Little does Mary Lou know, but her history teacher this year is Mr. John Bookman fresh out of the University of Wisconsin with a major in history having graduated magna cum laude. Mr. Bookman is excited about his first year of teaching and is looking forward to the school year. He's decided that the course will begin with the landing of Columbus in the New World.
The students are in their seats as Mr. Bookman calls the roll. After taking care of his administrative duties, he gets into his first-ever lecture. Mary Lou is about to learn a great deal from her newly-minted instructor.
John Bookman looks over the bright and shiny faces in his classroom and begins: "I want to tell you the untold story of Christopher Columbus—his story is a shocking tale of severed hands, assaulted women, and gentle, enslaved people worked to death to slake the white Europeans’ lust for gold."
Bookman was just getting warmed up. He continued: "Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log: ‘They . . . brought us parrots and balls of cotton, and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned. . . . ’
And then came the knock-out blow of his lecture. Bookman's eyes narrowed as told the students, "Columbus wrote in his diary these words, 'The Arawaks have no iron. Their spears are made out of cane. . . . They would make fine servants. . . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.'”
Mary Lou Follet is shocked. She'd never heard such before. But what she and the other students don't know is they've been conned. Mr. Bookman, following the required reading he'd been assigned at the University of Wisconsin, didn't know what Columbus recorded in his ship's log on October 12, 1492: “I warned my men to take nothing from the people without giving something in exchange” The book he was assigned to read, "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, had omitted that October 12th recording.
Not only that, but Mr. Bookman had been tricked by Zinn's ellipsis, those three little dots between "fine servants" and "With fifty men." The ellipsis is hiding something. That punctuation is hiding the fact that "With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want" has nothing to do with the first part and is not even in the same paragraph as "They would make fine servants."
In fact, the "With fifty men" statement is from an entry Columbus made two days later where he was remarking on a theory he had, that people from the mainland came to the islands to capture these Indians as slaves because they were so docile and obliging.
John Bookman, following the party line also either didn't know or failed to mention another entry in the ship's log in which Columbus wrote: “I want the natives to develop a friendly attitude toward us because I know that they are a people who can be made free and converted to our Holy Faith more by love than by force.” He had not come, as is now portrayed to work the tribe to death to fill his coffers and return to Europe.
But that one contrived and deliberately designed sentence in the book has caused a nationwide movement and a nationwide attitude which "has captured our education system and popular culture. The book has been translated into over a dozen languages, including French, Spanish, Italians, Germans, Chinese, and even the Arab world. The defacement of statues of Columbus with red paint has already become an annual ritual in many places." (Mary Grabar) By 2018, it was estimated that the book had sold more than 2.6 million copies. In April 2019, the book was considered a sacred object” when newly elected Oklahoma City council member JoBeth Hamon chose to place her hand on it for her oath of office.
That one sentence forged in deceit has caused these states to change the name of Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day:
- Maine
- New Mexico
- Vermont
- Minnesota
- Alaska
- North Carolina
- South Dakota
- Alaska
- Oregon
- Wisconsin
- Washington D.C.
- Oklahoma
- Alabama
Satan has embedded an ellipsis in the minds of men. His ellipsis hides the word "alone," as in "faith alone." His ellipsis occurs in book after book, sermon after sermon in which people are told that a faith that is alone cannot save, that it must be accompanied by turning from sin, feeling sorry for sin, making restitution for sin, confessing one's sins, publicly confessing Christ, and additional ordinances or sacraments.
Whether you're reading "A People's History of the United States" or listening to a sermon or reading a theological work, beware the ellipsis!
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