Was America Discovered or Invaded?

Abstract

"THE QUINCENTENARY of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the West Indies in 1492 will soon be celebrated. In a spirit of triumphalism which is completely at odds with the historical facts, the Church has already started preparing for these celebrations at the highest level. On II February 1988, the Asociación lndígena Salvadoreña (Salvadoran Indian Association) published I Encuentro espiritual y cultural (Spiritual and Cultural Encounter I) in which it repudiated the foreign invasion of America and called a halt to the genocide and ethnocide of its peoples and cultures and also demanded a complete rejection of the celebration of 500 years of that foreign invasion.1 The fact is that the first Europeans reached these lands towards the end of the fifteenth century-the Spaniards came first, followed by the Portuguese and then the Dutch, English, French, etc.; and it is claimed that they 'dis- covered' (they revealed what was covered) that these lands formed a continent."