The curse of Columbus.

• Author: Galeano, Eduardo
• Position: The Upside-Down World

Did Christopher Columbus discover America in 1492? Or was it the Vikings before him? And before the Vikings, what about the people who lived there? Didn't they exist?

Official history relates that Vasco N±ez of Balboa was the first man who saw both oceans, standing on a peak in Panama. Were the inhabitants of that area blind?

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Who gave maize and potatoes and tomatoes and chocolate and the rivers and mountains of America their names? Hernßn Corts? Francisco Pizarro? Were the people who were already living there mute?

We have been told, and still are, that it was the pilgrims of the Mayflower that populated America. Had it been empty before?

* * * Because Columbus didn't understand what the Indians were saying, he concluded that they didn't know how to speak. Because they wore no clothes, were gentle, and gave away everything they had, he concluded they lacked the capacity for reason. And because he was certain of having discovered the Orient by the back door, he believed they were Indians from India.

Afterwards, during the second voyage, the admiral promulgated an act establishing that Cuba was part of Asia. The document of June 14, 1494, stated as evidence that the crew of the three ships recognized it as such. Whoever said otherwise was given thirty lashes, fined 10,000 maravedes, and had his tongue cut out.

The notary, Hernßn Prez de Luna, attested, and the sailors who could write signed at the bottom.

* * * The conquistadors demanded that America be something it wasn't. And they treated the Americans as if they were what they imagined the pagans of the Orient to be.

Christopher Columbus said he saw on the shores of Cuba sirens with men's faces and chicken feathers, and supposed that not far from there men and women had tails.

In Guyana, according to Sir Walter Raleigh, there were people with eyes in their shoulders and mouths in their chests.

In Venezuela, according to Pedro Simon, there were Indians with ears so long they dragged on the ground.

In the Amazon, according to Christopher of Acu±a, the natives' feet were shaped backwards, heels forward and toes behind, and according to Pedro Martn de Anglera, women mutilated one breast to be able to fire their arrows better.

Anglera, who wrote the first history of America, though he never set foot there, also affirmed that in the New World there were people with tails, and these tails were so long the natives could sit only in chairs with holes.

* * * The Black Code...