Well, it’s Columbus Day. Not being in school anymore, the day is pointless. Anyway, today we celebrate the man who discovered America and proved the world was round by circumnavigating it. At least that is what you were told up to the seventh grade.
There are some myths that I would like to set straight, something that countless others have done before me but still don’t get much traction with the public.
They needed to find an alternative path because the evil MUSLIM Ottoman Turks blocked trade with China and the East.
Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the old Eastern Roman Empire. It was the gateway to the East. After years of attempts, the Ottoman Turks finally captured the port city in 1453 and renamed it Istanbul. As explained here.
However, they didn’t close access to the East, they just made it more expensive. Closing it would be stupid because that was a major trade route. It would be like China conquering Panama and closing the canal. The Ottomans grew very wealthy from the trade. Europeans wanted to find a way out of paying slightly higher prices so they wanted to find a new way to get to China and cut out the middle man. Enter Columbus, he proposed sailing west across the Atlantic, as opposed to sailing around Africa. He had trouble convincing Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand II of the recently united Spain because…
Everyone knew that the world was flat and that he would sail off the edge.
No they didn’t. Everyone knew the world was round since Aristotle in the Fourth Century BCE. In fact, I think MORE people believe the earth is flat today than back then. Columbus’ problem was that he grossly measured the earth wrong, thinking it was smaller than it was. The circumference of the earth was already calculated 1600 years earlier by a Greek (naturally) man who PUT A STICK IN THE GROUND AND MEASURED THE SHADOW. Columbus only got the financing from Spain, after Portugal screwed him over, because they had just kicked the Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula and had united the crowns of Aragorn and Castile. They wanted to show off to their neighbors.
"Moops!" "Moors!" "Moops!" "Moors!"
We have this "Flat Earth" belief thanks to Washington Irving and his "biography" on Columbus. It makes me wonder why New England writers in the 19th Century loved to screw with history so much.
Columbus discovered America.
This has a mixture of truth to it. Yes, technically the Americas were already inhabited by millions of people, so it was already known about. However, Europeans were largely unaware of the America’s. If we discovered life on another planet, would it be any less of an accomplishment? He wasn’t the first European to reach the Americas, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
Columbus never discovered any of the mainland of the United States of America in any of his four voyages. However, he did discover Venezuela in his third voyage and Honduras in his fourth voyage. So he did see mainland America.
So who was the first to discover land now belonging to the good ol’ USA? Well, theories abound point to Romans, Egyptians, China, and Leif Ericson and the Vikings. Of course you have John Cabot and Giovanni da Verrazzano and Jacques Cartier who are in the running for 16th Century Europeans who discovered America (USA). It’s complicated and messy and incomplete. If you want to get technical, the people who would later become “Native Americans” were the first to discover America (both the continents and USA).
Columbus was the first to circumnavigate the globe.
No he didn’t. 18 survivors of Magellan’s crew did in 1522.
Because the previously mentioned statements are untrue, Columbus did squat and shouldn’t be remembered for doing anything important.
Now we enter the liberal revisionism side of the debate. Although I did mention other people or groups of people first discovering the Americas before Columbus, what was their impact? Although Leif Erickson had explored and settled Newfoundland, it didn’t lead to anything. It became a myth. A Chinese monk who visited America? It became a myth. Romans and Egyptians? Barely any written records.
Columbus? World completely changed. Without his voyages, it wouldn’t have set up subsequent explorations, which wouldn’t have led to colonization and the rise of European empires. No grand Spanish Empire and the inflation caused by all that gold. No funding from colonies to create armies and wars on the European continent. Protestant Reformation may not have had as big as an impact. No competition from England that led to the Thirteen colonies that became the USA. So many plants and animals crossing the Atlantic. The list goes on. So much of what we have today is the result of Columbus and his expeditions. That is why he should get so much more attention than a Chinese Junk in a river.
This holiday is racist and nothing more than a celebration of slaughter.
Yes, a lot of bad things happened too. Columbus was a dick and should be taken down from his hero perch, but still remembered for doing something. I’m a little sick of people poo-pooing this holiday. This was a clash of cultures, a history of migration. The “natives” were migrants too. Then the Europeans were migrants and wanted the same land. This has happened so many times before. There have been so many genocides in history before and since. Why the Hell is the treatment of Native Americans by Europeans considered so God damn bad in comparison? Have you people forgotten about the Mongols? Stalin? Hitler? (Yeah Yeah Yeah, I know Hitler got the idea for concentration camps from our “Reservation” system). Also, the Natives weren’t always peaceful too. The Haudenosaunee, aka Iroquois, weren’t all that nice. At least most of the deaths caused by Europeans were unintentional. We didn’t mean to give them diseases (for the most part). No one understood disease and immune systems like we do today, so what happened was no one’s fault.
“But our trading of metal goods to the natives destroyed their arts and culture and made them more dependent on Europeans!” Boo Hoo! Machines took away the need for skilled Europeans to make guns and pots. No one cries for their job loss and lost skills! Should we all be Luddites? There is more I could talk about but that’s not the point right now.
I hate to treat the suffering of the Natives, oh sorry, that’s not PC anymore. Whoever they are, I’m sorry it happened, but I can’t change that. We shouldn’t impose today’s beliefs on the people of the past. The Europeans of the past were racist, religious zealots who saw anyone not like themselves as the enemy.
Obligatory "Tea Party" reference.
I believe the best way to overcome past injustices is to learn from those mistakes and not let it happen again. We have recognized Natives as citizens and have given many tribes land for them to control as they wish. Mostly to open casinos, but that is another can of worms…
This isn’t a celebration of mass murder. It is the celebration of one man’s accomplishments. It may have led to some bad things, but it did lead to some good too. So calm down, enjoy the day off and take advantage of those deals that you won’t see again for another month.
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