enough. ABOUT

coLumBus. Lecs Give
some credit to bis
POINT, MAN- The
FOURTH DORSEMAD:
The CONQUEST OF BOT
DORTH AND. souch
AMERICA REALLY HAD
MORE TO DO ch
GIHDAT HAS BEEN
DUBBED “BIOLOGICAL
impertaALism” ThAD

Anything else.

by Angus Adair

 

The aboriginal people were not
decimated because Colombus and
those that followed possessed
superior numbers or firepower, or
because thecolonialists weremilitary

geniuses.
_ They were destroyed by disease.

Pestilence has historically
shaped our socio-cultural patterns of
behaviour. One of the best examples
of thisishow the Black Death, typhus
and cholera prompted a people who
had destroyed theirownland tolook
across the sea for another try. The
cultures that had created the massive
die offs travelled arm in arm with
Pestilence to the “New World”.

It is believed that, in less than a
hundred years, over a hundred
million natives lost their lives-in
America alone. Gunpowder was
sadistic overkill of several peoples
suffering from an epidemic of
smallpox. The smallpox epidemic
that devasted the Americas has been
cited by historians as “ the single

test demographic disaster in the
Fistor. of the world.” I know few
members of my generation, thatwere
ever tought this history in school.

The Middle East gave birth to
small pox when animals began to be
domesticated. Mostly a flu like
annoyance, while still init’s infancy,
it had changed by the 16th and 17th
centuries ,and new strains had made
itatortousand lethaldisease. It would
via “explorers” and colonists
immigrate to a world where the
native people had noimmunity to it.
In the Americas immunity to major
disease was irrelevant because the

people lived healthy lifestyles in’

harmony with nature. The people
that smallpox would conquer had
never provoked nature into spewing
forth plague.

The Ojibway, still havea word
in their language- pimadaziwinwhich
means “ to honour life in the sense of
longevity, health and freedom from
misfortune.” Native lifespans were
nearly twice that of the Europeans.
The Inca valued good hygeine as
much as honesty, considering both
holy virtues.

By way of contrast,the
Europeans would not even begin
bathing as a cultural norm until the
nineteenth century. As both native
and colonial records show, the
“unclean savages” , were in fact,
cleaner than the colonialists.

If you transplant a living
organism intoa place withnonatural
predators and plenty of food it will
inevitably multiply like rabbits. One
of the most important factors in the
obliteration of the indigenous people
was the “ law of rabbits”. Smallpox
did in North and South America,
what rabbits did to Australia- They
devastated it.

Colombus’ first expedition
would provide the first indications
of what would happen , but these
werei himandevery other
European. Hekidnapped 10 Arawaks

 

 

and returned to Spain. Three died en
route. A year later when Colombus
returned only two remained alive in
Spain. Disease had destroyed them.
Theremaining two “specimens” died
shortly.

Were it not for for Smallpox ,
Cortez would have just been another
dead Spaniard. His army was being
obliterated by the superior numbers
and the obsidian wielding soldiers of
Cuitalhuac. However Cuitalhuac
never finished the job because
smallpox struck his army just before
he struck Cortez a finshing blow.
Cortez regrouped with more ships
and morecannons, but by this time it
wasunecessary.Cuitalhuac’s people

T looked
and behold
an ashen
horse; and
he who
sat on it
had the
name
"Death"

 

littered the streets beforea single shot
was fired. The Fourth Horseman had
struck an alliance with Cortez and
the Spaniards and the consequences
wer horrifying.

Smallpox, plague,andinfluenza
moved to Yucatan and Guatemala
and the great empires of the Aztecs
and the Maya fell to microbes. Spain
took credit- and advantage of a sick
and dying people. In 1505, many
Aztecs many Aztecs had to sell
themselvesintoslavery tosurvive. In
less than twenty years, two thirds of
the population of the Yucatan was
wiped off the face of the Earth. The
remaining population was enslaved.

Costa Rica, Panama, and
Nicaragua checked in as victims of
what had become a pandemic. The
military leader, Pizarro arrived in
1532 withonly 170 menand 40 horses
Pizarro claimed he had conquered
the areas .

Pizarro was not the miltary
genius he was reputed to be.
Pestilenceand civil warhad preceded
him into the region. Pizarro was
simply the European who took the
credit for the devastion. The Jesuits,
in both Americas, converted

the Other Press

thousands ofnative people who were
desperate for a cure. Their faith had
been broken by a disease with no
cure. They assumed their had
forsaken them and that the “white
man’sgod” mustbemore powerfull.
However, even the Jesuit’s god
provided no cure and missionarys
became places of great suffering and
death.

InNorthAmericaentirecultures
were smashed and buried and this
vast and majestic land was
depopulated at an alarming rate.
Slave trade was instituted, for there
weren't enough indiginous people,
that could withstand disease, left to
enslave.

  
  
 
 
  
 
   
  
 
  

Blacks wereconsidered healthier
and so Africans wereadded tothelist
of peoples victimized and infected
with disease. Slave galleys were
termed tumbeiros by the Portugese.
This word translated means “ floating
tomb”.

Natives wereinduced to become
agents of their own genocide.
Canada’s first corporation , The
Hudson’s Bay Corporation helped
set the stage. Providing wampun, a
mark of prestige,in exchange for
beaver tails, many native peoples in
desperate straights began to destroy
that which they had relied upon for
sustenance- both physical and
spiritual.

It was not just beavers that were
decimated in this fashion but all
animals which had previously
enjoyed revered places in the
idigenous cultures.

Reservations were established
as dying grounds for what was left.
Up till the late 1970's South Africa
drew from Canada’s exampleand
based apartheid on this very system.
The natives did not die as expected
and 400 years later begantoovergrow
their reservations. With little land to

support their rapidly growing
numbers they had to resort to the

giantbingoplexes of today to eure

rt
themselves. Various other gambling
and illicit activities resulted as well.
Thecrisis at Oka can trace it's origins
to smallpox.

Finally in 1990, Elijah Harper, a
Cree, said “No” and scuttled the
Meech Lake Accord because it was a
further ignorance that native people
would not tolerate and were finally
healthy enough to resist.

What is the legacy of biological
imperialism?

In 1490 the Americas composed
20% of the world’s population. Less
than a century, several epidemics,

and wars later it comprised a mere
3%.

In Central Mexico, before
Columbus, the populationnumbered
25 million. By 1568 the remaining
twomillion wereenslaved.Smallpox
established the slave trade.
Obliteration and exploitation of the
idegenous people and wildlife plus
reservations and apartheid.

Canada shaped it’s economic
values around the policies of the
Hudson Bay Company and the fur
trade. The Hudson's Bay Company
demonstrated that if you exploit the
wilderness youcanmakemoneyand
accumulate power.

Canadians have “skinned” the
land of it’s animals, it’s trees , and
moved from river to river damming
them up. The result has
been a conservation record which
hasconsistently beenoneofthe worst
in the world. It also helped produce
dependency on an economy which
has consistently been weak based on
“renewable resources” that we fail to
renew.

The USA, withit’s manifest
destiny has moved from conquest of

October 15, 1992

 

land to the conquest of the future.
Disconnected from it’s past in every
way, including it’s ties to Britain,
which it severed in it’s first civil war
it has become a “cult of the future’.
Latin America has gone the
opposite’ direction. They are
inextricably linked to their past as a
result of being a people of mixed
blood and orphans. They are unable
and unwilling to forget the past.

In Central America , the native
people became trapped in a tragic
cycle which continues to this day.
Nations reliant upon only one crop
for survival fell to disease and as
soon as a crop was found to replace

and Khades was
following with
him.
Was given to him
Over 3 fourth of

the earth, to kill
with famine and
pestilence and

the beasts of
the earth. ‘Rev. 6:8

Authority

it, a new disease arrived to wipe it
out. It is not surprising to see that
Central America is still in turmoil .

Perhaps the only justice in all of
this surrounds Columbus’ death. He
died in 1506 from syphilis. Vincente
Pinzon, the master of the Nina also
contracted the disease . Individual
crewmen of the Santa Maria , Nina
and the Pinta slept with 5 to 6
Arawaks a night .

To the indigenous peoples,
syphilis was no more than a skin
rash. In Europe, syphilis obediently
followed the rule of rabbits.

Many Europeans became
covered in large tumours of weeping
pus. Their bodies quite literally
decayed. Body parts, including
testicles, would rot and fall off. If
syphilis reached the brain, madness
resulted. Columbus died suffering
from the delusion that he was the
"ambassador of God".

Columbus got the trade routehe
deserved . He brought civilization to
the Americas and "syphilization" to
Europe.

Intheend,The FourthHorseman
took his quarter.

 

 

; _————_ -