• Joseph’s Blog
  • Respect
  • The Lords of Greenwich
  • The Neglected and Abused
  • Contact
  • Crossword Puzzles
  • Archives
  • All Posts
  • Home

Archives for June 2020

Joseph Bentivegna, M.D.June 23, 2020

If Columbus Must Go, So Should Yale

 

      With increased racial tensions spreading across the country, statues of those associated with slavery – Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals – have been either removed or vandalized. Here in the Northeast, statues of Columbus are suffering the same fate. In Boston, a statue of Columbus was beheaded while in Middletown and New London, Connecticut, his statue was removed. The city of Columbus, Ohio is considering changing its name. Yet the slave merchant who financed Yale University, Elihu Yale, remains unscathed. Why? Because he is the namesake of one of America’s most prestigious and liberal universities.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Elihu Yale in the center with slave in a dog collar

      Columbus has been under assault for years. He was once termed the “discoverer” of America, until Native Americans accurately noted that their descendants were here first. But he was an intrepid explorer who had the courage to sail into oblivion in the hope of reaching India by another route. Instead he landed near an unknown land mass. The rapid colonization of this land mass – later named after the Italian cartographer Americus Vespucius who recognized it as a new continent – brought the modern world to Stone Age cultures.

      But it did not come without a cost. The native Indians were brutalized, enslaved and massacred and Columbus was in the forefront of this barbarism. On his second voyage, he rounded up 1,200 Indians (as he mistakenly called them) and brought them back to Spain as slaves. On his third voyage, he became the Governor of Hispaniola – the island that is now occupied by Haiti and the Dominican Republic – and was populated by three million Arawak Indians. Columbus and the Spanish enslaved them for work in gold mines and on plantations. They were decimated by torture, starvation, disease and mass suicide and by the mid-1600s, vanished, requiring the need for African slave labor to replace them. This is not revisionist history. The initial atrocities were brought to light by a Catholic priest Bartolome de las Casas. In fact, Columbus’s treatment of the native population so outraged Queen Isabella of Spain that she imprisoned him.

      But what Columbus did to the Arawaks was not much different than what the English settlers did to the Powhatans and the Pequots. As the modern world was brought to New England, a divinity school called Yale was established in New Haven. It was financed by Elihu Yale, who made a fortune as the Governor of the East India Company in the late 1600s, trading in diamonds, tea and slaves. One portrait of Yale depicts him with wealthy Englishmen while a slave in a dog collar is serving them wine. This has been removed from the Yale boardroom. But another picture that has been archived depicts Elihu Yale besides an obsequiously smiling slave in a spiked dog collar. I vividly remember seeing this picture (it has somehow been removed scrubbed from the internet) in the mid-1990s at the Peabody Museum because it upset my six-year-old daughter.

      But if democratically-elected leaders choose to deny history, it should at least be done uniformly. If Christopher Columbus must go, so should Elihu Yale. His statue should be removed from the campus and the name of the university changed. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Already, there is a nascent movement to do so and Calhoun College (Yale is divided into fourteen residential colleges) was renamed because John C. Calhoun, vice president from 1825-32, defended slavery. Whether this will happen remains to be seen; but in a few years, some judicial nominee testifying in front of a Senate committee may state, “I attended the university formerly known as Yale.”

Filed Under: Blog, Politics, Race Relations, Uncategorized

Joseph Bentivegna, M.D.June 8, 2020

Coronavirus Mutates to Protect Rioters

        America is confused. Just a few weeks ago, we were being told by our betters to social distance and wear masks for our own protection from the coronavirus. But when the riots began after a police officer murdered George Floyd, our betters no longer enforced rules on social distancing, as rioters were standing less […]

Filed Under: Blog, Medicine, Politics

Doctor Bentivegna is an ophthalmologist living in Connecticut. He has written numerous op-ed pieces for The Hartford Courant and The New York Times regarding health care, tort reform, and the political situation in Haiti.

Respect

An edgy and often hilarious exploration of barely concealed racism told as a taut page-turner that ranges through a kaleidoscope of ethnic experiences and economic classes. This novel, Respect, is sure to have people talking.

$17.95Add to cart


The Neglected and Abused: A Physician's Year in Haiti

haiti

The most moving account of the situation in Haiti ever written by a non-Haitian. Haiti-Observateur

$19.95Add to cart


When to Refuse Treatment

Described by Aging Magazine as "frank, sensitive and specific."

$17.95Add to cart


The Lords of Greenwich

The Lords of Greenwich

Compelling from start to finish...a must read novel. Gerry Demeusy, Crime Reporter, The Hartford Courant.

$19.95Add to cart


Recent Posts

  • Deposit your money in JNLB (Joe’s Never Lose Bank)
  • There is No Such Thing as UFO’s
  • The Slippery Slope of Physician-Assisted Suicide is Coming to Connecticut
  • Bail Out of Silicon Valley Bank Depositors is an Outrage
  • President Biden May Have Parkinson’s Disease
  • Joseph’s Blog
  • Respect
  • The Lords of Greenwich
  • The Neglected and Abused
  • Contact
  • Crossword Puzzles
  • Archives
  • All Posts
  • Home

Copyright Joseph Bentivegna © 2023 · Log in