So Called Great Men....

"Teach the youths about Christopher Come-rob-us, and they said he was a very great man,
Teach the youths about Marco Polo, and they said he was a very great man,
Teach the youths about Pirate Morgan, and they said he was a very great man,
Teach the youths about Pirate Hawkins, and they said he was a very great man,
So called great men were doing, robbing, raping, kidnapping and killing"

Christopher Columbus (Christ-t'ief Come-rob-us)

Italian explorer born in 1436. Columbus landed on the new world in 1492, however he was the one to bring slavery to an everyday living. He captured 1,500 Tainos on the island of Hispaniola. He took them to Spain and forced them into the slave market in Seville. Within 30 years, Spain destroyed the Tainos. They were estimated at 1 to 2 million peoples. After the slaves came to Spain, the Spaniards became very lazy, they refused to walk and they rode the backs of Indians. As if this wasn't enough the Spaniards were also responsible for cutting off slices of Indian slaves to test out the sharpness of their blades.

After destroying the Tainos, Columbus introduced African slaves to Hispaniola by 1502. The trade expanded throughout the Carribean after 1510. There were more than 9 million slaves in the US mainland. However, to this day, Columbus remains a historic figure. He remains responsible for legacy of slavery, colonialism and the destruction of native cultures

He made a total of four trips to the Caribbean and South America during the years 1492-1504.

The First Trip:
Columbus sailed for King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella of Spain. On his first trip, Columbus led an expedition with three ships, the Niña (captained by Vicente Yáñez Pinzon), the Pinta (owned and captained by Martin Alonzo Pinzon), and the Santa Maria (captained by Columbus), and about 90 crew members. They set sail on Aug. 3, 1492, and on October 11, 1492, spotted the Caribbean islands off southeastern North America. They landed on an island they called Guanahani, but Columbus later renamed it San Salvador. They were met by the local Taino Indians, many of whom were captured by Columbus' men and later sold into slavery. Columbus thought he had made it to Asia, and called this area the Indies, and called its inhabitants Indians.

While exploring the islands in the area and looking for gold to loot, Columbus' men traveled to the islands of Hispaniola (now divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Cuba, and many other smaller islands. On the return trip, the Santa Maria was wrecked and the captain of the Pinta sailed off on his own to try to beat Columbus back. Columbus returned to Spain in the Nina, arriving on March 15, 1493.

The Second Trip:
On a second, larger expedition (Sept. 25, 1493-June 11, 1496), sailed with 17 ships and 1,200 to 1,500 men to find gold and capture Indians as slaves in the Indies. Columbus established a base in Hispaniola and sailed around Hispaniola and along the length of southern Cuba. He spotted and named the island of Dominica on November 3, 1493.

The Third Trip:
On a third expedition (May 30, 1498-October 1500), Columbus sailed farther south, to Trinidad and Venezuela (including the mouth of the Orinoco River). Columbus was the first European since the Viking Leif Ericsson to set foot on the mainland of America.

The Fourth Trip:
On his fourth and last expedition (May 9, 1502-Nov. 7, 1504), Columbus sailed to Mexico, Honduras and Panama (in Central America) and Santiago (Jamaica). Columbus is buried in eastern Hispaniola (now called the Dominican Republic).

Marco Polo (Marc. O Polio)

Marco Polo was an Italian traveller and author, born in Venice Italy in 1254. He was the first European to cross the entire continent of Asia and leave a record of what he saw and heard.

In 1260, he made an overland journey from Bukhoro, Uzbekistan, to China. Two years later, he made a second journey. The route led from modern-day Akko, Israel, to the Persian Gulf, northward through Iran to present-day Amu-Darya, up the Oxus the Pamir to present day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and finally across the Gobi Desert. They reached Shang-tu in 1275.

The Polo's left China in the 1292, they left the country as escorts for a Mongol princess traveling by sea to Iran. They got to that country by Sumatra, near southern India. They then went overland past Tabriz in northwest Iran. They went along the east coast of the Black Sea, and past Constantinople. They returned from China in 1295.

In 1298, Marco Polo served as a captain of a Venetian galley that participated in a battle between the fleets of Venice and Genoa. He was taken prisoner by the Genoese. While jailed, he dictated to a fellow prisoner what he saw and heard while he traveled. Marco Polo's book, "The Travels of Marco Polo", first published in French, is probably the most famous travel book in history. It was the basis of the first accurate maps of Asia. This book aroused Cristipher Columbus interest in the orient that culminated in his discovery of America in 1442 while attempting to reach the Far East of Polo's decription by sailing due west from Europe.

Sir Henry Morgan (Pirate Morgan)

Sir Henry Morgan was a Welsh buccaneer born in 1635. In his youth he went to West Indies, eventually joining the buccaneers there. On the death of Edward Mansfield in 1667, Morgan took his place as commander of the buccaneers. He operated as a privateer, being commissioned in his activities by the British authorities. His exploits included the capture of Puerto Príncipe (Camagüey, Cuba) and the sack of Puerto Bello in 1668, the capture of Maracaibo in 1669, the ravaging of the Cuban and American coasts in 1670, and the daring capture of Panama in 1671. His operations were always marked by brutality and debauchery.

In 1672 he was sent as a prisoner to England on complaints of piracy, however he soon became a hero and knighted in 1673 before being made a lieutenant governor of Jamaica, where he spent the rest of his life.

Sir John Hawkins (Pirate Hawkins)

Sir John Hawkins was an English admiral born in 1532. In 1562/63 and in 1564/65 he led extremely profitable expeditions that captured slaves on the West African coast, shipped them across the Atlantic, and sold them, despite Spanish prohibition, in Spanish ports in the West Indies. Hawkins set out on a similar expedition in 1567, but he fell afoul of a Spanish squadron in San Juan de Ulúa, the port of Veracruz, and barely escaped with three of his boats, one of which was commanded by his kinsman Francis Drake. Probably acting as an agent for Lord Burghley, Hawkins pretended to betray Queen Elizabeth I in offering (1571) his services to the Spanish, in order to obtain the release of prisoners and to discover plans for the proposed Spanish invasion of England. In 1571 he entered Parliament and subsequently became treasurer and comptroller of the navy.

His enemies charged him with using his office to his personal financial advantage, but he was exonerated after an inquiry by a royal commission. In the great defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588), Hawkins commanded the Victory and was knighted for his services. In 1595 he set out on a new expedition to the West Indies under Drake to purchase slaves but died and was buried at sea off Puerto Rico.