Plan B Forum

Big RR wrote:Murdered several million people? Old Chris must have been pretty busy being no useful WMDs in those days. Even at a kill rate of thousand a day, one million would take nearly three years; a lot of work for one man.

Did Columbus Bring Syphilis to Europe?

New research touts evidence as the strongest to date that he did January 15, 2008 |By Lisa Stein

Apparently, the New World isn't all that intrepid explorer Christopher Columbus discovered; seems we may also have him to thank for spreading the pathogen that causes syphilis—along with news of the Americas—to Europe.

A new study provides what scientists say is the most convincing evidence to date that the Italian adventurer and some of his crew contracted the disease during their voyage to the New World—and unwittingly introduced it to the old one circa 1493.

The research culminates centuries of debate over whether the disease stemmed from bacteria that originated in the Old or New worlds.

Researchers from Emory University in Atlanta report in the online journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases that they used phylogenetics—the study of the evolutionary link between organisms—to study 26 geographically scattered strains of a family of bacteria known as Treponemes, which are behind the sexually transmitted disease syphilis as well as related nonvenereal infections such as yaws. They found that the venereal syphilis-causing strains arose relatively recently in humans and are closely related to an ancient infection isolated in South America that gives rise to yaws.

"That supports the hypothesis that syphilis—or some progenitor—came from the New World," said lead study author Kristin Harper, an Emory molecular genetics researcher.

There are three main sources of controversy involving Columbus’s interactions with the indigenous people he labeled “Indians”: the use of violence and slavery, the forced conversion of native peoples to Christianity, and the introduction of a host of new diseases that would have dramatic long-term effects on native people in the Americas. Historians have uncovered extensive evidence of the damage wreaked by Columbus and his teams, leading to an outcry over emphasis placed upon studying and celebrating him in schools and public celebrations.

In an era in which the international slave trade was starting to grow, Columbus and his men enslaved many native inhabitants of the West Indies and subjected them to extreme violence and brutality. On his famous first voyage in 1492, Columbus landed on an unknown Caribbean island after an arduous three-month journey. On his first day in the New World, he ordered six of the natives to be seized, writing in his journal that he believed they would be good servants. Throughout his years in the New World, Columbus enacted policies of forced labor in which natives were put to work for the sake of profits. Later, Columbus sent thousands of peaceful Taino “Indians” from the island of Hispaniola to Spain to be sold. Many died en route. Those left behind were forced to search for gold in mines and on plantations. Within 60 years after Columbus landed, only a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island.

As governor and viceroy of the Indies, Columbus imposed iron discipline on what is now the Caribbean country of Dominican Republic, according to documents discovered by Spanish historians in 2005. In response to native unrest and revolt, Columbus ordered the a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed; in an attempt to deter further rebellion, Columbus ordered their dismembered bodies to be paraded through the streets.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:"... Why does the USA make such a deal about a guy who ignored the landmass and thought he was in India or one of those other futile places beginning with the letter "I"?
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