Examining the reputation of Christopher Columbus

A few words about
Christopher Columbus

The reputation of Christopher Columbus has been heading down. Whether he deserves membership in the Genocide Hall of Fame or not is a topic open for debate. There's also no way of telling whether or not historians 500 years from now will be kind to some current prominent figures in today's society.

Here are 2 pieces of writing found on the internet that may alter your view of the person that history most often is given credit for discovering America.

By Jack Weatherford

Christopher Columbus' reputation has not survived the scrutiny of history, and today we know that he was no more the discoverer of America than Pocahontas was the discoverer of Great Britain. Native Americans had built great civilizations with many millions of people long before Columbus wandered lost into the Caribbean.

Columbus' voyage has even less meaning for North Americans than for South Americans because Columbus never set foot on our continent, nor did he open it to European trade. Scandinavian Vikings already had settlements here in the eleventh century, and British fisherman probably fished the shores of Canada for decades before Columbus.

The first European explorer to thoroughly document his visit to North America was the Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto, who sailed for England's King Henry VII and became known by his anglicized name, John Cabot. Caboto arrived in 1497 and claimed North America for the English sovereign while Columbus was still searching for India in the Caribbean. After three voyages to America and more than a decade of study, Columbus still believed that Cuba was a part of the continent of Asia, South America was only an island, and the coast of Central America was close to the Ganges River.

Unable to celebrate Columbus' exploration as a great discovery, some apologists now want to commemorate it as the great "cultural encounter." Under this interpretation, Columbus becomes a sensitive genius thinking beyond his time in the passionate pursuit of knowledge and understanding. The historical record refutes this, too.

Contrary to popular legend, Columbus did not prove that the world was round; educated people had known that for centuries. The Egyptian-Greek scientist Erastosthenes, working for Alexandria and Aswan, already had measured the circumference and diameter of the world in the third century B.C. Arab scientists had developed a whole discipline of geography and measurement, and in the tenth century A.D., Al Maqdisi described the earth with 360 degrees of longitude and 180 degrees of latitude. The Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai still has an icon -- painted 500 years before Columbus -- which shows Jesus ruling over a spherical earth.

Nevertheless, Americans have embroidered many such legends around Columbus, and he has become part of a secular mythology for schoolchildren. Autumn would hardly be complete in any elementary school without construction-paper replicas of the three cute ships that Columbus sailed to America, or without drawings of Queen Isabella pawning her jewels to finance Columbus' trip.

This myth of the pawned jewels obscures the true and more sinister story of how Columbus financed his trip. The Spanish monarch invested in his excursion, but only on the condition that Columbus would repay this investment with profit by bringing back gold, spices, and other tribute from Asia. This pressing need to repay his debt underlies the frantic tone of Columbus' diaries as he raced from one Caribbean island to the next, stealing anything of value.

After he failed to contact the emperor of China, the traders of India or the merchants of Japan, Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in the one important commodity he had found in ample supply -- human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would fit and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets of Seville and sold as slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their parents, husbands from wives. On board Columbus' slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the Indian bodies into the Atlantic.

Because Columbus captured more Indian slaves than he could transport to Spain in his small ships, he put them to work in mines and plantations which he, his family and followers created throughout the Caribbean. His marauding band hunted Indians for sport and profit -- beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies as food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of Columbus' arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one-third of the original Indian population of 300,000. Within another 50 years, the Taino people had been made extinct -- the first casualties of the holocaust of American Indians. The plantation owners then turned to the American mainland and to Africa for new slaves to follow the tragic path of the Taino.

This was the great cultural encounter initiated by Christopher Columbus. This is the event we celebrate each year on Columbus Day. The United States honors only two men with federal holidays bearing their names. In January we commemorate the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., who struggled to lift the blinders of racial prejudice and to cut the remaining bonds of slavery in America. In October, we honor Christopher Columbus, who opened the Atlantic slave trade and launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history.

Jack Weatherford is an anthropologist at Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minn. His most recent book is "Indian Givers." He wrote this article for the Baltimore Evening Sun.

and in case you needed more ...

From: kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!marc (Marc Becker)

Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1991 21:45 CDT

From: NativeNet@gnosys.svle.ma.us

Newsgroups: native.1492

Reply-To: nn.1492@gnosys.svle.ma.us

Subject: Re: columbusday protest

Original-Sender: kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!marc (Marc Becker)

If you look at the historical record, you will see that Columbus himself was responsible for the murder of many people. The grade school image of Columbus as a hero is not simply naive; it is wrong. Columbus did not have a character worthy of acclaim. He was of humble birth, had little education, only held small jobs, factors which in and of themselves are not negative. Columbus did travel and read, but most of his information had more to do with tall tales than scientific fact. He was wrong about some very basic things--such as the size of the earth. But more important was his authoritative nature and his unwillingness to consider the interests of others. He was greedy, and took the reward for discovering land in the Caribbean for himself (although it rightfully belonged to a crew member). He was egotistical and over dramatized his achievements (seasoned sailors were used to traveling away from land). He was a bad administrator and experience taught him nothing.

In the Caribbean the Arawaks greeted him, but Columbus responded by demanding gold and enslaved them. He kidnapped 10 to take to Spain; one died soon after getting there. On his second trip he promised the Spanish crown slaves & gold. He demanded gold of the Arawaks, and when he couldn't find it, he resorted to capturing slaves for both sex & labor. The people fled from the Spanish, and Columbus found empty villages. The exploration turned into a military campaign with 200 soldiers and specially trained people-eating dogs which decimated the population. Columbus captured 1500 men, women, and children. He sent 500 to Spain & 200 died on the voyage. Columbus is DIRECTLY responsible for the deaths of thousands of Arawaks in Haiti. He forced them into gold mines for 6-8 months and 1/3 died, exhausted, depressed, ceased to procreate, killed their infants. Columbus also killed them thru murder, mutilation, suicide, overwork, abuse, and diseases.

The following history is one of depopulation: a heavy toll from wars of resistance, hard labor, and malnutrition. In 1492 there were 3 million people on Hispaniola. Two years later the population was cut in half. In 1515 it was down to 50,000, in 1550 it was 500 and by 1650 there weren't any left. Furthermore, Columbus' actions launched an era of modern colonialism, rape, pillage, genocide, cultural destruction, slavery, economic & environmental devastation.

To celebrate Columbus is, as one Guatemalan has noted, the same as having Jews celebrate Hitler and the holocaust. Columbus is much more than a representation of evil; he is the very embodiment of that evil.

Tell me what you think of this page - prestwidgew@earthlink.net | Go to top of site. | Go to Prestwidges of Jamaica