Talk:Christopher Columbus/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Christopher Columbus. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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A second page (!) of archives from Talk:Christopher Columbus .

03:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)03:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)03:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)03:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)~`

Someone asked, "If he was a slaver, why would he destroy his stock?"

Well, it was cheaper to work a slave to death and buy a new one than to feed and maintain the slave. Lir 01:14 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

First of all, Lir, it took me three minutes according to Wikipedia's clock (based on my above sig and the one in this paragraph) to find a secondary source (I admit, not great, but proves you did make up a baseless claim) that utilizes direct quotes from Jacob Cain Barrett and other sources to prove what you are claiming. I did a google search for "Hitler" and "Native American" and it was the seventeenth result. Here it is 1 (you have to scroll down a bit). Tokerboy 01:20 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

I repeat, TokerBoy, Hitler is no authoritative source on CC. FvdP

Perhaps I misunderstood the argument. I thought it was that Hitler admired Columbus. He may have done so for factually wrong reasons, but the evidence is that he did so. If I misunderstood, sorry. Tokerboy 01:25 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Ah, yes. No, the argument was that since Hitler admired Columbus, then there must be a reason. And the reason, according to Lir, must be that Columbus killed millions too. That was the argument I was opposing to. I do not oppose to the idea that Hitler admired Colombus. FvdP

In 1991, the sociologist Ward Churchill and other leaders of the American Indian Movement disrupted the Columbus Day parade in Denver Colorado. They were arrested, but argued that theirs was a legal action against a celebration of genocide. Churchill published a brief in support of a motion to dismiss the charges as an essay in his edited volume, Indians Are Us, in which he argues that as Viceroy (the crown's representative) and governor of the Caribbean Islands, and the Mainland of America, Columbus was (according to current international law) directly responsible for genocide, and that he has served as a model for genocide against Native Americans since.

I find these claims convincing. I also agree with remarks made earlier that the way Columbus has been represented in the US has more to do with 19th century politics than with 16th century realities.

I agree with others above that Hitler is a meaningless source. There is enough good scholarship in the 15th and 16th centuries to support these claims. I think it is important that the article develop them in a non-hystirical way. One way to do this as others have suggested is somehow to distinguish between the real Columbus and what we know he did, from the mythologization of Columbus in the late 19th century in the US and elsewhere.

As far as I am concerned there should be no debate at all on the fact that Columbus took slaves and encouraged genocide. The only question in my mind is, how much of the historical context for these actions is needed in an encyclopeida article, and where in the article should these aspects of his career be discussed. Slrubenstein

---

I concur. I believe the article should mostly focus on his biography with further discussion going under an existing or to-be-made article on the Amerindian Holocaust. I also think this page should be named properly.Lir 01:42 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

More specifically, I do not think that COlumbus' biography should end wiith the last of his voyages. I think that before a discussion of 19th century mythologization of Columbus, there should be a section in his biography of his deeds as Viceroy and Governor of the Americas -- this is an important part of his life for which there is an historical record. One need not even apply the lable of "Genocide" to him, one could simply describe what he did and leave others to judge, if need be. Slrubenstein

How about:

this which uses primary sources, but I don't see any total--it's clearly quite a few from direct orders, personally and what his men did, probably with his knowledge.
or this with the same caveats as the above.
this one gives sources citing Las Casas (the first European historian in the New World) that Columbus' rule (over the Taino Indians) resulted in the deaths of five million in three years. It is certainly unfair to say that he was directly responsible for all those, however as ruler he certainly must have known what was going on and allowed it to happen (and, as the sources above show, participated in his own, small way) so he does bear responsibility. However, he certainly allowed it to occur (except the disease factor, which he was still partially responsible for, though he couldn't have known it since he was not aware of the germ theory of disease). Since the original question was about a source from the old talk page that cited nine million killed by Columbus, I suppose it's all in which numbers you count and which ones you don't. I don't think it's unreasonable to say "millions" however. The main point of the above exercise was to prove to Lir that it is possible and pretty simple to find reasonable sources to back up claims--none of these are direct, but can give you something to go on to find a primary source, and is IMHO enough to make it apparent that this is something that serious people have looked at the evidence and believe in.

Relevant quote from Question #2 at the third source listed above: "In a survey conducted in 1496, (Las Casas) estimated that over 5 million people had been exterminated within the first three years of the Columbus rule. [Actual survey conducted in 1496 by Bartolome de Las Casas, cited in J.B. Thatcher, Christopher Columbus, Vol. 2 [Source: New York: Putnam Sons Publishers, 1903-1904), p. 348ff. cited in Churchill's linked essay.]" Tokerboy 01:47 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Tokerboy, independent of your comment I put some of this information in the article -- please review it, it could use some editing and maybe expansion. As for the "Genocide" issue, Churchill and others do point out that many victims of the concentration camps died of starvation and diseas; this does not exclude those deaths from the final tally of victims of genocide since the concentration camps deliberatly created conditions that led to death by disease and malnutrition. I believe the same argument could be made about Columbus (and other examples of colonial conquest); in the early stages when the indigenous population is large and does not represent a market for European goods, you often find the creation of work-camps (or plantations) with very high death-rates, and it is deliberate calculus because labor is so easily replacable, a pantation manager can make more money working people to death (this calculus changes over time as European countries start exporting manufactured goods to their colonies and seek larger markets, and as a local infrastructure develops, and as scarcity of labor makes life more valuable). Churchil et. al. also make the argument (and it seems well-supported) that according to UN conventions neither Hitler nor Columbus need not even have explicity ordered the deaths, let alone directly executed people, to be held legally accountable for genocide. Slrubenstein

It should be noted that at least in Mexico small pox killed *many* more people than Cortes and his men killed. In fact were it not for the disease, the spaniards probably would have lost! I suspect that Columbus inadvertantly brought with him some terrible diseases which probably contributed to a lot of deaths. Of course I have no statistics, but this should probably be kept in mind. -- Ram-Man

I think this raises a few different issues. Certainly, in some purely amoral objective sense, Europeans were responsible for the deaths of millions of Indians in that they were the transmission vector of the disease. Whether this makes them morally responsible is another matter, although there is some historical documentation that Europeans quickly realized that Indians were susceptible to European diseases, and that Europeans set out to infect Indians deliberatly (germ warfare, as it were). There is also a question of whether Europeans were legally responsible (I mean under international law). The case is not so clear-cut even when it comes to unintentional infection, because even if Europeans did not intentionally infect Indians, Europeans did change the livign conditions of Indians in ways that clearly had negative effects on their health. Slrubenstein

I don't think that's controversial at all (that many Indians died as a result of European diseases, first accidental and then somewhat to largely deliberate). The number may vary, but that it was high is an accept fact AFAIK--I've never heard of it being disputed. (BTW, in my searching I discovered an earlier comment I made was wrong--syphilis was possibly the only disease brought from the New World to Europe) Tokerboy 02:20 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

I do not think that this fact is at all controversial -- but I do think that whether it makes Columbus legally culpable for genocide according to the UN is a matter of debate. I am inclined to say guilty, but I recognize that this is not so cut and dry.Slrubenstein

Jared Diamond puts the numbers for disease-related casualties at 95-98% in Guns, Germs and Steel. I don't think the Spaniards can really be held responsible for disease. Yes, they brought it, but they didn't know what it was, and the deaths of the natives were completely baffling to them. Debatable whether the spanish would have lost - they did have weapons and armor vastly superior to the natives. Pizarro and a handful of men decimated an Inca army merely by superioriy of armament and use of cavalry. Anyway, I don't think that most of the deaths can be laid at Columbus' door. I also don't think this means he wasn't an evil murdering imperialist, but that's different than genocide. While I'm at it, the passage near the end (How responsible was columbus) seems to me to be totally whacky - I don't think anyone is blaming Columbus because of WHAT he did, the simple act of stumbling across the New World, but rather HOW he did it. He arrived and proceeded with enslavement, colonization, theft of gold and land, population transfer and forced conversion. So... I don't see the point of the last bit. No one is saying that without Columbus, colonization of the West would not have happened. But he's still a symbol of the brutality of that colonization, and this is why people protest him. Graft

I cut phrase "intended to support Columbus' conquest of the Americas", as it seems very dubious to me. Columbus and the Spanish didn't even know they'd reached the Americas yet, they still thought they'd arrived at some islands in Asia. Infrogmation 02:37 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

The 1493 voyage included seeds, far more livestock than necessary for the voyage itself, as well as soldiers -- the intent was to conquer and colonize, regardless of what they called the territory the planned on colonizing. Slrubenstein

Did Columbus sell and profit from the 300 slaves he shipped over to Spain, as the introduction claims, or did he simply hand them over to the Spanish crown which had financed his trip? AxelBoldt 02:39 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Columbus then made several journeys of exploration and trade across the Atlantic, amassing a fortune from profits on stolen gold and kidnapped natives whom he sold into slavery. However, Columbus died in poverty.

This was removed by an anonymous user. It is POV but I would like to still have this info in the intro while adhering to NPOV. Unless somebody beats me to it I will work on this later (as this requires some research on my part. My primary school taught that Columbus was a saint and then in high school I was told he was a rapist murderer. I don't buy either extreme.). --mav

Why was "Columbus began shortly thereafter to enslave them. " removed from the First Voyage section? It is my understanding that Columbus did in fact force the natives to work for him. Perhaps "Columbus shortly thereafter began to force some of the natives to work for him." would be better? --mav

There aren't any opinions there. Its fact. Lir 04:16 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

It is my understanding that Columbus was never rich. --rmhermen

The Native Americans he encountered, the Taino or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly.

This could be interpreted in more than one way: 1) the Arawak, as a race of people, were peaceful and friendly. This strikes me as "noble savage" thinking and is almost surely wrong. I can not imagine characterizing an entire race of people as "friendly"--surely, there were some mean Arawak. On the Carib page, it says that the Caribs and the Arawak were warring. 2) The Arawak treated the spanish peacefully and friendlily (?!). If so, we should make this clear. DanKeshet

The Arawak were friendly toward Columbus (at least in the beginning) and they were the ones that claimed to be poor peaceful people being preyed upon by the evil flesh-eating Caribs (so won't you, great Columbus, with your magic weapons please solve our little problem). Or that sort of thing so draw your conclusion. --rmhermen

So, we'd be basing the claim that the Arawak were "peaceful and friendly" on the fact that that's what Columbus says they told him? DanKeshet

There's some confusion about Las Casas that needs to be cleared up, relating to Columbus. First, his date of birth is variously given at 1474, 1484 or 1490. I have some sources saying he sailed with Columbus on his third voyage, in 1498. Others say he was still in school then (and some would have him at 14 years of age at that point, hardly the sort to be traipsing off to the New World). Others say he sailed in 1502 with the conquistador Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo to Hispaniola. In the article we have him conducting a census in 1496. Anyone got some good digs on this? Graft 17:06 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

---

I'm taking out the "some say slaves" in the opening paragraph. There is really no doubt about the fact that he enslaved at least some Indians and sold many, thereby making him a slave trader. I typed "Christopher Columbus" into google and checked the first forty results, and stopped as the results started being geared primarily towards kids. Out of the forty results, not one denied his involvement in the slave trade. Most glossed over it by saying he was a trader but not specifying (or specifying that he traded "in such commodities as gold" or something to that effect) what he traded. Many also claimed he "took," "captured" or "brought back" Indians to the New World without using the word "slavery." Of the sources that mention it specifically, not a single one denies that he did enslave Indians and sell many of them. This did include quite a few sites which were pro-Columbus, usually focusing on combatting the politically correct philosophy of denigrating Columbus Day. Even these sites either didn't mention slavery or glossed it over using words like "took" or "captured". The closest thing I found to a denial was here, where it says his involvement in slavery was brief and unsuccesful without denying that he did bring slaves from the New World to the Old, and doesn't cite any sources for that particular section. This appears to be the Encylopedia Encarta article, which, way down near the bottom, claims that he did take slaves without mentioning any controversy (the same article does discuss other factual controversies, such as where he landed and his nationality). Because of this, I am removing the "some say" because there does not seem to be any ambiguity about this whatsoever--even the sites that would, if they could, deny his involvement in the slave trade do not do so. It is undisputed fact. Tokerboy 18:12 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

It's uncontroversial that he enslaved people to work for him in America, and that he had 500 slaves shipped to Spain. Did he "trade in slaves" and "profit from the trade" as the introduction suggests? What happened to the 300 slaves that arrived in Spain? Who sold them, and who received the money? I would assume that the crown laid claim to them, since they had paid for the party after all. AxelBoldt 18:50 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Yes, he sold slaves in Spain. Some of the money may have been given to the Spanish crown, but he did profit off the trade of slaves for money. The introduction is correct. Tokerboy 19:36 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Yeah, I gotta agree with you guys: Columbus enslaved people. That said, it doesn't make much difference whether you call him a "slave owner", "slave trader", "slaver" or what. That would be like trying to sort out what category to put in the 2 million Cambodian civilians murdered by the Communist government there: hmm, was it "genocide" or merely "an atrocity"? Who cares, you killed 2 million people to prop up yer filthy regime. (my 2 cents) --Ed Poor

I agree. Trying to find a dividing line is difficult to impossible, and inherently subjective. For example, under the "encomieda" system, Indians were forced to mine gold and whatnot, and were slaughtered if they did not mine enough. They were not slaves, but they were forced to work for others and were not paid except with survival. Encomieda and slavery were two different institutions that were identical in practice. The fact is that Columbus was a slave owner, slaver trader, slaver, enslaver, transporter of slaves and manager and inventor of a system of slavery, all by the modern perception of the definition of the word. It is possible to quibble over details about how much he did of what, but the fact remains that Columbus was all those things (and an explorer). Tokerboy 19:36 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

I've just finished reading a lengthy excerpt from Columbus's log of his first voyage across the Atlantic, and my impression is that Columbus was seeking glory for himself by finding another route to "the Indies". Upon landing in the Caribbean, he found the inhabitants friendly and primitive. He figured:

the natives could benefit from being converted to Christianity
the natives could be servants (I guess this means "slaves")
there was lots of good things in the land, like fruit and exotic fauna
there might be gold thereabouts

I don't think his original motive was to find slaves. But for those of us who oppose slavery, there's no little or no doubt that he "brought back" a whole lot of slaves later on. --Ed Poor

His original motive for going to the New World was to find a route to Asia, so that he and others could trade with the people there, primarily for spices but also slaves, gold and other commodities. His later trips to the New World were for the purpose of acquiring slaves and gold, and not so that he could hoard them both--so that he could keep some, sell the rest and become rich. Tokerboy 19:36 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Okay, find a source to back up that view, and make sure it gets into the article.

The article already says the above. It says that after his first voyage, he told the queen that the Taino could be "subjugated" with fifty men. He then made preparations to do so. The article then says that he returned three times, acquired gold and slaves and profited off those commodities. As far as sources, as I noted above with checking the first forty hits on Google, nobody, even pro-Columbus sites, doubt that he enslaved Indians and attempted to profit off slaves. They disagree about how much money he made from that, and how much of an effort he tried--but I was not even able to find a single site that mentions the existence of a controversy over the above.Tokerboy 19:49 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

Ed, I agree that "original intentions" are hard to know -- but given his log entry on Oct. 14, I'd say the "intentions" developed pretty quickly. Personally, I think they were there, although in an unarticulartated fashion. The entry from the day before, I think Oct 13 (I looked at the same web-source as you) has this gem:

I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent.

Unfortunately, the web version cut an important phrase that immediately follos "from the continent," namely, "to take them for slaves." There is a fascinating contradiction here -- he interprets them as having said that other indians came from another Island to take prisoners. But immediately after, he tells us that he doe not quite believe them. Without any evidence at all, he changes their story from "people from other islands" to "people from the continent," and he changes "to make prisoners" to "to take them for slaves." Why does he make this change without evidence? What could possibly have motivated him? I guess we will never really know, but it is an obvious question and I do think that his log entry from the next day provides a clue: Columbus came from "the continent" (not Asia, but Europe), and Columbus wanted to take them as slaves. His re-interpretation of what the Indians told him simply has others doing in the past what he intends to do in the future. Why would he do this? Again, who knows for sure -- but I do know that one way people excuse oppression is by saying that what they are doing is nothing new; some people have defended the taking of African slaves by Europeans by pointing out that long before the transatlantic slave trade, Africans were already taking Africans as slaves. I know you and most other wikipedians would dismiss this logic as ludicrous -- I do not bring it up as a valid explanation of slavery, but rather as an example of one way that slavers rationalize their behavior. Maybe Columbus was doing the same thing here? As Tokerboy correctly points out, Columbus's original explicit intentions were to open up a new trade route. But this does not mean that Columbus and his supporters did not have other fantasies of what might come from this exploration. Such fantasies are seldom articulated explicitly, but careful reading sometimes give us good hints. Slrubenstein

Columbus cannot be guilty of anything under the UN Genocide convention simply because it did not exist then. We don't even need to mention the convention in an article on Columbus -- we can just say "his actions would constitute genocide under current international law." Reader can refer to the genocide article if they want to know the content and sources of that law (i.e. the UN Genocide convention). But I'm afraid to say under international law as it existed then, his actions may well have been perfectly legal...

not necessarily. The prisoners on trial at Nuremburg made exactly the same points in their defense, and these points were rejected. I am not saying that Columbus would have no defense at all, I am saying that the scope of international law is not as clear-cut as other laws. In any event, you miss the point of the paragraph, which is to say that there are plenty of people who blame Columbus for things he did, and not for things he did not do.

It can be said there was no way the native peoples could have resisted the Europeans - the Europeans had a decisive advantage because of their diseases. Due to their late settlement of the continents and lack of domesticated animals, the native Americans lacked any immunity to most Old World diseases, which meant a catastrophic population collapse (definitely higher than 50%, and perhaps more than 90%) in the first generations following contact. Deaths on a similar scale will necessarily follow *any* extensive contact between the hemispheres.

I find this a load of hooey,

why? explain

not that it's relevant to the article, necessarily. Las Casas managed to empathize with the natives. Certainly we can expect the same of Columbus.

unclear -- what do you mean? We can expect Columbus to empathize with the natives? But he did not. What is the point?

It wasn't impossible. This is like saying we should excuse Tomas de Torquemada because his attitudes were "common at the time" - same for Nazis in Germany.

Ah, you seem to think that this point "excuses" Columbus. I agree that it does not, but I do not think the paragraph is quite making that point. Slrubenstein

Don't forget that his name wasn't Columbus... Lir 12:58 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.

But all the same they never did change his name to Robert... Lir

I'm glad you haven't started working on all the pages that mention Jesus, you would have quite a lot of editing to do.Slrubenstein

Yes, im trying to start with the less controversial topics. Lir 18:00 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)

--- Paul Melville Austin

<tangent>Hey, everybody, that reminds me: I saw Shakespeare In Love this weekend on DVD. It was excellent!</tangent> --Ed Poor

Someone made what was identified as a "minor edit" that turned out to be a substantial deletion of material. I reverted to the previous version. Feel free to make minor edits without explanation. Feel free to add significant material, too. Also feel free to edit the article, or even make cuts, if it leads to a more accurate and NPOV article -- but if you change what someone else put in, or cut it, please provide an explanation. And please be selective in your cuts, when so many others have worked on this. Slrubenstein

I deleted this quote:

Columbus wrote in his diary, "As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts."

I have no objection at ll to including it in the article (although it seems redundant); BUT the date of the journal entry should be provided, and the quote belongs in the body of the text, in its proper context -- not in the introduction. Slrubenstein

Well, the debate over whether Columbus was a bad guy is now going on over in Arawak so I added it here just in case somebody tried to "purify" the opening paragraph that they would see, 'oh look he wrote a diary!' but no, it doesnt belong in the first paragraph

I agree that we need to keep an eye on this article -- but I do think as it stands it does a pretty good job of representing the issues. Slrubenstein

So, regarding that bit in the opening paragraph that AxelBoldt just changed... is that even true? Did Columbus earn profits from any of his activities, or did it all go straight to his creditors (i.e., the Spanish Crown)? I think the latter is more likely, unless someone can provide a good link to the contrary... I'm making appropriate edits. Graft

Obviously, you don't know whether the money went to repay the creditors. Why then do you edit the article as if that were fact? Reverting. AxelBoldt 02:53 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Sorry, should have made my statement stronger - in fact I DO know that the money went to repay his creditors, because this is what he says in his diary - the slaves and gold he sends back are for the Crown, not for himself. So, I know that he definitely sent slaves and gold back to repay his creditors. I do not know whether he also, later, reaped his own profits. Graft

My understanding is Columbus earned profits. If he didn't Im curious why because he was promised a fortune. The Crown itself offered him a fortune. Lir 04:37 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Where in his diary? He was supposed to be receiving a percentage Lir 18:41 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Okay, here is a letter to F&I where CC discusses the disposition of gold. It doesn't state things directly, but from it you can learn that only a portion would go to F&I, so some of it would presumably fall into the control of Columbus. Also this letter to a Spanish lord is worth reading, gives some sense of the way Columbus thinks, as does his diary. Anyway, I am not sure whether the presentation of him as rapaciously acquiring gold is justified (although I will retract my previous bit about him primarily wanting to pay back creditors given the letter to Ferdinand and Isabella) ... I think his motivations were more of a religious and imperialist nature. Graft

He did indeed profit from some of the gold: on p. 178 of [3], "He was enjoying unwonted material prosperity because of the remittances in gold which reached him from Hispaniola". This is after the last trip. AxelBoldt 02:09 Nov 18, 2002 (UTC)

A clarification of the economics: On his first voyage, Columbus set out hoping to return with his ships loaded with gold and spices, because that was the most profitable thing you could fill ships with at the time. Some spices could be worth their weight in gold in Europe. Slaves were taken as a reluctant 3rd choice. Gold & spices get more money per pound, you don't have to worry about feeding your gold & spices, a third to half of it doesn't tend to die and become useless on the voyage back. Columbus's initial goal was gold and spices, not because Columbus had anything against the institution of slavery (clearly he didn't), but because he hoped to get even richer than he could with the slave trade. -- Infrogmation

Columbus also believed the journey to India was only a few days, if so, that would have made a superb slave-trading route.Lir 20:09 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Where did you get this information? AxelBoldt 22:53 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)

Re: the last addition, CC was made Admiral of the High Seas and governor of all lands he discovered BEFORE he began his journey, as he records in his diary while en route there for the first time... quoted:

So after having expelled the Jews from your dominions, your Highnesses, in the same month of January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament to the said regions of India, and for that purpose granted me great favors, and ennobled me that thenceforth I might call myself Don, and be High Admiral of the Sea, and perpetual Viceroy and Governor in all the islands and continents which I might discover and acquire, or which may hereafter he discovered and acquired in the ocean; and that this dignity should be inherited by my eldest son, and thus descend from degree to degree forever.

Moving the info to the appropriate place... Graft

Thanks for catching that one. AxelBoldt 02:09 Nov 18, 2002 (UTC)