Why are people cool with Aztec human sacrifice and not Spanish colonialism?

[Elok]

I'd like to point out that at least one of the snarky Anti-Columbus pictures I've seen depicts a landsknecht, even though the landsknechten, AFAIK, were never active in the Americas. I think it's tragic that our young people don't know the difference between a landsknecht and a conquistador.

[Zevico]

Weee! It was imperial powers that recognized colonialism was wrong! Yay!

Everyone was imperialist. The Europeans were simply better at it. Yet those who opposed it were first, foremost and still mainly of European background.

[Dinner]

There were Vikings in NA before Columbus. There were Muslims maping the coast of Brazil before Columbus. Damn wops take credit for everything.


Speculative bullsh*t.

I've never seen anything about Muslims mapping jack **** any where west of Africa.

[Uncle Sparky]

The 1513 map by Turkish admiral Piri Reis clealy shows the Brazilian coast. And there are others. Why are so many Americans so stupid?



Larger version here.

[Al B. Sure!]

Do you consider Aristotelianism science? Scholasticism? Ptolemy's "the Algamest"?

What do you think of people like Albert Magnus? Duns Scotus? Roger Bacon? Thomas Aquinas? Those were the dominant philosophers of the times.

Ibn Rusd? Al Ghazali? Maimonides?

[Dinner]

The 1513 map by Turkish admiral Piri Reis clealy shows the Brazilian coast. And there are others. Why are so many Americans so stupid?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]172718[/ATTACH]

Larger version here.

That doesn't mean jack ****. All it means is he had the latest Protuguese discoveries included in his map, you ****. You know, like the year 1500 expedition by Cabral that just happened to cover that stretch of coast.

Besides, every history book is filled with notes about how crappy Ottoman ships were and how the Ottomans were constantly hiring western experts to try to get their domestic ship industry out of the dumps it was in; they mostly produced galleys which just didn't work very well outside of the med. Much less the navigation equipment or expertise needed to actually explore anything.

[Kidlicious]

The Chinese discovered the americas in like 800.

[Al B. Sure!]

That doesn't mean jack ****. All it means is he had the latest Protuguese discoveries included in his map, you ****. You know, like the year 1500 expedition by Cabral that just happened to cover that stretch of coast.

Besides, every history book is filled with notes about how crappy Ottoman ships were and how the Ottomans were constantly hiring western experts to try to get their domestic ship industry out of the dumps it was in; they mostly produced galleys which just didn't work very well outside of the med. Much less the navigation equipment or expertise needed to actually explore anything.

And yet Arab dhows traveled as far as the Philippines

[regexcellent]

...You do know that Indonesia is muslim right? And also that it's a lot easier to get to the Philippines from Asia and Africa than to cross the Atlantic?

It's not about distance, it's about distance over open water.

Distance across Atlantic (Newfoundland->Ireland): ~1,700 nautical miles of open water
Distance from Chinese coast to Philippines: ~400 nautical miles of open water

Not to mention, if you're sailing from Indonesia, there are a ton of tiny islands each less than 100 nmi apart from the next that you can hop between, between Borneo and Mindanao. Not a huge feat of engineering. Incidentally, to get to the Indonesian islands, they're <50 nmi from the Asian mainland, specifically the Malay Peninsula.

When you don't have to go far from land you can hug the coastline and you don't need any kind of advanced navigation techniques. Moreover, you can land at pretty much any time to get supplies. You don't face particularly dangerous sea states because it's not open ocean, so the ships don't have to be very seaworthy either.

[Al B. Sure!]

What?

What is the relevance of any of that?

Arab dhows from Oman and the Persian gulf traveled all the way to Atjeh on regular trade voyages and reached the Philippines, as well.


No, as far as I know, no Muslim voyages to Brazil occurred. Piri Reis was a cartographer who learned of Brazil from other sources.

[regexcellent]

I'm saying that the accomplishments of the Arab seafarers is much less impressive than that of the Portuguese.

I kinda skimmed the thread, at best, so I apologize if that's not totally relevant.

[Uncle Sparky]

I'm saying that the accomplishments of the Arab seafarers is much less impressive than that of the Portuguese.

I kinda skimmed the thread, at best, so I apologize if that's not totally relevant.

It involves a discussion with Dinner, so it's almost totally irrelevant.

[Al B. Sure!]

I'm saying that the accomplishments of the Arab seafarers is much less impressive than that of the Portuguese.

I kinda skimmed the thread, at best, so I apologize if that's not totally relevant.

Less impressive how exactly? With so much coastline along East Africa, India, SE Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. the Arabs had no need to build ocean-going vessels. Can't fault them for not needing the technology. The maritime culture and seamanship was strong regardless.

And I'm not sure Arab baghlahs couldn't sail the open ocean.

[regexcellent]

I'm not saying the Arabs are less worthy people because they didn't sail across the Atlantic, you dufus, I'm saying that sailing along the coast is not an impressive feat of technology, navigation, or seafaring ability of any kind. You barely have to leave sight of land to get to the Philippines.

[Uncle Sparky]

Have you ever heard of St. Brendan?

http://www.songsandstories.net/curragh.pdf

500 CE, Brendan left Ireland in a curragh with 10 companions, 40 days provisions and found America. Tim Severin repeated this in the '70s and wrote a book about it. The following is Part 1 of a five part posting chronicling his voyage: