Join me with my guest, Jamon Fries, as I go through the history of Christopher Columbus' history.
- Jamon Fries
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[00:00:00]
Jesse Fries:
This is the Mindless Sea podcast. Hello, everybody. I am Jesse Friese, your host of the Mindless Sea podcast. It's been a little while since I've done one, I think March, actually, so quite some time ago. But it is, Monday, October 14th, also known as Christopher Columbus Day or also known as Indian Indigenous Peoples Day, and this is episode 5 of the mindless sea. Today, I have my brother, Jamin Frias, joining in. Hi, Jamin. Hello, everybody. How are you doing today?
[00:00:52] Jamon Fries:
Not too bad. Out of the hospital, so that's good. Well, that is good. That is good.
[00:00:57] Jesse Fries:
Okay. So today, as I said, we will be, well, I don't think I said, but we will be covering Christopher Columbus and all the different things with him. So we'll go through the historiography. We'll go through we'll also talk touch base on, the Native Americans slash Indians, but when it comes to Christopher Columbus, there's a lot to go through. So first off, we will just start with, the basics of Christopher Columbus. So, Jamin, what do you think the basics of Christopher Columbus are?
[00:01:33] Jamon Fries:
Well, according to my knowledge, he sailed out of Spain, if I remember correctly Mhmm. To the US. He was in search of, India. He was trying to find an alternate route to get to India if I remember correctly.
[00:01:50] Jesse Fries:
Okay.
[00:01:51] Jamon Fries:
And he ended up running into the Americas.
[00:01:56] Jesse Fries:
Yep. Yep. And that's, basically what it was. So from there, let's take this back. So, basically, he sailed in 14/92, so over 500 years ago. And some say he was a Genoan, which is in Italy nowadays, from the city of Genoa. This is up for debate and everything like that. We'll get into that in a bit. But basically from there, he moved around and sailed a lot, just going from place to place to place. He lived all over Western Europe. He lived in Spain. That's where or Portugal. That's where he met his wife and everything like that. And then he was trying to he had this idea to go across the Atlantic to actually get to India, China, that area.
And as we all know, it really didn't fully work out as he planned. But for this voyage, he had to actually, like, get money because he didn't have really any money. He was just a sailor. He was an explorer. And like most explorers, they really didn't have much of anything. So with that, he had went around he was going around Spain, constantly asking people for money, and nobody would support him. And then the year 14/92 happened. Do you know anything else that happened in 14/92, Jamin? Probably not. No. Okay. In 14/92, the Spanish, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, they actually kicked the Moors, the Muslim rulers out of Spain, like, fully out of Spain, finally, in 14/92.
Okay. Because Spain had been controlled by the Moors, northern Africans, which were Muslims, and some of their kings or leaders actually came from the Arabic rulers, the Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia's family.
[00:03:58] Jamon Fries:
Yeah.
[00:03:59] Jesse Fries:
Yeah. I am familiar of that aspect. Rabote Okay. Okay. So, yeah, 14/92 is the year that they finally kicked him out. Okay. So basically, when Columbus came around to him again, they were actually happy this time because they had finally won the war. But they were broke. Right? Like, dead broke because they had just finally actually kicked every the Moors out of Spain. And so they just they wanted to help Columbus because they were happy and everything like that, but they didn't have any money. But, apparently, they were owed 3 ships, from, this sailor guy who owned ships.
And so he they said, okay. You could have them. Them. That's what they told Columbus. And so he went off and got those boats, and he sailed across the sea. But, apparently, like, the ship master or whatever, he wasn't really so happy. So I read this one story to where he actually one of the the guy that owned him, he actually sabotaged one of the ships as Columbus was, trying to set sail. So he had to actually so That that's mean. Right. Right. And so Columbus actually had to, stop off and get it fixed. From your elementary school days, Jamin, do you know the name of names of those ships?
[00:05:19] Jamon Fries:
There was the Mayflower. No. Wait. No. No. No. Never mind. No. I don't.
[00:05:26] Jesse Fries:
Oh, yeah. The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Mayflower was much lighter. Yes. Yes. It was the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Do those That's right.
[00:05:37] Jamon Fries:
Yeah. Those names are familiar. Okay. Okay.
[00:05:40] Jesse Fries:
And so, basically, he sails across the ocean, and he he misjudged how big the world was. This was based off of calculations from mathematicians and scientists, and it was just wrong. And so he it was it was a lot smaller. So it took him longer to get across that ocean, but then also, it really caused problems on just getting in a new land mass that they didn't know about. And so they come upon land. They land on the island of Hispaniola, which is today the Dominican Republican Dominican Republic and Haiti. They share the island of Hispaniola. And he came upon, some Indians.
They are called the Tainos. They they were a very, very gentle people. They're a very gentle tribe and everything like that to the point they didn't know warfare or anything like this. Somehow he ran into, like, the most gentle people on the planet, possibly even on this side of the globe, because there are other natives on other islands that were actually cannibals and things like this. So you had the range of different types of things. In other words, he was very lucky. Doctor. Exactly. Exactly. Now he may have been able to overpower the cannibals as well, but you never know. You know? Because they did we didn't have gun we had guns at that point in time, us white people. We had guns and everything like that. So there is a possibility, it would have been fine. But, yeah, somehow he landed on the one island that, or one of the few islands that had completely peaceful people on it.
And, from there, he just basically started to rule. This is where he kinda starts to get waffled about, was he a good guy? Was he a bad guy? Everything like this. Some people say he was a bad guy. Some people say he wasn't so bad. He was the governor of Hispaniola and pretty much the whole Caribbean for the Spanish. And under his leadership, there were atrocities. There was slavery. There were just mass killings, things like that. A lot of things actually went bad, but we don't know exactly what's going on because there is some conflict in between him and the Spanish, settlers that came with him because some of them, it seems like thought he was too nice to the Indians.
I'm sure in today's world, we wouldn't consider him nice to the Indians, to the natives. But at that point in time, some of the Spanish thought he was. And so, the Spanish king and queen sent a guy over to oversee everything, to actually investigate Christopher Columbus, and he arrested Christopher Columbus and then sent him back to Spain. And then Christopher Columbus, when he got to Spain, the king and queen let him go, and he came back. So it's hard to say exactly where things are going. I'm sure, like, true, true historians could probably pin it down, but they'd have their own beliefs and everything like that. Yeah. Yeah. But in the end, that's basically the story. And then from there, he travels around, the Caribbean, like, up to Jamaica and Cuba and so on and so forth.
But, basically, that's the basic story. And then, of course, everything follows after that. Right? All the other Europeans come, and the world changes for everybody. Yep. Just recently here though, just like in the past year or so, they've, and it was just announced a couple of days ago. They did some DNA testing on, Christopher Columbus. They say they found his body. They also tested his son, and they actually showed that he was a Sephardic Jew. So yeah. Yeah. So not really in Italian, but DNA, you never know. The the DNA samples are very low, but they say that it is, it's good enough and everything like that. So they used his DNA and his son's DNA to actually come up with that. So who he is, where he actually grew up, or anything like that, nobody knows.
[00:10:19] Jamon Fries:
But they're So what what exactly does Sephardic Jew mean?
[00:10:23] Jesse Fries:
Basically, Sephardic, from what I understand, means Spanish in Hebrew. So it's just Spanish Jew, basically. Okay. Yep. And during this time, of course, was the great Spanish inquisition. And so you didn't really want to be a Jew in Spain during that time, the point? Yeah. Not not a good time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So because of that, he may have hid who he was, converted to Catholicism, things like that, like a lot of Jews did. Or he Yeah. There are inquisitions all over too. And he may have been born in, Italy, in Genoa. He says he was per some documents that have been found that a lot of historians say are accurate and original.
So but his DNA shows that he was a Sephardic Jew, but it could have been he could have been born in Genoa. We just don't know for sure exactly where he was born. Yeah. But the Italians will probably still claim him. But,
[00:11:27] Jamon Fries:
we
[00:11:28] Jesse Fries:
yeah. But but with this new up update of him being a Sephardic Jew, I could see, some, Nazis not liking that. So oh, poor Nazis. Do you know? I guess they may have to lose Christopher Columbus as a hero. You know? So Yeah. Let's see here. But, yeah, with Columbus, there are a lot of complaints from his contemporaries. So it's hard to and it's hard to know exactly what was factual, what was just, them complaining about him, because they didn't like him for politics or personal reasons or something like that. It's hard to say. Yeah. But when it comes to Columbus, the way I like to talk about Columbus is is kind of looking at the historiography of it.
Historiography is a study of history. So basically, it just tells you how we actually look at history. And so, with that, the first part of Christopher Columbus, there's really, like, 4 periods that we can talk about, Christopher Columbus and how people viewed him. First off was actually when was from Christopher Columbus, like his timeframe and also his son's timeframe. So when it comes to Christopher Columbus, he wrote all these things about how great the land was and everything like that, how the people were gentle and they could easily be, enslaved and so on and so forth. Okay?
But he was writing to the Spanish treasurer, trying to ensure investment for future voyages. You have to really think of Christopher Columbus that way. Everything he was writing back to Spain was trying to get money for another adventure. That's all he really cared about was the adventure. Yeah. And so he tended to lump the natives in with the land itself, or he listed them as below the land in importance. And also his son kept this alive after Columbus's death, because there was dispute in between the Spanish mark monarchy and him. Because when Christopher Columbus had started out, it was guaranteed that he would actually and his descendants would get the land that they were gonna find. Okay?
[00:13:46] Jamon Fries:
Okay.
[00:13:48] Jesse Fries:
And but the Spanish monarchy kinda reneged on that. They didn't wanna do that. And so his son actually I wonder why. Right?
[00:13:59] Jamon Fries:
Yeah.
[00:14:00] Jesse Fries:
Lots of money coming in. Exactly. Exactly. So his son actually, sued the Spanish monarchy, and he lost. But what he did, he actually took all his evidence and everything like that and then just wrote a biography of his dad. And so we have all this actual documentation from that, court case and everything like that. And, basically, so it's very glowing on Christopher Columbus because he was trying to be on his dad's side and everything like that, trying to get all that land back for himself and everything like that. Yeah. So Christopher Columbus and his son, everything is flowery about how great Christopher Columbus is and so on and so forth. The land is beautiful and yada yada yada.
So that that's like the first period, okay, which is very understandable, don't you think?
[00:14:52] Jamon Fries:
I would think so. Yeah. I mean, especially considering the the, where the information is coming from, from a court case where they're trying to get back basically the land that they were promised. I mean, you're not gonna talk bad about your dad when you're doing that.
[00:15:08] Jesse Fries:
Exactly. Exactly. Especially when you want money yourself. You know? So Yeah. Yep. And then the next phase, comes a few 100 years later, when the United States, us, when we start to try to have a origin story. So basically, as a nation, you know, Europe, they have all these origin stories for their people and everything like that. They go back 1000 of years or 100 of years and so on and so forth. Right? Mhmm. Here in the United States, we don't have that because, well, we're just a new country or were, especially at the beginning of our country.
[00:15:48] Jamon Fries:
And because outside of the Native Americans, everyone was from Europe, so they had all their back stories already from over there. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But
[00:15:58] Jesse Fries:
the new Americans really thought that they needed, an origin story, including George Washington and everything like that. And Yeah. George George Washington and his buddies, they thought Christopher Columbus was a good person to have as an origin story. They thought it would be great. And so because of this, they actually hated Amerigo Vespucci. You know who Amerigo Vespucci is?
[00:16:27] Jamon Fries:
I know the name. I'm not familiar with what he did, though. Okay. Well, he was an Italian mapmaker,
[00:16:32] Jesse Fries:
and he put his name on the continents. And so we have America. That's why it's America. Exactly. North America, South America. So America Vespucci, he names them after himself. And George Washington actually did not like this at all. He thought it should be North and South Columbia, is what George Washington thought it should be instead of America. Okay. Which is also why the District of Columbia is named the District of Columbia.
[00:17:04] Jamon Fries:
Interesting.
[00:17:05] Jesse Fries:
Yep. So that the District of Columbia is named for Columbus. Everything with Columbia is named after Columbus. The the the country, Columbia, is named after Columbus. And so, basically, with this George Washington and everything like that, they really had this they wanted a national myth. You know? We we we we make up all these myths, you know, like Paul Bunyan and so on and so forth. And, they thought Columbus would be a good person for this. Now even at their time, they knew that the Spanish colonizers were cruel and heartless and bloodthirsty.
Mhmm. You know, the conquistadors that would come through America, like, through Florida and everything like that. They just wipe people out and everything like that. So they knew about this. They knew about the bar barbarity, but they actually said that, Columbus was different than the Spanish colonizers, and he wasn't to blame for the barbarity. George Washington thought that, Columbus he was just an explorer. That's all he was. He wasn't actually out there trying to kill anybody. So he thought it was good to use Columbus as the origin story for the United States of America.
Okay. Yep. So that's the second one. Then we come up to, the third one. This one is in the late, late 19th century into early 20th century. This is really, like, a nativist, anti immigrant period, but it's also like a hero for immigrants story. So during this period, America was having an influx of immigrants, you know, like the the Irish, the Italians, and so on and so forth. Right? And, of course, the Europeans that were born here in America and everything like that, they viewed these other people as different races and that they should not be welcomed in the United States. This was, along the lines of no Irish need apply.
Signs were put up. Yep. Same with Italians. Italians were not looked at very well. They were just thought of as mafiosos to the point where there was violence and everything like that. And a lot of historians at the time, said that we should actually look to the Norse for inspiration of the American spirit, not those dirty Italians, because they said that Columbus was just a pirate, slave trader, and a criminal. And they thought all Italians were the same. It is how they viewed it. And just like Italians, they said he wasn't special because he just blundered his way into America. So why are we actually celebrating him? The Norse, on the other hand, you know, the Vikings, they actually found their way up through, Greenland and then down into Newfoundland and everything like that. And they are good stock, You know? More than likely, it was probably with, like, the Aryan thing, I would bet, of, the Germans as well.
Yeah. Yep. And so they they they thought that that would be best. That would be best to be Nordic
[00:20:31] Jamon Fries:
instead of, I don't know. You know? To me, anyone from Europe that that had ancestry that was around during the Viking pillaging and everything like that. Uh-huh. I don't know they'd be so much for the Norse.
[00:20:46] Jesse Fries:
Yeah. Yeah. But the the it's the American spirit. You know? What what are you talking about? You're talking about our ancestors there, Jamon. Yeah. It's a hey. I wouldn't fuck on bad about shit that my ancestors do any day of the week. Yeah. That works. That works. But yeah. So but, you know, they they came over and everything like that. They don't know what happened, at that settlement, whether it just disappeared or if they interbred into the native population, which is kinda interesting. But, yeah, so this is how things were playing out, for historians and for native or not native, but European Americans, that were born in the United States.
Yeah. And so but also at the same time, because there is all this hate against immigrants, there is actually there's even violence against, Italians down in New Orleans, like massive, like, killings and everything like that of Italians. So at the time, I can't remember what president, but our president thought it would make sense to have, like, a Columbus state celebrate the Italians to actually bring people together and everything like that. And so he really became a hero for just smaller groups, like Italians, Jews, and Irish. Yeah, for for the Italians immigrants. Exactly. Exactly.
For the Italians, it's, basically because he was Italian, or at least they thought he was Italian at the time. Apparently, we all did, actually, until, just recently here. And he still might be. And then you have the Jews. They I don't know if the Jews knew that he was a Jew. I would bet probably not. I can't wait for the conspiracy theories to come out about the Jews taking over, though, with Christopher Columbus. Those should be some pretty good ones. Just saying, you know. Oh, yeah. They should be. Yeah. They're all full of of shit, but it should be some good stories.
Anyways, in 14/92, the Jews were expelled from Spain. And so they actually came to the new world roughly at around the same time and there throughout, because it was, you could do whatever you wanted here, you know, and so it was good for the Jews. So they viewed Christopher Columbus highly because of that. And then you also had the, Irish, and the Irish like Christopher Columbus, because well, at least for what they thought, because he was a fellow Catholic. And so because he was a Catholic, that means they were Catholic. And so the Irish also embraced Columbus.
[00:23:39] Jamon Fries:
Well, I mean, you know, if you're Catholic, any Catholic's gotta be a good guy. Right?
[00:23:44] Jesse Fries:
Sure. Yeah. We'll go with that. We'll go with that.
[00:23:49] Jamon Fries:
Yes. It's very flawed. Exactly.
[00:23:52] Jesse Fries:
Exactly. So that that's the third stage of how, Christopher Columbus was, viewed, in this country. Okay. Then you then we shift to, 1992, and roughly in the price started a little bit before that, but the ramp up to, the 500 year anniversary of Christopher Columbus's, voyage. So this was a quintennial of 1992. There was a huge sea change in the viewing of Columbus from the viewpoint of the American Indians. Everybody started to really gang up against Christopher Columbus on what happened to the natives and everything like that, And to the point where he's really hated pretty much universally right now, I would say by pretty much most people, except for, like, Italians.
Yeah. Basically, you know, it's everybody views him and goes, look at what he did and everything like this. But I think part of that is because he gets the blame for Europeans being here no matter what. He just gets the blame for it. And it's always his name. They and his name goes down as being the worst. Even though he wasn't the worst, there's Cortez. There's so many other horrible people that came over after him. But since he was the worst, he really gets, the blame, which is kind of funny because when it comes to, like, how natives were treated and everything like that, it was Europe as a whole viewed slavery as not a bad thing at this time.
It was very common. Yeah. And actually, Christopher Columbus, he was working under, the pope's decree. So pope Alexander the 6th, back around 14/92, he issued a papal bull, which is a decree, a papal decree. It's called the inter, Katerra, I think. He authorized Spain and Portugal to colonize the Americas and its native peoples as subjects. The decree asserts the right of Spain and Portugal to colonize, convert, and enslave. It also justifies the enslavement of Africans. So this is like the pope, the leader of the Catholic church. So if he's willing to do this,
[00:26:27] Jamon Fries:
all of society is. Plain and simple. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, that back in those days, slavery was pretty much rampant everywhere. I mean Oh, yeah. There was almost nowhere in the world that you could go that didn't have slavery.
[00:26:40] Jesse Fries:
Exactly. Exactly. And it was just it was a very common place. I'm not saying it was right or anything like that, of course. But Oh, yeah. Got it. It's what it was at the time. Plain and simple. Do not have
[00:26:56] Jamon Fries:
uh-huh.
[00:26:57] Jesse Fries:
Understood. Yeah. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. So, yeah, with that, one thing to take to note here, is a lot a lot of times it's forgotten, but Native American slavery, it is a piece of the history of slavery, and it's been glossed over quite a bit. But between 14/92/18/80, about 2 to 5,500,000 Native Americans were enslaved, in America. Oh, wow. Yeah. I had no idea it was that many. Yeah. It was, that many at one point in time. No. This is all the Americas, not just not not, not North America, not America, the United States. This is North to South America. And Mexico and on down, they really enslaved a lot of the locals and everything like that.
There were about 12,500,000 African slaves that were brought over to the Americas. About 3 to I think it's like 3 to 500000 of those came to the United States. The most of them went to either the islands or to South America. Yep. So, yeah, any views on, Christopher Columbus you have there? Or questions?
[00:28:15] Jamon Fries:
I I not not really. Just in my opinion, anytime you're gonna view someone from history Mhmm. You have to take a lot of historical context into effect. You can't say he's a bad guy because he had slaves, be because he turned Indians into slaves. That was the Apasmodere I think that's how you say it, of basically everyone else. Mhmm. So so to look at him and say that he's evil because he held slaves, because he captured slaves, I I think that there's flaws in that. I mean, you can you can debate slavery in and of itself, but when when it's the standard operation of basically the entire world, you really can't fault one person for following through with that standard operation.
[00:29:20] Jesse Fries:
No. In general, I agree with you. Yeah. It's, you can always say what you should have known, but you can't know. You're you're a product of your generation. You're a product of your times. Just look at the differences in between from boomers to, the alphas. Yeah. And then everything in between gets even worse. And now the alphas seem to be going more like towards the boomers, I think. I don't know. It's kind of weird what they're doing. A lot of them are. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. But, you know, to to me, it it's more important to look at how
[00:29:50] Jamon Fries:
he treated people's people on an individual basis rather than if he held slaves or not. If he treated his slaves humanely and very indecently, then, you know, I I think he might have probably was a pretty good guy for the times. Oh, yeah. If he treated them horribly like much of the Spanish did. Right.
[00:30:12] Jesse Fries:
And, you know, you're gonna get No. I understand. I understand. I understand. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Then onto, just a little bit about, native, American historiography. So that's been changing too. So if you remember, like, when we were growing up and whatnot, a lot of it was, the Indian was disappearing, that sort of thing. Also, they were heroic fighting against the white man, that sort of thing. But Jerry, when we were growing up, it was more the cowboys and Indians, sort of thing that we knew about. Right? It was just you would play cowboys and Indians, and that would be about it.
[00:30:54] Jamon Fries:
Yep. But you'd you'd hear stories about the Indian raids and stuff like that and how they were you know, how how they how they would raid the wagons that were trying to move to California. Oh, yeah. But other than that, you really didn't hear you didn't really hear much of anything else.
[00:31:10] Jesse Fries:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But, yeah, so historians, for a long time viewed the Indians as a disappearing. They would either soon be extinct or be assimilated. This is how people thought of it. You know, they just go, oh, yeah, they're going to be gone sooner or later. They won't stick around or anything like that. But of course, they did stick around. Right? They're, thriving might, is a bit of a strong word, but, their community is strong, and, they are finding ways to survive and keep going, which I love. You know? That's a great thing. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean,
[00:31:45] Jamon Fries:
they have an extremely rich history here in the in the Americas. I mean, the the possibility of removing of them not being around, I don't ever see that happening. Nope. Nope.
[00:32:01] Jesse Fries:
Let's see. And then in the 19 eighties, it shifted to being the heroic Indian fighting against the white man. This was, you saw this in movies. I I think you could say, like, Last of the Mohicans, that sort of thing. Yeah. There was this fighting against the white man. Maybe even dances with wolves, I would say. That was a bit more along those lines. But that even that was going
[00:32:27] Jamon Fries:
going more towards where we are now. But And I did I did somewhat notice something about if you look at the movies that had, Native Americans before and later, most of the Native American movies that you that have Native Americans that you see from the older westerns Mhmm. Are basically from any old movie. You don't see any Native Americans in the east. Right. It's always it's always the west. You know? It's it's the the warrior savages fighting and, you know, killing all killing anyone that comes around them and stuff like that. And then you then you've made it then there was a huge switch over to mostly showing eastern Indians Mhmm. In the No. Apalachis and stuff like that and how they were how they were working to survive within the grouping of the of the white man coming.
[00:33:22] Jesse Fries:
Right. Right. Yeah. They they I've never really yeah. Because Cause you have the the cowboys versus Indians, which is out west. And then you have, the out east, which is, much earlier, than that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. But 2 different stories. But, yeah, it's, you definitely have, like, a heroic, especially with the the Yep. Eastern Indians, that they show, you know? Yes. It's, yes. Yeah. But nowadays, things are actually getting back to more, a different it's shifted again. So we're no longer, like, the victim of the disappearing Indian going extinct or assimilated, but also we're not also like the heroic Indian fighting against the white man. We've actually starting to come around to a kind of an in between.
[00:34:09] Jamon Fries:
It's
[00:34:12] Jesse Fries:
where people, they're neither victims nor heroes. It's more of a tale of people and how they live and survive and, how they're part of the human story. And they're just a part of the human story of conquest and migration. Because you can really think of, like, the Europeans coming in as just another one of these stories that has always happened. There's always been groups moving back and forth throughout history, conquering and then moving on or settling, you know, like the Mongols, the Vikings, all the different Germanic tribes in Europe, you know, the Romans. Yeah. It it it just goes on and on. It it go back all the way throughout history, and we have this. So And it also goes to the Aztecs.
[00:34:58] Jamon Fries:
Exactly. The Aztecs were definitely not a peaceful people.
[00:35:02] Jesse Fries:
No. They were not. They were not. They they were well, the Aztecs, they're actually called Mexichem. That's what they called themselves.
[00:35:11] Jamon Fries:
Okay.
[00:35:12] Jesse Fries:
Aztec is just a name that we have given them, but they were called Mexichem, which is actually where the name Mexico comes from. Oh, okay. Yeah. Because it's a m e x, e a n or something like that. I a n. Yeah. Mexica. Yeah. But, yeah, they they were just a group. They were only in power for a few 100 years, in total, actually. Before that, there were other leaders and everything like that. They're not like the Mayans that were around and were in power for 1000 of years. Yeah. But, yeah, yeah, it's very interesting. It really is interesting. It's nice to see them viewed as real people. You know? I I I like to see that. I I I hate the characters, where it's, like, either good or bad or this or that. You know? I'd like to have a good even keel on that. So so, that's it for today. I would like to thank everybody for listening. And just so you know, this podcast is a Valley for Valley podcast.
So please, if you go to podcast.mindlessc.com, you can go there and you can donate to the show and help maybe get more going. This will be as you can see this, I'll just do podcast every so often, and, we'll still see how that goes. Maybe I'll invite Jamon back for this or maybe not. We'll see. Let's see if he's a good boy.
[00:36:43] Jamon Fries:
Guaranteed. I won't be a good boy.
[00:36:45] Jesse Fries:
But, thank you so much, and, I will see you another time. This is the Mindless Sea podcast.
This is the Mindless Sea podcast. Hello, everybody. I am Jesse Friese, your host of the Mindless Sea podcast. It's been a little while since I've done one, I think March, actually, so quite some time ago. But it is, Monday, October 14th, also known as Christopher Columbus Day or also known as Indian Indigenous Peoples Day, and this is episode 5 of the mindless sea. Today, I have my brother, Jamin Frias, joining in. Hi, Jamin. Hello, everybody. How are you doing today?
[00:00:52] Jamon Fries:
Not too bad. Out of the hospital, so that's good. Well, that is good. That is good.
[00:00:57] Jesse Fries:
Okay. So today, as I said, we will be, well, I don't think I said, but we will be covering Christopher Columbus and all the different things with him. So we'll go through the historiography. We'll go through we'll also talk touch base on, the Native Americans slash Indians, but when it comes to Christopher Columbus, there's a lot to go through. So first off, we will just start with, the basics of Christopher Columbus. So, Jamin, what do you think the basics of Christopher Columbus are?
[00:01:33] Jamon Fries:
Well, according to my knowledge, he sailed out of Spain, if I remember correctly Mhmm. To the US. He was in search of, India. He was trying to find an alternate route to get to India if I remember correctly.
[00:01:50] Jesse Fries:
Okay.
[00:01:51] Jamon Fries:
And he ended up running into the Americas.
[00:01:56] Jesse Fries:
Yep. Yep. And that's, basically what it was. So from there, let's take this back. So, basically, he sailed in 14/92, so over 500 years ago. And some say he was a Genoan, which is in Italy nowadays, from the city of Genoa. This is up for debate and everything like that. We'll get into that in a bit. But basically from there, he moved around and sailed a lot, just going from place to place to place. He lived all over Western Europe. He lived in Spain. That's where or Portugal. That's where he met his wife and everything like that. And then he was trying to he had this idea to go across the Atlantic to actually get to India, China, that area.
And as we all know, it really didn't fully work out as he planned. But for this voyage, he had to actually, like, get money because he didn't have really any money. He was just a sailor. He was an explorer. And like most explorers, they really didn't have much of anything. So with that, he had went around he was going around Spain, constantly asking people for money, and nobody would support him. And then the year 14/92 happened. Do you know anything else that happened in 14/92, Jamin? Probably not. No. Okay. In 14/92, the Spanish, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, they actually kicked the Moors, the Muslim rulers out of Spain, like, fully out of Spain, finally, in 14/92.
Okay. Because Spain had been controlled by the Moors, northern Africans, which were Muslims, and some of their kings or leaders actually came from the Arabic rulers, the Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia's family.
[00:03:58] Jamon Fries:
Yeah.
[00:03:59] Jesse Fries:
Yeah. I am familiar of that aspect. Rabote Okay. Okay. So, yeah, 14/92 is the year that they finally kicked him out. Okay. So basically, when Columbus came around to him again, they were actually happy this time because they had finally won the war. But they were broke. Right? Like, dead broke because they had just finally actually kicked every the Moors out of Spain. And so they just they wanted to help Columbus because they were happy and everything like that, but they didn't have any money. But, apparently, they were owed 3 ships, from, this sailor guy who owned ships.
And so he they said, okay. You could have them. Them. That's what they told Columbus. And so he went off and got those boats, and he sailed across the sea. But, apparently, like, the ship master or whatever, he wasn't really so happy. So I read this one story to where he actually one of the the guy that owned him, he actually sabotaged one of the ships as Columbus was, trying to set sail. So he had to actually so That that's mean. Right. Right. And so Columbus actually had to, stop off and get it fixed. From your elementary school days, Jamin, do you know the name of names of those ships?
[00:05:19] Jamon Fries:
There was the Mayflower. No. Wait. No. No. No. Never mind. No. I don't.
[00:05:26] Jesse Fries:
Oh, yeah. The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Mayflower was much lighter. Yes. Yes. It was the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Do those That's right.
[00:05:37] Jamon Fries:
Yeah. Those names are familiar. Okay. Okay.
[00:05:40] Jesse Fries:
And so, basically, he sails across the ocean, and he he misjudged how big the world was. This was based off of calculations from mathematicians and scientists, and it was just wrong. And so he it was it was a lot smaller. So it took him longer to get across that ocean, but then also, it really caused problems on just getting in a new land mass that they didn't know about. And so they come upon land. They land on the island of Hispaniola, which is today the Dominican Republican Dominican Republic and Haiti. They share the island of Hispaniola. And he came upon, some Indians.
They are called the Tainos. They they were a very, very gentle people. They're a very gentle tribe and everything like that to the point they didn't know warfare or anything like this. Somehow he ran into, like, the most gentle people on the planet, possibly even on this side of the globe, because there are other natives on other islands that were actually cannibals and things like this. So you had the range of different types of things. In other words, he was very lucky. Doctor. Exactly. Exactly. Now he may have been able to overpower the cannibals as well, but you never know. You know? Because they did we didn't have gun we had guns at that point in time, us white people. We had guns and everything like that. So there is a possibility, it would have been fine. But, yeah, somehow he landed on the one island that, or one of the few islands that had completely peaceful people on it.
And, from there, he just basically started to rule. This is where he kinda starts to get waffled about, was he a good guy? Was he a bad guy? Everything like this. Some people say he was a bad guy. Some people say he wasn't so bad. He was the governor of Hispaniola and pretty much the whole Caribbean for the Spanish. And under his leadership, there were atrocities. There was slavery. There were just mass killings, things like that. A lot of things actually went bad, but we don't know exactly what's going on because there is some conflict in between him and the Spanish, settlers that came with him because some of them, it seems like thought he was too nice to the Indians.
I'm sure in today's world, we wouldn't consider him nice to the Indians, to the natives. But at that point in time, some of the Spanish thought he was. And so, the Spanish king and queen sent a guy over to oversee everything, to actually investigate Christopher Columbus, and he arrested Christopher Columbus and then sent him back to Spain. And then Christopher Columbus, when he got to Spain, the king and queen let him go, and he came back. So it's hard to say exactly where things are going. I'm sure, like, true, true historians could probably pin it down, but they'd have their own beliefs and everything like that. Yeah. Yeah. But in the end, that's basically the story. And then from there, he travels around, the Caribbean, like, up to Jamaica and Cuba and so on and so forth.
But, basically, that's the basic story. And then, of course, everything follows after that. Right? All the other Europeans come, and the world changes for everybody. Yep. Just recently here though, just like in the past year or so, they've, and it was just announced a couple of days ago. They did some DNA testing on, Christopher Columbus. They say they found his body. They also tested his son, and they actually showed that he was a Sephardic Jew. So yeah. Yeah. So not really in Italian, but DNA, you never know. The the DNA samples are very low, but they say that it is, it's good enough and everything like that. So they used his DNA and his son's DNA to actually come up with that. So who he is, where he actually grew up, or anything like that, nobody knows.
[00:10:19] Jamon Fries:
But they're So what what exactly does Sephardic Jew mean?
[00:10:23] Jesse Fries:
Basically, Sephardic, from what I understand, means Spanish in Hebrew. So it's just Spanish Jew, basically. Okay. Yep. And during this time, of course, was the great Spanish inquisition. And so you didn't really want to be a Jew in Spain during that time, the point? Yeah. Not not a good time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So because of that, he may have hid who he was, converted to Catholicism, things like that, like a lot of Jews did. Or he Yeah. There are inquisitions all over too. And he may have been born in, Italy, in Genoa. He says he was per some documents that have been found that a lot of historians say are accurate and original.
So but his DNA shows that he was a Sephardic Jew, but it could have been he could have been born in Genoa. We just don't know for sure exactly where he was born. Yeah. But the Italians will probably still claim him. But,
[00:11:27] Jamon Fries:
we
[00:11:28] Jesse Fries:
yeah. But but with this new up update of him being a Sephardic Jew, I could see, some, Nazis not liking that. So oh, poor Nazis. Do you know? I guess they may have to lose Christopher Columbus as a hero. You know? So Yeah. Let's see here. But, yeah, with Columbus, there are a lot of complaints from his contemporaries. So it's hard to and it's hard to know exactly what was factual, what was just, them complaining about him, because they didn't like him for politics or personal reasons or something like that. It's hard to say. Yeah. But when it comes to Columbus, the way I like to talk about Columbus is is kind of looking at the historiography of it.
Historiography is a study of history. So basically, it just tells you how we actually look at history. And so, with that, the first part of Christopher Columbus, there's really, like, 4 periods that we can talk about, Christopher Columbus and how people viewed him. First off was actually when was from Christopher Columbus, like his timeframe and also his son's timeframe. So when it comes to Christopher Columbus, he wrote all these things about how great the land was and everything like that, how the people were gentle and they could easily be, enslaved and so on and so forth. Okay?
But he was writing to the Spanish treasurer, trying to ensure investment for future voyages. You have to really think of Christopher Columbus that way. Everything he was writing back to Spain was trying to get money for another adventure. That's all he really cared about was the adventure. Yeah. And so he tended to lump the natives in with the land itself, or he listed them as below the land in importance. And also his son kept this alive after Columbus's death, because there was dispute in between the Spanish mark monarchy and him. Because when Christopher Columbus had started out, it was guaranteed that he would actually and his descendants would get the land that they were gonna find. Okay?
[00:13:46] Jamon Fries:
Okay.
[00:13:48] Jesse Fries:
And but the Spanish monarchy kinda reneged on that. They didn't wanna do that. And so his son actually I wonder why. Right?
[00:13:59] Jamon Fries:
Yeah.
[00:14:00] Jesse Fries:
Lots of money coming in. Exactly. Exactly. So his son actually, sued the Spanish monarchy, and he lost. But what he did, he actually took all his evidence and everything like that and then just wrote a biography of his dad. And so we have all this actual documentation from that, court case and everything like that. And, basically, so it's very glowing on Christopher Columbus because he was trying to be on his dad's side and everything like that, trying to get all that land back for himself and everything like that. Yeah. So Christopher Columbus and his son, everything is flowery about how great Christopher Columbus is and so on and so forth. The land is beautiful and yada yada yada.
So that that's like the first period, okay, which is very understandable, don't you think?
[00:14:52] Jamon Fries:
I would think so. Yeah. I mean, especially considering the the, where the information is coming from, from a court case where they're trying to get back basically the land that they were promised. I mean, you're not gonna talk bad about your dad when you're doing that.
[00:15:08] Jesse Fries:
Exactly. Exactly. Especially when you want money yourself. You know? So Yeah. Yep. And then the next phase, comes a few 100 years later, when the United States, us, when we start to try to have a origin story. So basically, as a nation, you know, Europe, they have all these origin stories for their people and everything like that. They go back 1000 of years or 100 of years and so on and so forth. Right? Mhmm. Here in the United States, we don't have that because, well, we're just a new country or were, especially at the beginning of our country.
[00:15:48] Jamon Fries:
And because outside of the Native Americans, everyone was from Europe, so they had all their back stories already from over there. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But
[00:15:58] Jesse Fries:
the new Americans really thought that they needed, an origin story, including George Washington and everything like that. And Yeah. George George Washington and his buddies, they thought Christopher Columbus was a good person to have as an origin story. They thought it would be great. And so because of this, they actually hated Amerigo Vespucci. You know who Amerigo Vespucci is?
[00:16:27] Jamon Fries:
I know the name. I'm not familiar with what he did, though. Okay. Well, he was an Italian mapmaker,
[00:16:32] Jesse Fries:
and he put his name on the continents. And so we have America. That's why it's America. Exactly. North America, South America. So America Vespucci, he names them after himself. And George Washington actually did not like this at all. He thought it should be North and South Columbia, is what George Washington thought it should be instead of America. Okay. Which is also why the District of Columbia is named the District of Columbia.
[00:17:04] Jamon Fries:
Interesting.
[00:17:05] Jesse Fries:
Yep. So that the District of Columbia is named for Columbus. Everything with Columbia is named after Columbus. The the the country, Columbia, is named after Columbus. And so, basically, with this George Washington and everything like that, they really had this they wanted a national myth. You know? We we we we make up all these myths, you know, like Paul Bunyan and so on and so forth. And, they thought Columbus would be a good person for this. Now even at their time, they knew that the Spanish colonizers were cruel and heartless and bloodthirsty.
Mhmm. You know, the conquistadors that would come through America, like, through Florida and everything like that. They just wipe people out and everything like that. So they knew about this. They knew about the bar barbarity, but they actually said that, Columbus was different than the Spanish colonizers, and he wasn't to blame for the barbarity. George Washington thought that, Columbus he was just an explorer. That's all he was. He wasn't actually out there trying to kill anybody. So he thought it was good to use Columbus as the origin story for the United States of America.
Okay. Yep. So that's the second one. Then we come up to, the third one. This one is in the late, late 19th century into early 20th century. This is really, like, a nativist, anti immigrant period, but it's also like a hero for immigrants story. So during this period, America was having an influx of immigrants, you know, like the the Irish, the Italians, and so on and so forth. Right? And, of course, the Europeans that were born here in America and everything like that, they viewed these other people as different races and that they should not be welcomed in the United States. This was, along the lines of no Irish need apply.
Signs were put up. Yep. Same with Italians. Italians were not looked at very well. They were just thought of as mafiosos to the point where there was violence and everything like that. And a lot of historians at the time, said that we should actually look to the Norse for inspiration of the American spirit, not those dirty Italians, because they said that Columbus was just a pirate, slave trader, and a criminal. And they thought all Italians were the same. It is how they viewed it. And just like Italians, they said he wasn't special because he just blundered his way into America. So why are we actually celebrating him? The Norse, on the other hand, you know, the Vikings, they actually found their way up through, Greenland and then down into Newfoundland and everything like that. And they are good stock, You know? More than likely, it was probably with, like, the Aryan thing, I would bet, of, the Germans as well.
Yeah. Yep. And so they they they thought that that would be best. That would be best to be Nordic
[00:20:31] Jamon Fries:
instead of, I don't know. You know? To me, anyone from Europe that that had ancestry that was around during the Viking pillaging and everything like that. Uh-huh. I don't know they'd be so much for the Norse.
[00:20:46] Jesse Fries:
Yeah. Yeah. But the the it's the American spirit. You know? What what are you talking about? You're talking about our ancestors there, Jamon. Yeah. It's a hey. I wouldn't fuck on bad about shit that my ancestors do any day of the week. Yeah. That works. That works. But yeah. So but, you know, they they came over and everything like that. They don't know what happened, at that settlement, whether it just disappeared or if they interbred into the native population, which is kinda interesting. But, yeah, so this is how things were playing out, for historians and for native or not native, but European Americans, that were born in the United States.
Yeah. And so but also at the same time, because there is all this hate against immigrants, there is actually there's even violence against, Italians down in New Orleans, like massive, like, killings and everything like that of Italians. So at the time, I can't remember what president, but our president thought it would make sense to have, like, a Columbus state celebrate the Italians to actually bring people together and everything like that. And so he really became a hero for just smaller groups, like Italians, Jews, and Irish. Yeah, for for the Italians immigrants. Exactly. Exactly.
For the Italians, it's, basically because he was Italian, or at least they thought he was Italian at the time. Apparently, we all did, actually, until, just recently here. And he still might be. And then you have the Jews. They I don't know if the Jews knew that he was a Jew. I would bet probably not. I can't wait for the conspiracy theories to come out about the Jews taking over, though, with Christopher Columbus. Those should be some pretty good ones. Just saying, you know. Oh, yeah. They should be. Yeah. They're all full of of shit, but it should be some good stories.
Anyways, in 14/92, the Jews were expelled from Spain. And so they actually came to the new world roughly at around the same time and there throughout, because it was, you could do whatever you wanted here, you know, and so it was good for the Jews. So they viewed Christopher Columbus highly because of that. And then you also had the, Irish, and the Irish like Christopher Columbus, because well, at least for what they thought, because he was a fellow Catholic. And so because he was a Catholic, that means they were Catholic. And so the Irish also embraced Columbus.
[00:23:39] Jamon Fries:
Well, I mean, you know, if you're Catholic, any Catholic's gotta be a good guy. Right?
[00:23:44] Jesse Fries:
Sure. Yeah. We'll go with that. We'll go with that.
[00:23:49] Jamon Fries:
Yes. It's very flawed. Exactly.
[00:23:52] Jesse Fries:
Exactly. So that that's the third stage of how, Christopher Columbus was, viewed, in this country. Okay. Then you then we shift to, 1992, and roughly in the price started a little bit before that, but the ramp up to, the 500 year anniversary of Christopher Columbus's, voyage. So this was a quintennial of 1992. There was a huge sea change in the viewing of Columbus from the viewpoint of the American Indians. Everybody started to really gang up against Christopher Columbus on what happened to the natives and everything like that, And to the point where he's really hated pretty much universally right now, I would say by pretty much most people, except for, like, Italians.
Yeah. Basically, you know, it's everybody views him and goes, look at what he did and everything like this. But I think part of that is because he gets the blame for Europeans being here no matter what. He just gets the blame for it. And it's always his name. They and his name goes down as being the worst. Even though he wasn't the worst, there's Cortez. There's so many other horrible people that came over after him. But since he was the worst, he really gets, the blame, which is kind of funny because when it comes to, like, how natives were treated and everything like that, it was Europe as a whole viewed slavery as not a bad thing at this time.
It was very common. Yeah. And actually, Christopher Columbus, he was working under, the pope's decree. So pope Alexander the 6th, back around 14/92, he issued a papal bull, which is a decree, a papal decree. It's called the inter, Katerra, I think. He authorized Spain and Portugal to colonize the Americas and its native peoples as subjects. The decree asserts the right of Spain and Portugal to colonize, convert, and enslave. It also justifies the enslavement of Africans. So this is like the pope, the leader of the Catholic church. So if he's willing to do this,
[00:26:27] Jamon Fries:
all of society is. Plain and simple. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, that back in those days, slavery was pretty much rampant everywhere. I mean Oh, yeah. There was almost nowhere in the world that you could go that didn't have slavery.
[00:26:40] Jesse Fries:
Exactly. Exactly. And it was just it was a very common place. I'm not saying it was right or anything like that, of course. But Oh, yeah. Got it. It's what it was at the time. Plain and simple. Do not have
[00:26:56] Jamon Fries:
uh-huh.
[00:26:57] Jesse Fries:
Understood. Yeah. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. So, yeah, with that, one thing to take to note here, is a lot a lot of times it's forgotten, but Native American slavery, it is a piece of the history of slavery, and it's been glossed over quite a bit. But between 14/92/18/80, about 2 to 5,500,000 Native Americans were enslaved, in America. Oh, wow. Yeah. I had no idea it was that many. Yeah. It was, that many at one point in time. No. This is all the Americas, not just not not, not North America, not America, the United States. This is North to South America. And Mexico and on down, they really enslaved a lot of the locals and everything like that.
There were about 12,500,000 African slaves that were brought over to the Americas. About 3 to I think it's like 3 to 500000 of those came to the United States. The most of them went to either the islands or to South America. Yep. So, yeah, any views on, Christopher Columbus you have there? Or questions?
[00:28:15] Jamon Fries:
I I not not really. Just in my opinion, anytime you're gonna view someone from history Mhmm. You have to take a lot of historical context into effect. You can't say he's a bad guy because he had slaves, be because he turned Indians into slaves. That was the Apasmodere I think that's how you say it, of basically everyone else. Mhmm. So so to look at him and say that he's evil because he held slaves, because he captured slaves, I I think that there's flaws in that. I mean, you can you can debate slavery in and of itself, but when when it's the standard operation of basically the entire world, you really can't fault one person for following through with that standard operation.
[00:29:20] Jesse Fries:
No. In general, I agree with you. Yeah. It's, you can always say what you should have known, but you can't know. You're you're a product of your generation. You're a product of your times. Just look at the differences in between from boomers to, the alphas. Yeah. And then everything in between gets even worse. And now the alphas seem to be going more like towards the boomers, I think. I don't know. It's kind of weird what they're doing. A lot of them are. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. But, you know, to to me, it it's more important to look at how
[00:29:50] Jamon Fries:
he treated people's people on an individual basis rather than if he held slaves or not. If he treated his slaves humanely and very indecently, then, you know, I I think he might have probably was a pretty good guy for the times. Oh, yeah. If he treated them horribly like much of the Spanish did. Right.
[00:30:12] Jesse Fries:
And, you know, you're gonna get No. I understand. I understand. I understand. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Then onto, just a little bit about, native, American historiography. So that's been changing too. So if you remember, like, when we were growing up and whatnot, a lot of it was, the Indian was disappearing, that sort of thing. Also, they were heroic fighting against the white man, that sort of thing. But Jerry, when we were growing up, it was more the cowboys and Indians, sort of thing that we knew about. Right? It was just you would play cowboys and Indians, and that would be about it.
[00:30:54] Jamon Fries:
Yep. But you'd you'd hear stories about the Indian raids and stuff like that and how they were you know, how how they how they would raid the wagons that were trying to move to California. Oh, yeah. But other than that, you really didn't hear you didn't really hear much of anything else.
[00:31:10] Jesse Fries:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But, yeah, so historians, for a long time viewed the Indians as a disappearing. They would either soon be extinct or be assimilated. This is how people thought of it. You know, they just go, oh, yeah, they're going to be gone sooner or later. They won't stick around or anything like that. But of course, they did stick around. Right? They're, thriving might, is a bit of a strong word, but, their community is strong, and, they are finding ways to survive and keep going, which I love. You know? That's a great thing. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean,
[00:31:45] Jamon Fries:
they have an extremely rich history here in the in the Americas. I mean, the the possibility of removing of them not being around, I don't ever see that happening. Nope. Nope.
[00:32:01] Jesse Fries:
Let's see. And then in the 19 eighties, it shifted to being the heroic Indian fighting against the white man. This was, you saw this in movies. I I think you could say, like, Last of the Mohicans, that sort of thing. Yeah. There was this fighting against the white man. Maybe even dances with wolves, I would say. That was a bit more along those lines. But that even that was going
[00:32:27] Jamon Fries:
going more towards where we are now. But And I did I did somewhat notice something about if you look at the movies that had, Native Americans before and later, most of the Native American movies that you that have Native Americans that you see from the older westerns Mhmm. Are basically from any old movie. You don't see any Native Americans in the east. Right. It's always it's always the west. You know? It's it's the the warrior savages fighting and, you know, killing all killing anyone that comes around them and stuff like that. And then you then you've made it then there was a huge switch over to mostly showing eastern Indians Mhmm. In the No. Apalachis and stuff like that and how they were how they were working to survive within the grouping of the of the white man coming.
[00:33:22] Jesse Fries:
Right. Right. Yeah. They they I've never really yeah. Because Cause you have the the cowboys versus Indians, which is out west. And then you have, the out east, which is, much earlier, than that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. But 2 different stories. But, yeah, it's, you definitely have, like, a heroic, especially with the the Yep. Eastern Indians, that they show, you know? Yes. It's, yes. Yeah. But nowadays, things are actually getting back to more, a different it's shifted again. So we're no longer, like, the victim of the disappearing Indian going extinct or assimilated, but also we're not also like the heroic Indian fighting against the white man. We've actually starting to come around to a kind of an in between.
[00:34:09] Jamon Fries:
It's
[00:34:12] Jesse Fries:
where people, they're neither victims nor heroes. It's more of a tale of people and how they live and survive and, how they're part of the human story. And they're just a part of the human story of conquest and migration. Because you can really think of, like, the Europeans coming in as just another one of these stories that has always happened. There's always been groups moving back and forth throughout history, conquering and then moving on or settling, you know, like the Mongols, the Vikings, all the different Germanic tribes in Europe, you know, the Romans. Yeah. It it it just goes on and on. It it go back all the way throughout history, and we have this. So And it also goes to the Aztecs.
[00:34:58] Jamon Fries:
Exactly. The Aztecs were definitely not a peaceful people.
[00:35:02] Jesse Fries:
No. They were not. They were not. They they were well, the Aztecs, they're actually called Mexichem. That's what they called themselves.
[00:35:11] Jamon Fries:
Okay.
[00:35:12] Jesse Fries:
Aztec is just a name that we have given them, but they were called Mexichem, which is actually where the name Mexico comes from. Oh, okay. Yeah. Because it's a m e x, e a n or something like that. I a n. Yeah. Mexica. Yeah. But, yeah, they they were just a group. They were only in power for a few 100 years, in total, actually. Before that, there were other leaders and everything like that. They're not like the Mayans that were around and were in power for 1000 of years. Yeah. But, yeah, yeah, it's very interesting. It really is interesting. It's nice to see them viewed as real people. You know? I I I like to see that. I I I hate the characters, where it's, like, either good or bad or this or that. You know? I'd like to have a good even keel on that. So so, that's it for today. I would like to thank everybody for listening. And just so you know, this podcast is a Valley for Valley podcast.
So please, if you go to podcast.mindlessc.com, you can go there and you can donate to the show and help maybe get more going. This will be as you can see this, I'll just do podcast every so often, and, we'll still see how that goes. Maybe I'll invite Jamon back for this or maybe not. We'll see. Let's see if he's a good boy.
[00:36:43] Jamon Fries:
Guaranteed. I won't be a good boy.
[00:36:45] Jesse Fries:
But, thank you so much, and, I will see you another time. This is the Mindless Sea podcast.
