In school I learned that Columbus was the first European to discover the New World. I learned he was a brilliant explorer and that he “sailed the ocean blue in 1492.”
When older I learned that Columbus was a mass murdering idiot that wasn’t even the first European to land in the New World.
Now, given the benefit of older age– I know neither of these are quite true. If you believe the first one– congratulations on graduating first grade. If you believe the second– congratulations on getting your information from Youtube videos.
Christopher Columbus, born Christopho Columbo, was not brilliant or foolish. He wasn’t close to the first person to think the Earth was round nor did he think it wasn’t. His ‘new trade route’ wasn’t genius, it was already being talked about. But he also didn’t foolishly underestimate the length of the voyage. The information of the time led most to believe the Atlantic ocean was smaller than it is. He didn’t believe he landed in India, but he did think he landed somewhere off the coast of Japan. He was no genius and no fool. Columbus was not uniquely evil. The conquest of the ‘West Indies’ was cruel and wrong but no more than most conquests of that time from the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. He should be hated for his evil, but not uniquely. Columbus was not the first European to land in the Americas. Leif Erikson was. But Leif Erikson didn’t connect the two hemispheres and the Vikings all but forgot about the existence of the Americas. So Columbus is important.
Reading these texts has not really changed my view. I passionately believe people give Colombus too much credit. Every mistake and every great success was not Columbus’. Columbus must be remembered as one of many who happened to be one of the first to land in the Americas.
‘Discovery’ was inevitably going to be terrible. That doesn’t excuse it, or Columbus, who made it worse– but when a more militaristic society (Europe) visits a less militaristic society (the Americas), often the more militaristic one exploits and mistreats the other. In addition, while the Virgin Soil Theory is fairly oversimplified and whitewashed of the terrors of colonialism, disease often spreads when groups unfamiliar with each other meet. But, this should not vindicate the colonizers. The colonizers intentionally subjugated the colonized. One of the worst parts is the fundamental destruction of indigenous culture.
In Rebecca Earle’s article about food and colonialism, she explains that the creation of a new diet and structure of eating hurt not only the immersion of the Indigenous people with their culture, but also their equal relationships with nature, eachother, and Europeans, and hurt their health. Something innocuous, seemingly, had a massive negative impact on the people of the Americas. We cannot understate the terror of colonial slavery, of unjust laws and treaties, of war-making, and disease spreading– but we must understand the fundamental and subtle aspect of colonialism too.
Hi Adin!
I think your post touches on a very important point that we have to remember about Columbus, which is that he was part of a much longer system of colonization and should not be heralded as unique. There has been such a mythology built around this idea of “discovery” that Columbus becomes an isolated figure, and while it is important to look at people individually, we must also analyze them in their contexts (which in turn can be useful to understanding the violence and conflict of Spanish conquest).