesting, but once I got to the point where he tried to debunk scholarly translations by running them in Google Translate I felt like I had to get a second opinion...
@@AmorFatiMementoMori
so you're just stupid
I watched kbs vid first and his talk on the forced servitude of the native Americans is what did it for me, felt very reminiscent of "slavery was actually better for black people than freedom in Africa was" type of argument
This highly edited guy lost me #1 he cannot finish a sentence without 5 edits and his first argument is putting critical race theory into the study of history.
That is extremely dangerous, I saw a documentary that had strong evidence a certain American Indian tribe were cannibals.
Knife marks on bones, burn marks on bones, fork marks on the inside of skulls, bones broken after being cooked to get the marrow.
The documentary actually had people arguing that this research to even start it was racist and was view with “a colonial” mind set.
And when he’s arguing about pack animals, spawn points, disease, that is a dead horse brought by Guns, Germs and Steel. You know.. that highly popular book made popular by the movie Goodwill Hunting.
Lol this guy is rubbish, his political views are obvious and destroying his view on history.
What? He didn’t
this shit on herev is all false and you goons sound like fools making this shit up
Columbus: "Hey King and Queen, we could totally enslave a lot of the people here, haha. Jk.... Unless?"
Well. Slavery was global. Everyone did it. So everyone was evil. So he wasn't more evil than anyone else. Just a person of the time.
Now do you get the point?
@Juanito G that is another good point. Columbus is portrayed as an advocate of slavery because of your quote being missued to make him out to be an evil person. "SUBJECTS" were citizens of a kingdom. And not slaves.
@Juanito G literallt not true teabagger. Per his own writings he enslaved natives, killed huge numbers of tgem and he and his men took Children as sex slaves.
@@annonymouslibertairian9120 books.google.com/books?id=jpAZDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT137&lpg=PT137&dq=Michele+de+Cuneo+%E2%80%9Ctook+a+piece+of+rope+and+whipped+her+soundly%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=Bbvxdq5bGf&sig=jscvj3lsR847JFIuZ28qfqDLd24&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjMksbTtt7dAhWRylkKH#v=onepage&q=Michele%20de%20Cuneo%20%E2%80%9Ctook%20a%20piece%20of%20rope%20and%20whipped%20her%20soundly%E2%80%9D&f=false
@@cdreid99999 The writer cites Columbus but does not give the source for where he wrote that, so there is no reason to trust him. If you cite someone, you put the source somewhere in the book that is accessible. He did not do that.
I did some research on the Valladolid debate once. The event took place from 1550-1551 in Spain in the city of Valladolid. As mentioned in the video, Bartolome de las Casa argued for better treatment of the indigenous natives against many opponents, including Juan Gines de Sepulveda. My real point in bringing this up is to say: during my research I came across remarks which spoke of the true intentions of the Spanish with regards to the natives. The Spanish had no intention of intermingling or intermarrying among the native population, they were only interested in the potential to make them good, loyal, Christian "subjects" of the crown, thus expanding the empire's influence. The Spanish certainly were interested in converting the natives, but would not have treated them as equals, even under the pretense of their shared Christianity. One of the points Bartolome argued was that the indigenous people actually have souls (in the Christian sense), which his opponent Sepulvada attempted to refute. What sort of treatment might one expect for the natives from Spaniards who believe these native people to be soulless and perhaps less than that of animals?
It's clear the Spanish wanted to conquer and control the islands which we now know as the Dominican Republic, and forces the inhabitants into "subjugation," and the bad kind at that (is there a good kind?). Moreover, also mentioned in the video, the encomiendas, land grants essentially, included with the endowment an allotment of indigenous natives, who of which the holder of the encomienda could do with as they saw fit. Explain to me how this isn't slavery?
Also I love the European moral brow beating when a man loves anime girls making them feel like they’re gonna go to prison but their hero Christopher Columbus was literally breeding 9 year old girls lol.
I think Knowing Better's whole point was that it was "the Spanish" not Columbus, which is weak considering that he did exactly what they did but without the power of an entire country.
@@5_sets_of_triangle_pasta And indeed he was actually WORSE than what the Spanish crown wanted. Being a peon is bad enough, but Colombus wanted slaves! Instead of a caste of botton-tier peasants with no chance of social mobility or advancement, solely tools for the Dones, Colombus just used them as livestock. It kinda unraveled when part of that exploitation by the Europeans was sexual so we have Mestizos blurring social lines and leading to increasingly ridiculous racial castas.
Why is it that Knowing Better makes at least a dozen videos of how OTHER countries committed war crimes and are ‘playing the victim’, but the second someone wants him to make a video about a guy who caused the deaths of 100 million people, but helped ‘discover’ his OWN country, he just calls it ‘an exaggerated evil’?
He didn’t kill 100 million people. Not even a tenth of that during his lifetime. I don’t agree with KBs video but he is an exaggerated evil, because of comments like this where you just completely inflate numbers and statistics for the sake of a TH-cam comment.
I have to admit, I was sceptical. I do think that Columbus often gets used as a stand-in for colonialism and conquistadors in general in a way that tends to make people overstate their case with extraneous insults to his intelligence(ie. the "Columbus was an idiot who was terrible at navigation" meme is not really accurate--he knew about as much as people of his time knew about the size, shape and layout of the globe).
Watching Knowing Better's video, those were the main takeaways I had--not that Columbus was an ok guy, but that his critics overdo the amount of cruelty and stupidity they attribute to him. Insofar as it made that point, I found the video worthwhile. What I should have considered more, and what I think is the most important point that BadEmpanada makes in this whole video, is the symbolic importance of Columbus. His name is irrevocably connected to the legacy of European colonialism, which means that even if specific criticisms of him are over-the-top, they serve a purpose in tarnishing what ought to be a more-widely derided history of colonial oppression.
As Empanada rightly points out, many of KB's defenses against critiques of Columbus amount to him saying things like "X person was worse" or "this particular quote has less bad interpretations", which landed pretty well with me at the time (which I am somewhat embarrassed to admit). What I hadn't sufficiently considered before is that to debunk semi-comedic videos (the Adam Ruins Everything segment/Fake TED talk) and go after cherry-picked instances of people exaggerating Columbus' negatives isn't a particularly fair or productive way to go about making a historical video. If, rather than trying to make his argument respond to the question "Was Columbus as bad as Adam Conover says he is?", KB had started from a more neutral view, I think he would've found it far harder to make what amounts to a pro-Columbus case. Empanada did a good job pointing out that a fairer framing is whether or not Columbus was evil, which I think the evidence suggests that he was.
Anyway, I feel like I am writing very unclearly and so I should probably just stop now. TL;DR: Thank you for this video BadEmpanada, you changed my mind on Knowing Better's video. I don't necessarily agree with how negatively you characterize his motives, but you have brought me around on the question of how the Columbus conversation ought to be framed, and how KB does a disservice by setting up his video the way that he does, making poor use of historical sources and not relying more on established historians who have studied the topic.
As an indigenous woman i really hope this woke you up and will change how you approach our history as Europe has done a lot to stomp on us and erase it.
Your first bit about navigation is wrong. About two thousand years before Columbus, Greek mathematicians estimated the size of the Earth to about 200 meters of its actual size. Spain had access to that knowledge in Greek, Latin, and Arabic during Columbus’ life. Columbus thought they were wrong. He thought that those Greek mathematicians had over stated the size of the Earth by four fold. And he oddly thought the Earth was pear shaped with Spain near the smallest edge making his trip super short.
Azmon Rougier afterall he made a video called you don’t see in 4K.
Seriously look it up.
books.google.com/books?id=jpAZDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT137&lpg=PT137&dq=Michele+de+Cuneo+%E2%80%9Ctook+a+piece+of+rope+and+whipped+her+soundly%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=Bbvxdq5bGf&sig=jscvj3lsR847JFIuZ28qfqDLd24&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjMksbTtt7dAhWRylkKH#v=onepage&q=Michele%20de%20Cuneo%20%E2%80%9Ctook%20a%20piece%20of%20rope%20and%20whipped%20her%20soundly%E2%80%9D&f=false
@@waywornwyrm8135 knowing better actually does make a better case for his intelligence than his morality.
CC didn't underestimate the size of the planet but the size of Asia. They didn't know how big Asia was. That's why when he landed short, he thought he was off the coast of Japan. Not because he underestimated the size of the ocean but over estimated the size of Asia.
Why are grown people so invested in Columbus being a cartoonish benevolent character like Santa Claus instead of a real historical figure with a lot of power and most likely did a lot of really bad shit anyway?
Because Columbus was a huge part of Catholic Italian immigrants 'becoming white' in the predominantly Protestant Northern European descended US of the early 20th century and late 19th century. Making him important was very advantageous to them, and accorded them the equality they needed.
edit: never mind i misread that lol
@@donnalombardo4368 the crazy part Is why not use Marko Polo instead? oh wait it's because he went to China ain't it, and that is a no no in modern America
Did you even watch NB's video? He by no means portrays him as benevolent. He's arguing the "exaggerated" part not the "evil" part
Did you even watch the other video
I wondered why KB has been making all kinds of new videos talking about the evils inflicted on people of color instead of defending colonialism. You must be why. Thank you
yeah his content has gotten a lot better over the years. i just wish he’d go back and address his columbus video. that’s what always threw me off about him in the first place.
@@jesusdontlikethatimgaybuts9493 he has a few times. He's just tired of doing it at this point I think.
@@jesusdontlikethatimgaybuts9493 From that other content I feel certain that any problems in KB video about Columbia was not a intentional desire to deceive because KB stans Columbia or something. I feel BE was too harsh on KB speaking to assumed motives of KB. Let's just stick to the issue pls.
@@jesusdontlikethatimgaybuts9493 has better shit to do, maybe some day but he is tierd of it
@@Eddn102 yeah, it seems like his Columbus video is unlisted now
I truly thank you for making this video. I actually fell for Knowing Better’s arguments without doing any research myself and needless to say I’m embarrassed. You gave me a lot of insight into how history is studied and talked about (I found the part in the intro where you talked about looking at history from a colonialist lens especially interesting, I never realised how coded the language we use was) and taught me more about an issue I knew little about but everyone and their grandma is trying to convince me wasn’t as big of a deal as everyone says. The colonialism defenders are everywhere these days and I really appreciate people like you who know a fair bit about history sitting down to make an hour and a half long video to explain these things to dumbasses like me.
I love your content man, keep up the good work.
💯💯
I really like how you touched upon the eurocentrism when it comes to "is this society very developed or not", because it rarely centers on the fact that "was this society sustainable?"
Quality of life and technology is also a major part
Well, development does have objective measures.
We actually have an index for it lol.
Exactly! Our culture of consumption may seem great now, but it's so unsustainable and it will lead to our ruin if unchecked.
@@queenofdirt9082 this kind of religious environmental thinking is absolutely anti-human progress.
"We must live a life of poverty to save the planet, yes, mother Earth is punishing us oh yes"
Or maybe it is a matter of science, and we need to replace our fossil fuels with clean energy.
It is 100% doable right now. France is a great model. We can replace all of our electricity with green sources within 10 years.
Instead of ya know, not having stuff. Or becoming poorer.
Yeah but for some reason we haven't changed our energy sources... could money have anything to do with that?
I'm just now watching this so I can get to the thrilling sequel but I love that he thinks there must be some massive translation error overlooked by Everyone and the only way to verify what was really said is to run it through Google translate with a grain of salt.
Its fucking spanish.
It's gerdarn moonspeak, not 'murican like we speak orrer here. Y'all ain't gots no clue what thems illegals be gabbin' about when yer fillin' up yer truck. An I sure as hell ain't never not gunna trust nobody what done speaks mexican. The google is the only way us good decent folks can unnerstand it.
Oh my god, I never thought of it like that! Holy fuck, you’re right, hahahahahaha!
So true! Haha, what was he thinking??
Early modern Spanish my guy. Not to defend knowing worse. But the 1500-1700s is considered the Early modern period. Comparing to English it does have very many differences in the way the Spanish language was interpreted in the modern day. That being said. It's extremely ridiculous to me that knowing worse would think a Google translate app won't do a better job... Then historical linguistics experts and historians...
@@Clawdragoons I concur with that fact my fellow americun
"The only people alive today that defend the black legend are far-right spanish apologists" Man, you should meet peruvian hispanistas
All hispanistas are so damn obnoxious.
JAJA, ITS ME B)
@@antidevgodot what the hell is a hispanista
@@anonymous-gi4tq es is 1 facho fachist
@@Androbott what?
i cannot get over how he tries to worm his way out of being a colonizer by saying his ancestors arrived after the Indian Wars. "So, not me." fucking amazing
Are you a satanist? They fascinate me
i'm sorry i got to the part where he puts a primary source into google translate to prove that it's been misrepresented and had to pause the video. this guy is a popular history youtuber?
Yeah, because translation errors are only a current thing, and there’s no chance someone might have made a mistake back then
@@josemiguelcaballerorestrep2101
My nigga, you don't put shit in *GOOGLE FUCKING TRANSLATE* to prove a point
Google translate wasn’t that off. I speak Spanish and it could be translated to serf like during the feudal age, subjects, or followers. It has no chance of it being slave. But when Knowing Better posted the video he had about 3,000 or 30,000 subscribers.
The thing is... that word should not be translated as slave, but was meant as a servant of God. He was talking about converting people to Christianity... not slavery. The Google Translate point doesn't matter and just obfuscates the fact that the translation is indeed WRONG.
To be fair, he's not just as much a history TH-camr, so much as a "True Facts" TH-camr. And not all of his "hot" takes are off the mark, even historical ones. But while at times he builds up to something good, he is very prone to veering off in weird directions, because he still holds some quite unexamined default views that influece his premises.
And he very much isn't a historian. Or a scientist. So there's that, something to keep in mind, while watching how he tackles with the subjects he chooses to tackle. If our dear BadEmpanada would want to, I would very much be interested in a commentary of "Playing the Victim: Historical Revisionism and Japan".
Good BadEmpanada. Gotta love the good, reasoned, founded work of a conscientious actual historian. If for nothing else, I thank that video Whtewash of Columbus for introducing me to this one.
I find it funny that knowing better couldn’t find anyone who speaks Spanish
Also, why would you use google translate for historical stuff? That's like using google translate for Shakespeare, a modern technology is not going to understand the context of languages back then. Language changes and the context can be very different.
The cherry on top is, that even the google translated passages obviously say the exact thing he proclaims they don't.
Seriously how incompetent can one person be!
@@shadavecc8486 No, they prove his point, they say in literal text inferments that could be drawn either way.
@@TheWarwolf102 eh, the first one i guess. Though even there, Elastigirl would be jealous of how much of a stretch his reasoning for the "servants" bit was.
Great video. Thanks for doing this. My fiance is from Bolivia, and she's helped me understand the history and struggle of indigenous Americans. Honoring Columbus is really disrespectful to the descendents of the people he destroyed.
strength to bolivia especially now.
as a non American, it was crazy to me when i discovered people actually defend him, like, he did everything to make him indefensible
Yeah lots of people view civilizational development as linear despite it being anything but
For example the wheel was only every independently developed twice in Mesoamerica and in Mesopotamia region an in many places it was abandoned in favor of camels
To also add people seem to rate civilization based off how many giant monuments they have
Also the kingdom of Benin built one of the largest planned cities in the world with street lighting paved roads and drainage systems without pack animals
And ‘m sure the Aztec in their gigantic capital capable of holding more people than any european city were really glad that the conquistadores showed them how to build an organized society instead of just being a "tribe".
@@AdrianCelsiusTepes well actually Constantinople Rome and Pairis were larger
@@AdrianCelsiusTepes
It reminds me of us British telling ourselves how we built railways in India, as if the Indians really needed them.
Watched "Knowing Betters" video first... as you wisely suggested ...and then watched your presentation.
Very effect process that reveals we can be brainwashed as passive viewers.
Sincere and Respectful
Thanks for Your Efforts,
Gordon
Aboriginal civilisation lasted 60,000 years with continuity of art and culture. White Australia is barely 250 years old and the environment is already trashed. Will it last another 100 years? Not on the trajectory it is currently on.
But when I use the words "Aboriginal civilisation", White Australians get so annoyed with me.
It's kinda sad how racist this country can be at times. And a lot of people who consider themselves not racist will still spit out racist stereotypes.
@@TheGingerMale You know I have been to Australia many times and I love the place. It's true, I have heard Australians say racist things out loud that astonished me. Things you wouldn't hear in UK, US. Even so I don't think Australia is more racist than UK or US. I just think Australians are naturally blunt and direct. In the US and especially UK people are much more reserved. You could know someone for years and have no idea.
Aboriginal Civilization consisted of two rocks stacked on top of each other, and a fire started by lightning 100+ years previous (which they’d just kept going because they didn’t know how to make fire).
Not that high of a bar…
@@kgpspyguyStop having racist fantasies and defenestrate yourself.
@@kgpspyguy You seem to be well versed in the Aboriginal Civilization, how can I obtain your high level of knowledge?
Como un hablante nativo de Español, en el momento que Knowing Better dijo que la traducción literal de un pasaje en Español era incorrecta, sabía que este iba a ser todo un viaje.
Hablante nativo? Permíteme dudarlo.
@@celiatyree3658 Tienes permitido dudarlo tanto como lo desees, aunque no sé qué ganas con ello
Hey dímelo tío
@@zegim De donde sos vos? No te ofendas pero estoy de acuerdo con celia
@@shutdownexecute3936 Es lo más raro del mundo qué alguien no crea que hablo Español, pero soy de México?
Será qué mis modismos les resultan raros?
Thanks, I had actually fallen for this very video back when it came out.
I am now impressed by how well my history teachers taught us in Form 1-3 after watching this video. I had no idea that so many people did not know this stuff. They never demonized Columbus, but I knew about almost all of this stuff at a high level.
I love these feature length videos! Especially when it's a response
I must say when I saw KB’s video on this topic It intrigued me since I knew nothing about the subject. I thought his take was interesting even though there were some red flags.
This video imo picks apart fundamental logic deficiencies and faulty information very very thoroughly, my only complaint is that you didn’t make the video earlier.
I can say You earned a subscriber mate. I’ve also followed the drama between you and KB (I like some of his videos) and I m happy to hear that it gets resolved
The problem is that he doesn't actually use any documentation or historical fact, but conjecture. He isn't actually providing any documentation to support his ideas. He only uses things like "contemporary authors" or "new historical theories". At least Knowing Better provides documentation and references. This guy even uses the idea of "maybe" a number of times. You can't use "maybe" as a refusal for an argument. At one point, he says that KB uses google translate to prove things. KB specifically states that google translate is wrong. Yet KB also says that it doesn't make sense. But this dude says that his own translation is right regardless of actual translations.
@@jimkoch2775 what the fuck is the original sources then? o.O
@@Sephirajo They are the real journal entries of Columbus, not what someone hundreds of years later thought he said, just like in Knowing Better's video. This mouth breather has no actual sourcing of his own, he just cites vague citations without actually providing anything except for saying things like "contemporary authors" or "new historical theories" like I stated above. If you just take this guy at his word, without any actual evidence, then you are being intellectually dishonest.
@@jimkoch2775 ahqhahahahahajajajajajajajjajajajaajajajajaa lol no
@@Sephirajo I’m not surprised at your reply. Just as devoid of proof as this video. But hey, laugh it up. It’s easier than admitting you might just be a sheep with confirmation bias
For me, when KB started criticizing professional translations, not speaking Spanish himself, and using fucking Google Translate as his tool, I lost it. It was especially galling to see him claim the translations were wrong when I was reading the Spanish myself and yelling, "Are you fucking kidding me? It says exactly what you say it doesn't!" Seriously, if you don't speak the language, you shouldn't criticize any translations. After that, it was just glorious watching you systematically take his video apart. I knew some of this and yet learned a lot more. It really was amazing to see just how much damage this one man did in such a short span of time. Man, they don't usually come that wicked. Is it more wicked that so many nominally less evil people have nevertheless tried to exonerate a man like Columbus? Seriously, never trust a centrist... They're "reasonable compromise" will pave a wide path to Hell!
Very well-researched video. I love your videos, and I wish I could donate. But I live in Ethiopia, where foriegn exchange is strictly regulated, so I can't (we can't use Patreon & similar services). Keep up the good fight :))
Are we supposed to pretend that people hundreds of years ago didn’t have the mental capacity to reason that slavery and genocide are bad?
Well, the manifest destiny idea created a mentality that overlooked the immorality of colonizing the west for example. And in africa, atrocities were carried out under the pretense that they were spreading christianity and civilization to heathens. And Caesar invaded Gaul (and started a genocide) to "protect tribes" he was allied with.
@@Daniel-uk6yr I refuse to believe that people were just brainwashed. I believe they rationalized things in about the same way that we do today. Part of it is a genuine belief, and another huge part of it is REALLY convenient justifications. Like slavery was convenient so people were more willing to uncritically accept black people as less human than white people. It’s what they wanted to believe therefor they were sold on the idea easily. But much like today, I’m certain there was a significant chunk of people calling out the atrocities and immorality. Therefor we cannot excuse the behavior because they CHOSE to dismiss the arguments of people who opposed these actions.
@@mediterraneanmint89 sure.
@@Daniel-uk6yrjohn brown disagrees
Slavery was definitely seen as justified, genocide it's a bit trickier
With genocide people didn't believe it was wrong in a sense that mass killing millions is morally abhorrent but rather that it's a very difficult thing to carry out and extremely inconvenient. It was way more beneficial to keep the population alive and have them work and fight for you instead. For example Alexander the Great could have never genocided Persia, but he could proclaim himself King of Kings and rule Persia instead. Kublai Khan was in a similar position in China, couldn't really genocide the native han population or bring and bring Mongolian settlers to replace them but he could proclaim himself Emperor of China and rule it instead. For most of history, the rule of strength was followed namely "the strong take what they can and the weak suffer what they must".
In ancient and medieval times, if a city was sacked there was a good chance that said city will disappear, look at Troy completely destroyed by the Greeks, the entire population either enslaved or killed. Same thing with Carthage by the Romans. Antioch by the mamluks, Harappa and Mohenjo Daro were wiped out and we don't even know by whom. Even Rome itself was sacked by the Gauls in 390 BC, it's a wonder how the city did not disappear.
Slavery was seen as something natural, and slaves were taken as war spoils by the conquerors, to them that was their war bounty. Slaver raids were also carried out by pretty much everyone everywhere. Bebers in the Mediterranean, Europeans on the western coast of africa, Turks in the Balkans and modern day Ukraine. Hell Caesar even boasted about capturing as many as 1 million Gaulic slaves.
A must see video for literally everyone in the western hemisphere
Academic inclined youtuber focused on Latin America history and politics. A sign of good times to come.
I tried to find this video from knowing better and it appears that he has taken it down, along with the "response" video. I think your criticisms have had a positive effect. Thank you!
No, look in the description. It is linked because the video is unlisted, not privated/taken down.
th-cam.com/video/ZEw8c6TmzGg/w-d-xo.html
Also, 'ingenious' in the English translation he's using is wrong. 'De buen ingenio' means 'having a good temperament', just as 'tener un arranque de mal ingenio' means to lose one's temper. Referring to their 'good temperament' makes much more sense in the context of them supposedly being 'good servants' as well.
I think thats genio
ingenio mean wit since spanish is still latin
the in- prefix isn't negative prefix all the time
ingenious isn't even mean un-smart, it just straight borrow for french
that's one stupid point to mention anyways; the other points are strong
@@orgullosamenteperonista Also a native speaker, and 'ingenio' doesn't only mean ingenuity.
I didn't realize how inaccurate Knowing Better's video was, but as a total historical laymen I found his claims about the encomienda system just...bizarre. In my middle school/high school history textbooks they described it as a racialized caste system! There was no way the average Spaniard back then would view an indigenous American as equal to a peasant. The very reason why the Europeans even started bringing African slaves in large numbers is because they literally worked the native populations to death. Knowing Better's weird comparison actually reminds me of how I remember the California mission system is whitewashed in elementary school here ("you know, the Franciscans basically tricked the native Californians onto working on the missions without pay and were prohibited from leaving once they joined, so a critic might call it 'slavery:'" but the friars had the best intentions! They just wanted to introduce the uncivilized heathens to Jesus! And give them food and shelter!")
it might get lost in all the praise of the great content, but this is really well edited and must have been a ton of work for a video of this length. and yep, you just got into that at the end haha, wow. great job.
Native peoples know the evils Columbus has done, thank you for talking about this. It's important.
It really is not important because his reputation has very little effect on today's world. Him being seen bad or good won't change anything.
@@goblinstabba7105 Yes it does. It makes colonization, slavery, exploitation and genocide normalized and celebrated.
@@henrymudgett2646 That is not what is Celebrated on Columbus day
@@goblinstabba7105 Ofncourse it is. It’s celebrating a man who was condemned by many in his time for his severe brutality, exploitation, forced conversions of victims, enslavement, sexual violence, torture, mutilation and murder of an entire island of peoples that was eventually driven extinct. People like Queen Isabella was so horrified that in her will she wrote instructions on how to treat the natives humanely and to avoid allowing another Columbus-type from rising again.
@@henrymudgett2646 Columbus was definitely very evil, but when people celebrate Columbus Day, they are definitely not celebrating genocide and all those other evils. They are celebrating a man who did those things, but they are not celebrating those things that man did. When people celebrate/celebrated Columbus Day, the version of Columbus they are celebrating is a good version of Columbus, though that version never existed. I'm not saying it should be done, it shouldn't, truth should be known. But the people who celebrate Columbus on Colubumus Day are not celebrating the concept of genocide (plus all the other horrible things), that's a fact.
It’s sad how this video doesn’t have 3 million views yet his video has.
I am so happy to have found this channel.
Man, you really eviscerated his entire argument. I'm in awe of your skills.
The comments section on the original video hurts my brain.
God I’ve never seen such flagrant anti Italian discrimination
@Bonus Malus They probably meant Columbus. He was born in Genoa, today part of Italy.
Thank you for putting so much time into refuting this.
The 12 ways in which people attempt to deny genocide, made by Gregory Stanton (a professor known for his work on Genocide Studies):
1. Question and minimize the statistics
2. Attack the motivations of the truth-tellers
3. Claim that the deaths were inadvertent
4. Emphasize the strangeness of the victims
5. Rationalize the deaths as the result of tribal conflict
6. Blame "out of control" forces for committing the killings
7. Avoid antagonizing the genocidists, who might walk out of "the peace process"
8. Justify denial in favor of current economic interests
9. Claim that the victims are receiving good treatment
10. Claim that what is going on doesn't fit the definition of genocide
11. Blame the victims
12. Say that peace and reconciliation are more important that blaming people for genocide
Yep, sounds about right to what idiots like to say about “hating wEsTeRn CiViLiZaTiOn.”
Huh, I was acknowledged by the Man himself. Cool
This. Is. The. Best. Comment! 👏
A very interesting thing I recently heard about is that agriculture isn’t even necessary for large settlements. Some large settlements have been found that used the cultivation of fish as the basis of their civilization, getting numbers on par with agriculture settlements.
Problem is, you can't scale fishing to a growing population. The more fish you eat, the less there will be in the water. As population grows, the more fish they will use, until the need surpasses the available resource. Agriculture on the other hand, does scale, you can expand it to match a growing population without depleting any resource.
Thank you for this video. It is well researched, sourced and explained and really shows the terrible points KB makes in his video, as well as correcting them and making a very educational experience on Columbus, especially for me, someone in a country where Columbus isn’t really taught (he isn’t related to our history).
I really like some of knowing better’s video so it really sucks seeing a video like this, one so poorly argued and researched and I hope he sees his mistakes here and takes down his video, hopefully even correcting himself in a different video
Tenochtitlan was by essentially any metric you choose the single greatest city on the face of the planet when Cortes showed up. Population? Higher than any in Europe at the time. Architecture? They literally managed to build a Metropolis *on a lake* so yeah its mad detached from reality to insinuate that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas were any less 'progressed' than the Europeans, What they were is at an Armament Disadvantage. Nothing more.
Excellent video. I was fuming while watching his video and was about to do a response myself, but then the cold hit me and I found your video so I am spreading it around now.
When I started watching this I was expecting a whiney, subjective response. What I saw was a really detailed, rational response that's far more informative than Knowing Better. Definitely subscribing.
I was completely bamboozled by this video thank you for this work. I strongly appreciate this. I had recently shared this video on my facebook without reviewing it on Columbus day and I feel unbelievably embarrassed.
(Also I wasnt defending Columbus day but felt I was correcting a round of falsehoods)
I think I understand the mentality behind wanting to defend Columbus. First of all, children are taught about Columbus as the person who discovered America from basically the beginning of elementary school, and we have an entire national day celebrating him. Since Columbus stated the colonization of America, and basically laid the foundation for the United States to have a population made up of people of European decent. And, being an American of European decent, which is most people, the idea that you being here not only did not need to happen, but shouldn't have happened, is a lot to take in. It's much easier to try to construe some tech-tree narrative about how it was both inevitable and unavoidable, as well as defending Columbus, in order to try to distance yourself as far as possible from the terrible things that actually happened. (Note Knowing Better's joke about how his ancestors weren't in America back then, which I think is a definite hint as to the underlying idea that he wants to distance himself as far away from the atrocities as he can)
Thanks for the great and informative video, BadEmpanada. I hope Knowing Better sees it and learns something from it. After all, he has other videos about how countries like Japan and Turkey deny terrible things that they've done in the past, and realizing that you have the urge to do the same for your own country's history should grant a lot of insight in to why this happens.
well said
Why shouldn't the Europeans be in America? You're judging ancient societies from your morals. Yes, people used to kill each other and worse. We've only recently realized that it's not something we should be doing, and mind you it's still not all of us. We're not any different from people who've lived 500 years ago, their morals were products of their respective societies. Native societies themselves while fell victim to European expansion were not any kinder or nicer. In fact I could well argue that myriads of genocides that we've committed over the centuries have helped to accelerate technological progress, which in turn enabled our population to balloon to 8 billion people and live nowadays in relative peace, with expectation of more peace and democratic rights down the line. In 2005 for the first time ever democracies became more numerous than autocracies. Whitewashing history is idiotic exactly as much as turning it into something shameful.
Damn, as someone who started my trip down bread tube with Knowing Better's videos, it's sad to see that this video was so poorly researched and made. I hope he takes it down.
Tooth I give you a ton of credit for admitting the obvious. So many of his fans still won’t admit their guy made a shit video. Crazy considering I was a fan of his until I saw that video for the first time.
Ddhfacetyy he said that Columbus was not deserving of hate and that he never advocated for slaves; those were proven wrong.
Thankfully he acknowledged it in a video and by removing ads.
Don't worry, this guy took a lot of sarcasm out of context, ignores quotation marks, forgets plain logic. Watch the response video to this "response video"
@@K_J_Coleman_Composer yea, no buddy. Watch this channels response to the "response"
You have the wrong type of buffalo in the picture at the 10 minute mark. That one is an Asian water buffalo. You want a picture of an American bison, which is taller, larger, has a much bigger head, and is shaggier.
44:42 Christopher Columbus was an Ancap.
So was Sutter
wow, that must have been a hell of a lot of work to make this video. thanks for taking the time to actually research the historical backgrounds. much more people should watch your video!
I’m absolutely floored that he used *google translate* as some infallible source, better than actual historians
even if the original was inaccurate, it’s *so* easy to ask someone fluent in Spanish. Bc everyone knows that Google translate isn’t all that useful/nuanced
I usually like knowing better’s videos but this is almost laughably misinformed/biased. I’m no columbus expert, but that Google translate bit, and ending his quotes w ‘blah blah blah’, specifically the part where Google translate is outright inaccurate which uhh, that’s a pretty big problem when ur trying to prove that the source is inaccurate. That alone-for me-destroys any validity his assertion might have had
Edit: I love how he says ‘actually why do ppl WANT to columbus?’ like what? ‘aww chris I can’t stay mad at u, u rascal!’ tf?
KB's early videos are questionable at best and uhhhh pretty bad at worst lmao. But his newer stuff is better by a ton.
@@Mullkaw that’s good, I’ll try giving him another shot. any recommendations?
@@rotisseriepossum His videos on "Indian Removal" and "Neo-Slavery" are pretty good, and they cite the work of actual historians which is a good change of pace.
From Spain, thank you very much for your work. Most people in Spain have faced imperial apologists when trying to adress this subject, there are so many of them :( In my case, my grandmas and some uncles and mates. You gave me some nice tools for christmas dinner discussions.
@@r32guy85 I don't feel bad and it's not my history, it's the history of my country being used for nationalistic political purposes.
Keep the fight Ignacio, one day we will talk about these topics like adults in Spain
Your channel makes me hungry
I fail to see how forced labor would be slavery any less just because someone can’t own you. It’s functionally the same, isn’t it?
There are degrees here. I’m just saying that Knowing Better seems to think forced labor is okay as long as there’s no ownership
I don't know, but if I was exploited and forced to work for someone I'd be very relieved to hear that I'm technically speaking not exactly a slave. /s
@@iz2333 I dread to imagine what it felt to be gaslit in a situation like that... back then they would talk about taking the sparkle from people's eyes...
Honestly, I was a Knowing Better fan, but that entire video just felt like all the arguing I’ve done over the years with closeted racist. The type of dudes who try to defend the Confederacy or Hitler by citing some technicality. The Steve Crowder type.
I don't think Knowing Better is saying the Columbus is a good person but he's not as bad as people were saying. People say he took slaves when technically thats not the truth. Doesn't mean it's ok and I don't think he was making that claim.
So glad my friend (SomerandomG33K sent me to your channel! So glad to learn so much about the real facts as opposed to the kind of BS the alt-right love to throw out.
Who dat?
This is mind-numbingly frustrating, I cannot believe he made that video, thank you for this! I'm also a historian, and it's like, it isn't hard to research this, why does everyone struggle?
@Nigel1048 lol what academic credentials do you have to ask me that? I'm gatekeeping questions, so answer that
@@AmorFatiMementoMori Lol its idiotic, let me drop my grad school name??? - I am studying mexico and guatemala, in grad school, it's silly because Bad Empanada also has credentials, and having credentials doesn't immediately establish ethos on the internet. Will it immediately change his mind? No. He's being antogonistic.
@@AmorFatiMementoMori I guess I just honestly don't see anything serious about TH-cam comments, it's feel like a silly thing to get pressed about -- but yes, I have studied Latin America history in my undergrad and I'm getting my MA in Arizona because I also work with border issues. Now that my ethos exists and I've answered in good faith, now I can rest in peace. Please read books about Colombus written by actual historians, not by people who think google translate is a source, because, knowledge is good as hell.
@@AmorFatiMementoMori Listen if you're only coming from this from watching Knowing Better and then Bad Empanada videos, that's not great. There's a lot of great resources online or at public libraries, but Knowing Betters video was really off--in a while that silenced and ignored Indigenous voices and actual history. Go pick up a book! I'm not going to list every reason here in the comments section when so many great people have written essays and books. If you want suggestions of things to read, I can give those. Colombus is a small cruel blip in a larger and crueler history and we can't play any part is erasing it.
@@AmorFatiMementoMori bruh the dude is literally quoting primary sources, that is the opposite of "speculating"
I feel like the whole argument that colonizers want to make here boils down to “native no have the shooty shooty” which really opens up the conversation to talk about violence from a colonizers point of view, wnd how progress is literally monitored as “how much violence can I commit without any reciprocal advance”
Military power is usually a very good indicator of how advanced a society is
conquistadors didn't really use guns or even their armor. however Europe was extremekly advanced in that time and had superior tech and science than the americas
Damn im shocked. I never saw this video and i used to watch Knowing Better a lot. He's the reason i have a lot of the belifes I have today. Maybe i should double check some stuff after this one.
literally same, that comment abou Zimmerman and Treyvon Martin threw me for a loop, but it all made since with his "not genocide on a technicality" argument. extremely disappointed
It's wild how much the Knowing Better video is just unapologetic apologetics for colonialism. Like he just says all this shit about the "historical context" without even thinking about what that history created. Even worse is just willfully ignoring how Columbus has become a symbol of colonialism, and that tearing him down is largely done as a way of tearing down the deification of colonialism in the Americas. Arguing that he doesn't deserve it is such a bad hill to die on.
Explaining the difference between manslaughter, and murder, as defined in the American Legal system isn't "justifying murder". he's explaining how someone could get found "not guilty", because of technicalities.
This is what I was thinking. This video is trying to argue that original is trying to justify and exonerate Columbus when all he's doing is explaining the exaggerations.
Yuwan “an exaggerated evil” not “completely not evil at all.” Slavery already existed in the Americas, along with human sacrifice. Everyone was doing bad shit back then. Quit being immature and see the big picture.
For the record, I think CC was a big, steamy pile of doo doo myself, but exaggerating things doesn’t help anybody.
@@paulgotik and what is that famed agenda again?
@@Llamasomenumbers Yeah. I totally agree. I can see what points this video is trying to make but it sways you to think one thing and one thing only. I really like the Knowing Better video because he presents the facts and tries to remain unbiased.
@@montiseas919 But he doesn’t at all. Are you not bothered by the number of historical evidence that Knowing Better specifically did not mention? When you make a video saying “Columbus wasn’t that bad” you can’t ignore far more damning evidence. KB clearly didn’t do his research well enough, and was just bothered by what he perceived to be too much Columbus hate, and so set out making a video having already reached a conclusion. The evidence is quite damning that Columbus was an exceptionally bad individual. Just because people might have been racist, doesn’t mean they all enslaved and killed tens of thousands. Columbus did.
I remember watching his video a couple months ago and deciding to research Columbus stuff on my own, spending a couple hours pouring through stuff. Now I'm not like a historian but there were easily and obvious things he left out of his video that I found just by googling around for an hour or two.
Even the algorithms are coming for knowingbetter. I had an ad for Amazon placed so that he said "you can't have a city without
Also watching on mobiles sucks due to no adblock.
wow great video! Thank you so much for presenting a well thought out rebuttal of what are sadly some very common misconceptions. I love when ppl quote actual historians who spend their lives researching and studying a subject bc that work doesn't get enough respect in these days of alternative facts
So this is the guy who got Knowing Better to change his perspective.
empanada: "ok, colonizer."
col·o·niz·er
/ˈkäləˌnīzər/
Ok Colonised
I already thought that was a bad video, without even being able to refute most of the crap it in. Congratulations on turning it into a bottomless sea of "oof".
(Edit: For the record, I like most of Knowing Better's _other_ videos. But seeing _that_ video first made me very wary of him.)
I cannot get over the fact that Columbus day is real thing in my country.
What country are you from?
@@nicholasrevill6610 USA
it’s probably a thing in all of north america tho
@@ongakira Most of South America also have it, it's just called dia de la hispanidad, Brazil doesn't, the same day is children's day and also a Catholic holiday, Brazil kind of have the same "celebration" of the arrival of the colonizers in April with the "discovery" of Brazil.
Thank the catholic Italians for that
The encomienda system also tells us about the population of pre colonial America. There were so many people already living here, that the colonizers were just like "one of your basically slaves died? have another one, for free!". I point this out because it is popularly held that America was sparsely populated, while in truth it was chock full of people. Highly suggest reading 1491 by Charles C. Mann. It is a beautiful portrayal of the continent with all its peoples.
Also, when he talks about cities, it seems like an assumption that settling in larger cities is always better than being nomadic. Even though nomads tend to be healthier, and it is a lifestyle that in many cases is more adaptive because settled life depends on particular weather patterns and specific bodies of water not getting too polluted, drying up, or whatever. There's a pervasive anti-nomad bias, I'm noticing.
Hell, an argument can be made that a lot of industrialized societies have nomadic populations too. Think about long haul truckers, or other people who move around a lot. Maybe they lean a lot on sedentary people but nomads have always been a part of every civilization.
Plus a lot of indigenous peoples, both sedentary and nomadic, have incorporated modern technology and science into their traditional lifestyles.
@@artemis_smith Yeah, an area of history I'm fascinated by is the history of various nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppes. They had such a huge impact on China, Europe, India, and the Middle East. But their history is mostly only written by settled people who saw them often as "savages" and "barbarians". But they had such a rich culture and their trade routes made the world what it is today. And like you said, now people in "civilization" still pay some people to live a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle. Pilots/ flight crews, your example of truck drivers, train crews, sailors, etc. There's even itinerant celebrities, like rock stars or great public speakers on tour. And the historical birth of settlement in larger cities was also the birth of wide socio-economic inequality and despotism. I feel like travel and freedom of movement across lands with different rulers should be a protected human right. It's human nature and beneficial to humanity.
In Ireland we had/have a nomadic population, Travellers or Minceir. They were also discriminated and legislated against by the english crown and later the Irish government. Their descendents nowadays are still doing worse than average by most social metrics and are mostly settled
I'm so glad you made this video. When I watched that KB video I was alternately stunned and furious and at certain points actually shouting at my screen. The part where he said that Columbus was forcing them to do what he wanted but it wasn't slavery because he didn't technically own them was just...unbelievable. I think maybe it drove so crazy because I wasn't expecting it; I've seen some of his other videos and I just had no idea from those that he would make a video like this. I actually checked the date on the video because I thought maybe it was another April Fools video.
This is an old video, and even he doesn't stand by it. In a video that came out shortly after this one he explained that he wanted to debunk some of the more ridiculous claims made against Columbus, but that he does not like Columbus and never will.
this kind of "not actually slavery" definition lawyering cop-out is why the term "conditions analogous to slavery" was made.
Thanks for this video, i was somewhat conviced by Knowing Better and i feal such an idiot for being deceive by the changes of the semantics and other false facts.
Thank you for making this. I hate the romanization of colonizers
Lol asians are biggest colonizers
@@proudbulgaria3032 shut up there is no need to compare. All colonization is evil shut up
Thank you very much for your work. Regards from Chile
I understand now why you fight for dignity. You are called after a spice
There are so many weird types of Fanfic out there, but Christopher Columbus Fanfic is the absolute weirdest.
I went into this video skeptical and I remained so all the way till 26:32, that's a damning example of a technicality being used sweep away an atrocity
I’ve put off watching this video for ages, so glad I finally jumped in and listened to what you had to say, very well and calmly made
The first part, where you talk about the racist idea that non-european societies were less developed, reminds me of something I saw on diachrony classes in college: even by European standarts, a considerable amount of the people that were enslaved and colonized were miles ahead of the average European as far as scholarship, knowledge and scientific formation goes. For example, we have evidence showing that a considerable amount of the african people that were enslaved by Portugal and brought to Brazil were scholars and had extensive knowledge on philosophy and science. But since they spoke a different language, that was never taken into account. Let's not even begin to talk about pre-Colombian people that inhabited south America, that were extensively structured and had intricate knowledge, architecture and other things so it's SO good to see someone going against all that...
Subscribing right now ❤
They even made a rebellion called the Males Revolt
Just and FYI, the creatures called "buffalo" in the Americas are actually "bison", which are a distinct species from African, Asian and European buffalo. And while it is technically possible to domesticate them, large scale domestication is really not viable in most situations, they are large, aggressive, and require a lot of open land, most bison ranchers only keep small herds to produce meat for specialty butchers, hence why it's hard to get bison steaks unless you live in the Western US. In Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, its common for butchers and restaurants to have bison on menu, elsewhere less so.
Tommy's Joynt on Van Ness in San Francisco has buffalo chili and stew, yum!