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Fake Vampires, Wailing Ghosts, and Other Fascinating Psy-Ops and Military Deceptions

Khalid Elhassan January 29, 2020 33 min

North Vietnam - Viet Cong Fighter — Viet Cong. Wikimedia

16. Christopher Columbus Overawes Natives by Predicting an Eclipse

Christopher Columbus and the 1504 lunar eclipse. Samhain

Predicting an eclipse to overawe naïve natives is as cliché a Hollywood or pulp fiction trope as it gets. But it reportedly actually happened in real life with Christopher Columbus and a tribe of Arawaks in the Caribbean. It began in June of 1503 when the famous explorer was forced to beach a damaged fleet in Jamaica. The native Arawaks were friendly at first and furnished the castaways with food and shelter.

However, as the days turned to months, the new arrivals began to wear out their welcome and the natives grew less friendly – among other things, Columbus’ crew were in the habit of assaulting and robbing the Arawaks, and raping their women. Finally, after six months of rising tensions and tempers, Columbus’ crews mutinied and launched an all-out attack on their hosts and murdering some, prompting the Arawaks to stop bringing them food. So Columbus threatened to take away the moon unless the natives resumed helping him and his crew.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.