Please start using the new list address for all contributions on the
subject of Columbus or the Quincentenary - any postings on that subject
sent to the main NativeNet list (nn.general / gen.nativenet) will be
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of using the new addresses (this whole process reminds me of an area-
code change, as recently happened in the Boston area, and is now going
on in the Bay Area of California, my original home).
Anyway, without further ado, here is the first article on the new list,
which all present NativeNet subscribers will remain subscribed to until
midnight (GMT) on 14 October.
Again - please send all future articles on the subject of Columbus and/
or the Quincentenary to:
nn.1492@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Thanks.
--Gary ]
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
-- 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.