I cannot remember who said it, but if you follow someone long enough...you will see them do something illegal.
Columbus was a person of his times. Slavery has been a scourge on human existence since the first person lost a fight. American Indians could be savages.
All of these things are true. When you look at them in context—without the judgement or filter of our modern day morals—they all acted for a reason that was pretty much accepted for their cultures. Some are good, some are bad. Some we would encourage these days, and others we wouldn’t.
It’s called examining history. And the best way to do it is without using our “rose colored” glasses. I don’t think many historical figures could pass muster these days. Can we look at the actions, victories, and mistakes of our ancestors? Absolutely. But spending a lot of time getting angry about them is just silly.
The whole idea of history is to identify what folks did right or wrong and improve on it.
“I cannot remember who said it, but if you follow someone long enough...you will see them do something illegal.”
My contention has always been that Europeans were the first conquerors who had the wherewithal and inclination to make an accurate record of their conquests. They have also have a lot of money, and that is the real motivation behind all this feigned outrage. Nobody is going after the Mongolians for the excesses of Genghis Kahn.