Who Went With Columbus? Dental Studies Give Clues.

Washington Post ^ | May 18, 2009 | Kari Lydersen

[decimon]

The first planned colonial town in the New World was founded in 1494, when about 1,200 of Christopher Columbus's crew members from the 17 ships that made up his second journey to the Americas settled on the north coast of what is now the Dominican Republic .

Beset by mutiny, mismanagement, hurricanes and disease, the settlement of La Isabela lasted only a few years. The ruins remained largely intact until the 1950s, when a local official reportedly misunderstood the order from dictator Rafael Trujillo to clean up the site in preparation for visiting dignitaries, and had them mostly bulldozed into the sea. Little remained but the skeletons below ground in the church cemetery, which lay undisturbed until excavations began in 1983.

In the past few years, sophisticated chemical studies of the skeletons, especially their teeth, have begun to yield new insights into the lives and origins of Columbus's crew. The studies hint that, among other things, crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began.

[decimon]

Crew World ping.

[BlueStateBlues]

Biden. Or so he says.

[rdax]

when a local official reportedly misunderstood the order from dictator Rafael Trujillo to clean up the site in preparation for visiting dignitaries, and had them mostly bulldozed into the sea

oops - que lastima, senor

[Vigilanteman]

"Americans envision drawings of Columbus jumping out in the New World with this stigma of domination and exploitation," Burton said. "But that version could be affected if you have the white male stepping out to dominate the New World, and you have an African woman stepping out with him."

Well, there is only one solution then: Get some tribe to claim these bones belong to their sacred trabe and must be buried immeadiately so further study can be stopped. We wouldn't want to find out that diversity existed back in the 15th century, would we? < / sarcasm >

[mikrofon]

I alays figured the Red Wings would beat them...

(oh)

[decimon]

We wouldn't want to find out that diversity existed back in the 15th century...

Including both slave and free of the same racial background. I suspect the reasoning of that age would baffle us.

[SunkenCiv]

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[Vigilanteman]

Actually, the more you look into it, the simpler it gets. Black Africans of Muslim origin not only aided and assisted the slave traders, but in many cases, they introduced slavery to the infidel. This was especially true in the Iberian Peninsula, which had the closest and oldest contacts with the Muslim world and Africa of any part of Europe.

Many of the Europeans rationalized and justified slavery as a way to save the lives of black Africans from the west central part of the dark continent who would otherwise have been killed or sold into far harsher conditions of captivity by their Muslim conquerors.

Muslim countries in northeast Africa and the Arabian peninsula were practicing slavery well into the 19th century. It took a concentrated effort and patrols by the British Navy more than a quarter century after our civil war ended to discourage the practice. It never really ended as we know by conditions in the Darfur region of the Sudan today.

Why any intelligent Black American would embrace the very religion which sold their ancestors into slavery and continues to justify it today boggles the mind.

[bert]

Negro teeth have a ridge but it doesn’t tell if they were slave or free.

One can only wonder if the burial site is not actually later than the original colony near by.

[Betis70]

Swept them into the sea...

[decimon]

Well, Europeans had slaves long before there was an Islam.

[eleni121]

This was especially true in the Iberian Peninsula, which had the closest and oldest contacts with the Muslim world and Africa of any part of Europe.

---

Not at all. But you are close.

The first contacts with the cult of mohamed was by Byzantium and its Greek Christians in Asia Minor, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East followed closely by the newly converted Slavs to Christianity in the Balkans.

[eleni121]

Europeans had slaves long before there was an Islam.

---

You need to clarify. European heathens/pagans, not European Christians.

[decimon]

You need to clarify. European heathens/pagans, not European Christians.

Not Roman Christians?

[Vigilanteman]

And every civilization in the world kept slaves long before there was a Europe. Name one which didn't. Islam certainly didn't pioneer slavery, but they've been the most recalcitrant of any civilization about getting rid of it.

[decimon]

Islam certainly didn't pioneer slavery, but they've been the most recalcitrant of any civilization about getting rid of it.

Agreed.

[Vigilanteman]

You are, of course, correct. But even before that were the Jews and Christians which fell victim to Mo's armies in the Arabian Peninsula, including hundreds of Jewish elders which Mohammad personally had beheaded following their surrender and his pledge to spare them.

The Iberian Peninsula,however, is unique in that they refused to accommodate the Muslim settlers. 1492 marks not only the year which Columbus discovered America, but the expulsion of the last Muslim (Moor) king of Granada. Any Muslims who did not covert to Christianity were required to leave Spain.

Interestingly, when Spain decided to do the same to the Jews later in the same year, it was a Muslim ruler, Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, who sent the Ottoman Navy to rescue and resettle them in what is now modern Turkey.

The diversity crowd loves to quote this chapter of history as an example of Christian intolerance while conveniently forgetting that Muslims had lived in Iberia for almost 800 years by that time and weren't exactly tolerant to their Christian host either. Ferdinand's expulsion order was actually what united Spain and turned it into the leading world power for about the next century.

[eleni121]

The Iberian Peninsula,however, is unique in that they refused to accommodate the Muslim settlers

---

Accomodate? They were conquered!

Byzantium was fighting the cult when Spain had no idea what was about to befall her. IN fact, Iberia fell rather quickly in fact—whereas Byzantium stood firm against the cult until 1453 AD whereupon the turk Muslims took over Greece and the Balkans as well and either killed or enslaved the Christians handing over their properties to the Jews coming out of Spain.

As for your comment about the mid east Christians — of course they were mostly destroyed/forcibly converted early on...but not all—many martyrs continue to bear up under the onslaught today.

[eleni121]

“Roman” Christians both of the East and West variety were persecuted well into the 4th century until after Constantine who moved the Empire out of Rome to Constantinople in the East