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Examining the Reputation of
Christopher Columbus
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 [editor's note: the old assumption that the
Taino became extinct is now open to serious question] - 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.
Reprinted by Clergy and
Laity Concerned (CALC) / Westchester. To get involved in Rediscovering the
History of the Americas, or for more information, resources, or action
ideas, WESPAC, 255 Grove Street, White Plains, NY 10601. (914)682-0488.
Peacenet:cscheiner. This article is available as a one-page printed leaflet.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for
research and educational purposes.
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