Submitted by J. Reyes-Montblanc, Oct 4, 2007 02:23

NB- My good friend Lee Bollinger is always an gentleman and a great scholar.

Sometimes I am a gentleman but never a scholar and rather think of myself as an old grizzled and scarred Marine.

However I know lots about Next Frontiers. My ancestors were great explorers and finders of new frontiers. For 800 years my ancestors reconquered our Iberian Homeland setting new frontiers as we recovered our lands until we got them all back and then some.

We found a New World with indigenous civilizations as advanced and in some instances more advanced than our European civilizations but in the thirst for new souls for the Faith and gold for our Sovereigns we entered that Next Frontier and by the strength of our Toledo blades and our gundpowder, horses and our Canary Presa dogs took it.

Their best intentions were soon to turned into a horror for the indigenous civilizations that we destroyed and millions of indigenous people died due to European diseases to which they were not immune and many more because of the burdens of our European civilization needs for growth and mercantilism. We compounded error upon error and to save the indigenous people we imported African slaves.

The repercussions of our incursions into that Next Frontier are still being felt today as our errors were also the errors of our European cousins, the Portuguese, the French, the English and the Dutch.

I pray that as Columbia looks forward to New York's Next Frontier the indigenous people of Manhattanville and all of WestSide Harlem are spared the traumatic experience that our XV Century incursion, fraught with good intentions, into our Next Frontier caused to the indigenous people of the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia and Oceania.

In this month of Hispanic Heritage we remember the good we did and also must not forget the evil we caused despite all our good intentions.

Columbia should remember history otherwise it is in danger of repeating the errors of the past.

J Reyes Montblanc

Chairman

Community Board 9 Manhattan

CB9M WestSide Harlem:

Morningside Heights * Manhattanville * Hamilton Heights

Note: Comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. We reserve the right to reject anything we find objectionable.