There
is speculation that an obscure mariner travelled to the Americas
before Columbus and provided him with sources for his claims. There
are also many theories of expeditions to the Americas from a menagerie
of peoples throughout time; see Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.
Giovanni Caboto was the first modern european to land on the American
mainland and is best known as John Cabot for his explorations made
under the English flag. Most notably, in 1497, he set sail from
Bristol on his ship called the 'Matthew' looking for a sea route
to Asia. He ended up in North America, he and his men being the
first Europeans since the Vikings verifiably known to have done
so. It is thought that he used recollected information from British
Sailors who were familiar with the Newfoundland fishing grounds
to mount his expedition.
Columbus landed in the Bahamas and later explored much of the Caribbean,
including the isles of Cuba and Hispaniola, as well as the coasts
of Central and South America. He never reached the present-day United
States, although he is generally regarded by Americans as the first
European to reach "America."
Unlike the voyage of the Vikings, Columbus's voyages led to a relatively
quick, general and lasting recognition of the existence of the New
World by the Old World, the Columbian Exchange of species (both
those harmful to humans, such as viruses, bacteria, and parasites,
and beneficial to humans, such as tomatoes, potatoes, corn, and
horses) and the first large-scale colonization of the Americas by
Europeans. The voyages also inaugurated ongoing commerce between
the Old and New Worlds, thus providing the basis for globalization.
Columbus remains a controversial figure. Some – including many Native
Americans – view him as responsible, directly and indirectly, for
the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of indigenous peoples,
exploitation of the Americas by Europe, and slavery in the West
Indies. Others honour him for the massive boost his discoveries
gave to Western expansion and culture. Italian Americans hail Columbus
as an icon of their heritage.
It has generally been accepted that he was Genoese, although doubts
have persistently been voiced regarding this. His name in Spanish
is Cristóbal Colón, in Portuguese Cristóvão
Colombo and in Italian Cristoforo Colombo. Columbus is a Latinate
form of his surname. The Latin roots of his name can be translated
"Christ-bearer, Colonizer." Columbus signature reads Xpo
ferens ("Bearing Christ")
Columbus claimed governorship of the new territories (by prior agreement
with the Spanish monarchs) and made several more journeys across
the Atlantic. While regarded by some as an excellent navigator,
he was seen by many contemporaries as a poor administrator and was
stripped of his governorship in 1500.
Early life
There
are various versions of Columbus's origins and life before 1476.
(See Columbus's National Origin.) The account that has traditionally
been supported by most historians is as follows:
Columbus was born between August 26 and October 31 in the year 1451,
in the Italian port city of Genoa. His father was Domenico Colombo,
a woollens merchant, and his mother was Suzanna Fontanarossa, the
daughter of a woollens merchant. Christopher had three younger brothers,
Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo, and a sister, Bianchinetta.
In 1470, the family moved to Savano, where Christopher worked for
his father in wool processing. During this period he studied cartography
with his brother Bartolomeo. Christopher received almost no formal
education; a voracious reader, he was largely self-taught.
In 1474, Columbus joined a ship of the Spenola Financiers, who were
Genoese patrons of his father. He spent a year on a ship bound towards
Khios (an island in the Aegean Sea) and, after a brief visit home,
spent a year in Khios. It's believed that's where he recruited some
of his sailors from.
A 1476, commercial expedition gave Columbus his first opportunity
to sail into the Atlantic Ocean. The fleet came under attack by
French privateers off the Cape of St. Vincent. Columbus's ship was
burned and he swam six miles to shore.
By 1477, Columbus was living in Lisbon. Portugal had become a center
for maritime activity with ships sailing for England, Ireland, Iceland,
Madeira, the Azores, and Africa. Columbus's brother Bartolomeo worked
as a mapmaker in Lisbon. At times, the brothers worked together
as draftsmen and book collectors.
He became a merchant sailor with the Portuguese fleet, and sailed
to Iceland via Ireland in 1477, to Madeira in 1478 to purchase sugar,
and along the coasts of West Africa between 1482 and [1485], reaching
the Portuguese trade post São Jorge da Mina at the Guinea
coast.
Columbus married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, a daughter from a noble
Portuguese family of Italian ancestry, in 1479. Felipa's father
had partaken in the discovery of the Madeira Islands and owned one
of them, but died when Felipa was a baby, leaving his second wife
a wealthy widow. As part of his dowry, the mariner received all
of Perestello's charts of the winds and currents of the Portuguese
possessions of the Atlantic. Columbus and Felipa had a son, Diego
Colón in 1480. Felipa died in January of 1485. Columbus later
found a lifelong partner in Spain, an orphan named Beatriz Enriquez.
She was living with a cousin in the weaving industry of Córdoba.
They never married, but Columbus left Beatriz a rich woman and directed
Diego to treat her as his own mother. The two had a son, Ferdinand
in 1488. Both boys served as pages to Prince Juan, son of Ferdinand
and Isabella, and each later contributed, with fabulous success,
to the rehabilitation of their father's reputation.
The
Idea
Christian Europe, long allowed safe passage to India and China (sources
of valued trade goods such as silk and spices) under the hegemony
of the Mongol Empire (Pax Mongolica, or "Mongol peace"),
was now, after the fragmentation of that empire, under a complete
economic blockade by Muslim states. In response to Muslim hegemony
on land, Portugal sought an eastward sea route to the Indies, and
promoted the establishment of trading posts and later colonies along
the coast of Africa. Columbus had another idea. By the 1480s, he
had developed a plan to travel to the Indies (then roughly meaning
all of south and east Asia) by sailing west across the Ocean Sea
(the Atlantic Ocean) instead.
It is sometimes claimed that the reason Columbus had a hard time
receiving support for this plan was that Europeans believed that
the Earth was flat. This myth can be traced to Washington Irving's
novel The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828).
The fact that the Earth is round was evident to most people of Columbus's
time, especially other sailors and navigators (Eratosthenes (276-194
BC) had in fact accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth).
The problem was that the experts did not agree with his estimates
of the distance to the Indies. Most scholars accepted Ptolemy's
claim that the terrestrial landmass (for Europeans of the time,
Eurasia and Africa) occupied 180 degrees of the terrestrial sphere,
leaving 180 degrees of water. In fact, it occupies about 120 degrees,
leaving 240 degrees unaccounted for at that time.
Columbus accepted the calculations of Pierre d'Ailly, that the land-mass
occupied 225 degrees, leaving only 135 degrees of water. Moreover,
Columbus believed that one degree actually covered less space on
the earth's surface than commonly believed. Finally, Columbus read
maps as if the distances were calculated in Roman miles (1524 meters
or 5,000 feet) rather than nautical miles (1853.99 meters or 6,082.66
feet at the equator). The true circumference of the earth is about
40,000km (24,900 statute miles of 5,280 feet each), whereas the
circumference of Columbus's earth was the equivalent of at most
19,000 modern statue miles (or 30,600km). Columbus calculated that
the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan was 2,400 nautical
miles (about 4,444km).
In fact, the distance is about 10,600 nautical miles (19,600km),
and most European sailors and navigators concluded that the Indies
were too far away to make his plan worth considering. They were
right and Columbus was wrong – but, ultimately, like so many successful
individuals, extraordinarily fortunate.
Columbus lobbies for funding
Columbus
first presented his plan to the court of Portugal in 1485. The king's
experts believed that the route would be longer than Columbus thought
(the actual distance is even longer than the Portuguese believed),
and denied Columbus's request. It is probable that he made the same
outrageous demands for himself in Portugal that he later made in
Spain, where he went next. He tried to get backing from the monarchs
of Aragon and Castile, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile,
who, by marrying, had united the largest kingdoms of Spain and were
ruling them together.
After seven years of lobbying at the Spanish court, where he was
kept on a salary to prevent him from taking his ideas elsewhere,
he was finally successful in 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just
conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian peninsula,
and they received Columbus in Córdoba (in the monarchs' Alcázar
or castle). Isabella finally turned Columbus down on the advice
of her "think tank" and he was leaving town in despair
when Ferdinand lost his patience. Isabella sent a royal guard to
fetch him and Ferdinand later rightfully claimed credit for being
"the principal cause why those islands were discovered."
About half of the financing was to come from private Italian investors,
which Columbus had already lined up. Financially broke from the
Granada campaign, the monarchs left it to the royal treasurer to
shift funds among various royal accounts on behalf of the enterprise.
Columbus was to be made Admiral of the Ocean Sea and granted an
inheritable governorship to the new territories he would discover,
as well as a portion of all profits. The terms were absurd, but
his own son later wrote that the monarchs really didn't expect him
to return.
Voyages
First Voyage
That year, on the evening of August 3, Columbus left from Palos
with three ships, the Santa Maria, Niña and Pinta. The ships
were property of the Pinzón brothers (Martin and Vicente
Yáñez) and Juan de la Cosa, but the monarchs forced
the Palos inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. He first
sailed to the Canary Islands, fortunately owned by Castile, where
he reprovisioned and made repairs, and on September 6 started the
five week voyage across the ocean.
One of the enduring legends is that of a faked logbook to make his
crew believe they had covered a smaller distance than they actually
had. All we have is Bartolome de Las Casas's abstract, and he was
not a mariner. Nor was it ever easy to read Columbus's nonnative
Spanish with its Portuguese phonetics and Genoese locutions. Until
the original diary is found we'll never be sure, but he could never
have fooled all the sailors, the pilots, masters, nor least of all
the experienced captains at the helms of the Niña and Pinta,
the Pinzón brothers. Most likely he calculated the distance
as he'd been taught as a youth, and then converted it into numbers
the crew would understand.
Another legend is that the crew grew so homesick and fearful that
they threatened to hurl Columbus overboard and sail back to Spain.
Although the actual situation is unclear, most likely the sailors'
resentments merely amounted to complaints or suggestions.
After 65 days out of sight of land, on Martin Alonzo Pinzón's
suggestions, on 7 October 1492 as recorded in the ship's log, the
crew spotted shore birds flying west and changed direction to make
their landfall. A comparison of dates and migratory patterns leads
to the conclusion that the birds were Eskimo curlews and American
golden plovers.
Columbus called the island he reached San Salvador, and recorded
the native name of the island as Guanahani. There is still much
discussion about which island he reached. Until 1986, many historians
believed that it was likely San Salvador Island (called Watling
Island before 1925) in the Bahamas. Now most historians tend to
believe that the landfall was Samana Cay. Columbus's landing occurred
on October 12, 1492.
The Native Americans he encountered, the Taíno or Arawak,
were peaceful and friendly. In his log for October 14, 1492, Columbus
drafted a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella concerning the Taíno:
Vuestras Altezas cuando mandaren puedenlos todos llevar a Castilla
o tenellos en la misma isla captivos, porque con cincuenta hombres
los ternan todos sojuzgados, les haran hazar todo lo que quisieren.
("When your highnesses should so command, all of them can be
brought to Castile, or be kept captive on their own island, for
with fifty men you will keep them all in subjugation and make them
do anything you wish.")
He wrote with such awe of the friendly innocence and beauty of these
Indians in their tropical paradise that he inadvertently created
the enduring myth of the Noble Savage. "These people have no
religious beliefs, nor are they idolaters. They are very gentle
and do not know what evil is; nor do they kill others, nor steal;
and they are without weapons." No blood was shed on this first
voyage; he believed conversion to Christianity would be achieved
through love, not force.
On this first voyage, Columbus also explored the northeast coast
of Cuba (landed on October 28) and the northern coast of Hispaniola.
He'd heard the word "Kulkukan" (Feathered Serpent), and
rejoiced that the land of "Kublai Khan" or the "Great
Khan" was nigh. He believed the peaks of Cuba to be the Himalayas,
which gives one a sense of just how lost he was and how long it
took the peoples of the world to map the Earth. (The vast interior
of the North and South American mainlands would of course be largely
mapped with the leadership of native guides and interpreters.) Here
the Santa Maria ran aground and had to be abandoned. He was received
by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave
some of his men behind. Columbus founded the settlement La Navidad
and left 39 men.
On January 4, 1493 he set sail for home, not yet understanding the
elliptical nature of the trade winds that had brought him west.
He wrestled his ship against the wind and ran into one of the worst
storms of the century. He had no choice but to land his ship in
Portugal, where he was told a fleet of 100 caravels had been lost.
(Astoundingly, both the Niña and the Pinta were spared.)
Some have speculated that landing in Portugal was intentional.
The relations between Portugal and Castile were poor at the time,
and he was held up, but finally released. Word of his discovery
of new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe. He didn't reach Spain
until March 15, when the story of his journey was in its third printing.
He was received as a hero in Spain, and this was his moment in the
sun. He displayed several kidnapped natives and what gold he'd found
to the court. Isabella immediately had the Indians clothed in warm
velvets; her tenderness for her new subjects would be a thorn in
conquistadors' plans for years. Columbus also displayed the previously
unknown tobacco plant, the pineapple fruit, the turkey and the sailor's
first love, the hammock. Naturally, he did not bring any of the
coveted Indian spices, such as the exceedingly expensive black pepper,
ginger or cloves. In his log he wrote "there is also plenty
of ají, which is their pepper, which is more valuable than
[black] pepper, and all the people eat nothing else, it being very
wholesome" (Turner, 2004, P11). The word ají is still
used in South American spanish for chile peppers.
Europeans had not yet accidentally set off the epidemics that would
kill as many as 85,000,000 Native Americans in fifty years. And
no one realized that back in the islands the world's first Latin
Americans were in their mothers' wombs.
Second
voyage
He
left for his second voyage (1493-1496) on September 24, 1493, with
17 ships carrying supplies and about 1200 men to assist in the subjugation
of the Taíno and the colonization of the region.
He laid his course more southerly than on his first voyage, first
sighting Dominica, which is quite rugged, so he turned north, discovering
and naming Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Antigua, and Nevis in the Lesser
Antilles, landing on them and claiming them for Spain as he did
the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. He then went to Hispaniola,
where he found his colonists had fallen into dispute with Indians
in the interior and had been killed. He established a new settlement
at Isabella, on the north coast of Hispaniola where gold had first
been discovered; it was a poor location and the settlement was short-lived.
He spent some time exploring the interior of the island for gold
and did find some, establishing a small fort in the interior. He
explored the south coast of Cuba but did not round the western end,
thus convincing himself that it was a peninsula rather than an island,
and discovered Jamaica.
Before he left on his second voyage he had been directed by Ferdinand
and Isabella to maintain friendly, even loving relations with the
natives. However, during his second voyage he sent a letter to the
monarchs proposing to enslave some of the native peoples, specifically
the Caribs, on the grounds of their aggressiveness. Although his
petition was refused by the Crown, in February, 1495 Columbus took
1600 Arawak as slaves. 550 slaves were shipped back to Spain; two
hundred died en route, probably of disease, and of the remainder
half were ill when they arrived. After legal proceedings, the survivors
were released and ordered to be shipped back home. Some of the 1600
were kept as slaves for Columbus's men, Columbus recorded using
slaves for sex in his journal. The remaining 400, who Columbus had
no use for, were let go and fled into the hills, making, according
to Columbus, prospects for their future capture dim. Rounding up
the slaves resulted in the first major battle between the Spanish
and the Indians in the new world.
The main objective of Columbus's journey had been gold. To further
this goal, he imposed a system on the natives in Cicao on Haiti,
whereby all those above fourteen years of age had to find a certain
quota of gold, which would be signified by a token placed around
their necks. Those who failed to reach their quota would have their
hands chopped off. Despite such extreme measures, Columbus did not
manage to obtain much gold. One of the primary reasons for this
was the native susceptibility to European diseases.
In his letters to the Spanish king and queen, Columbus would repeatedly
suggest slavery as a way to profit from the new discoveries, but
these suggestions were all rejected: the monarchs preferred to view
the natives as future members of Christendom.
More importantly, Columbus oversaw the establishment of the encomienda
(trusteeship) system, by which Spaniards were granted exclusive
use of Indian labor in return for converting them to Christianity;
this policy amounted to enslavement of the local population. In
some cases, Indians were worked to death; in other cases they died
due to newly introduced diseases and malnutrition. Estimates of
the pre-Columbian population vary enormously; see fuller discussion
at Taíno. Cook and Borah (see references below) estimated
the native population (Taíno) of Hispanola at the time of
Columbus's conquest in 1493 at 8,000,000, probably the highest estimate.
In 1496 Bartolome de las Casas conducted a census after the conquest
and initial imposition of the encomienda system, arriving at an
estimate of only 3,000,000 Taíno. A Spanish census in 1514
records only 22,000 Taíno, and a census in 1542 recorded
only 200. Columbus established his brothers as commanders of the
settlements and left Hispaniola for Europe on March 10, 1496; they
and other Spanish conquerors employed the encomienda system with
similar results elsewhere in the Americas.
Third
voyage and arrest
In
1498, Columbus left for the New World a third time, accompanied
by the young Bartolome de Las Casas, who would later provide partial
transcripts of Columbus's logs. This time he discovered the island
of Trinidad (July 31) and the mainland of South America, including
the Orinoco River, before returning to Hispaniola. Initially, he
described the new lands as belonging to a previously unknown new
continent, but later he retreated to his position that they belonged
to Asia.
Many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were discontent,
having been misled by Columbus about the supposedly bountiful riches
of the new world. Columbus repeatedly had to deal with rebellious
settlers and Indians. He had some of his crew hanged for disobeying
him. A number of returned settlers and friars lobbied against Columbus
at the Spanish court, accusing him of mismanagement. The king and
queen sent the royal administrator Francisco de Bobadilla in 1500,
who upon arrival (August 23) detained Columbus and his brothers
and had them shipped home. Columbus refused to have his shackles
removed on the trip to Spain, during which he wrote a long and pleading
letter to the Spanish monarchs.
Although he regained his freedom, he did not regain his prestige
and lost his governorship. As an added insult, the Portuguese had
won the race to the Indies: Vasco da Gama returned in September
1499 from a trip to India, having sailed east around Africa.
Last
voyage and later life
Nevertheless
he made a fourth voyage, in 1502-1504 (he left Spain on May 9, 1502).
On this voyage, accompanied by his younger son Ferdinand, he explored
the coast of Central America from Belize to Panama. In 1502, off
the coast of what is now Honduras, a trading ship as "long
as a galley" was encountered, filled with cargo. This was the
first recorded encounter by the Spanish with the Native American
civilization of Mesoamerica. Later Columbus was stranded on Jamaica
for a year; he sent two men by canoe to get help from Hispaniola;
in the meantime, he impressed the local population by correctly
predicting an eclipse of the moon. Help finally arrived, and he
returned to Spain in 1504.
While Columbus had always given the conversion of non-believers
as one reason for his explorations, he grew increasingly religious
in his later years. He claimed to hear divine voices, lobbied for
a new crusade to capture Jerusalem, often wore Franciscan habit,
and described his discoveries of the "paradise" as part
of God's plan which would soon result in the Last Judgement and
the end of the world.
In his later years Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give
him 10% of all profits made in the new lands, pursuant to earlier
agreements. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor,
the crown felt not bound by these contracts and his demands were
rejected. His family later sued for part of the profits from trade
with America, but ultimately lost some fifty years later.
On May 20, 1506, Columbus died in Spain, fairly wealthy due to the
gold his men had accumulated in Hispaniola. He was still convinced
that his discoveries were along the East Coast of Asia. Even after
his death, his travels continued: first interred in Valladolid and
then in Seville, the will of his son Diego, who had been governor
of Hispaniola, had the corpse transferred to Santo Domingo in 1542.
In 1795 the French took over, and the corpse was moved to Havana.
After the war of 1898, Cuba became independent and Columbus's remains
were moved back to Spain, to the cathedral of Seville. However,
some claim that he is still buried in the cathedral of Santo Domingo.
Columbus's
National Origin: Subject of Debate
Serious
doubts have been expressed regarding Columbus's national origin.
Although in the popular culture he is generally assumed to be Italian
(Genoese), his actual background is clouded in mystery. Very little
is really known about Columbus before the mid-1470s. It has been
suggested that this might have been because he was hiding something—an
event in his origin or history that he deliberately kept a secret.
The issue of Columbus's 'nationality' became an issue after the
rise of Nationalism; the issue was scarcely raised until the time
of the quadricentenary celebrations in 1892 (see Columbian exposition),
when Columbus's Genoese origins became a point of pride for some
Italian Americans. In New York City, rival statues of Columbus were
underwritten by the Hispanic and the Italian communities, and honourable
positions had to be found for each, at Columbus Circle and in Central
Park.
One hypothesis is that Columbus served under the French caper Guillaume
Casenove Coulon and took his surname, but later tried to hide his
piracy. Some Basque historians have claimed that he was Basque.
Others had said that he was a converso (Spanish Jew converted to
Christianity). In Spain, even converted Jews were much mistrusted;
it was suggested that many conversos were still practicing Judaism
in secret. However, recent disinterment of his son to retrieve his
Y chromosome (which is passed completely unchanged from father to
son) has probably ruled out Jewish ancestry.
Another theory is that he was from the island of Corsica, which
at the time was part of the Genoese empire. Because the often subversive
elements of the island gave its inhabitants a bad reputation, he
would have masked his exact heritage. A few others also claim that
Columbus was actually Catalan (Colom).
Documents were found in Alentejo, a region of Portugal, suggesting
he was born there. Others say that he named the island of Cuba after
the Portuguese town Cuba in Alentejo — the town where he, following
Portuguese historians, had been born under the name of Salvador
Fernandes Zarco (SFZ), son of Fernando, duke of Beja and Isabel
Sciarra and grand-son of Cecília Colonna. The Portuguese
theory says that he used Sciarra and Colom as pseudonyms.
It is also speculated that Columbus may have come from the island
of Khios (or Chios) in Greece. The main point of this theory is
that Columbus never said he was from Genoa but from the Republic
of Genoa. The island of Khios was under the Genoese rule (1346 -
1566 AD), for the period of his life, and therefore it was part
of the Republic of Genoa. There is a village named Pirgi in the
island of Khios where to this day many of its inhabitants carry
the surname "Colombus".
It has even been suggested that the epitaph on his tomb, translated
as "Let me not be confused forever," is a veiled hint
left by Columbus that his identity was other than he publicly stated
during his life. However, the actual phrase, "Non confundar
in aeternam" (in Latin), is perhaps more accurately translated
"Let me never be confounded," and is contained in several
Psalms.
The
language of Columbus
Although
Genoese documents have been found about a weaver named Colombo,
it has also been noted that, in the preserved documents, Columbus
wrote almost exclusively in Castilian, and that he used the language
even when writing personal notes, to his brother, and to the Bank
of Genoa. There is a small handwritten gloss in an Italian edition
of the History of Plinius that he read in his second voyage to America.
However it is full of Spanish interferences.
Ramón Menéndez Pidal studied the language of Columbus
in 1942. Bartolomé de las Casas in his Historia de las Indias
explained that Columbus did not know Castilian well and that he
was not born in Castile. Menéndez Pidal guesses that, Columbus
learnt in Genoa notions of Portugalized Spanish from some traveller
and used a sort of commercial Latin (latín ginobisco for
Spaniards) in his deals. The first testimony of his use of Spanish
is from the 1480s. Menéndez Pidal detects a lot of influence
of Portuguese in his Spanish, mixing for example falar and hablar.
He denies the hypothesis of a Galician origin by remarking that,
where Portuguese and Galician diverged, Columbus used always the
Portuguese form. Menéndez Pidal explains the fact that Columbus
learnt Spanish in Portugal by the use of Castilian in Portugal as
a "adopted language of culture" from 1450. This same Spanish
is used by poets like Fernán Silveira and Joan Manuel. Menéndez
Pidal doubts that Columbus did totally tell apart Portuguese and
Spanish. That is why he did not put effort to learn them properly.
According to historian Charles Merrill, analysis of his handwriting
indicates that it is typical of someone who was a native Catalan,
and Columbus's phonetic mistakes in Castilian are "most likely"
those of a Catalan. Also, that he married a Spanish noblewoman is
presented as evidence that his origin was of nobility rather than
the Italian merchant class, since it was unheard of during his time
for nobility to marry outside their class. This same theory suggests
he was the illegitimate son of a prominent Catalan sea-faring family,
which had served as mercenaries in a sea battle against Castilian
forces. Fighting against Ferdinand and being illegitimate were two
excellent reasons for keeping his origins obscure.
Perceptions of Columbus
Christopher
Columbus has had a cultural significance beyond his actual achievements
and actions as an individual; he also became a symbol, a figure
of legend. The mythology of Columbus has cast him as an archetype
for both good and for evil.
The casting of Columbus as a figure of "good" or of "evil"
often depends on people's perspectives as to whether the arrival
of Europeans to the New World and the introduction of Christianity
or the Roman Catholic faith is seen as positive or negative.
Columbus
as a hero
Traditionally, Columbus is viewed as a man of heroic stature by
the European-descended population of the New World. He has often
been hailed as a man of heroism and bravery, and also of faith:
he sailed westward into mostly unknown waters, and his unique scheme
is often viewed as ingenious. He spread civilization and Christianity
into a primitive world. He "set an example for us all by showing
what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and
faith" (George H.W. Bush, June 8, 1989).
Hero worship of Columbus perhaps reached its zenith around 1892,
the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas. Monuments
to Columbus were erected throughout the United States and Latin
America, extolling him as a hero.
The myth that Columbus thought the world round while his contemporaries
believed in a flat earth was often repeated. This tale was used
to show that Columbus was enlightened and forward looking. Columbus's
defiance of convention in sailing west to get to the far east was
hailed as a model of "American"-style can-do inventiveness.
In the United States, the glorification of Columbus was particularly
embraced by some members of the Italian American, Hispanic, and
Catholic communities. These groups point to Columbus as one of their
own to show that Mediterranean Catholics could and did make great
contributions to the USA.
Columbus
as a villain
Friar
Bartolome de Las Casas wrote of Spanish cruelties contemporaneously
with Columbus, but he didn't blame Columbus himself. These texts
were used to substantiate the "black legend" by which
English imperialists justified their conquests through comparison
with Spanish atrocities. However, it was not until the 1960s that
Columbus increasingly became seen in the U.S. as an example of what
was and is wrong with European imperialism – conquest, exploitation,
slavery, genocide. Some argue that the policies Columbus enacted
as viceroy and governor of Spanish-occupied territories in the Americas
between 1493 and 1500 meet the modern legal definition of genocide.
Much criticism focuses on the continuing positive Columbus myths
and celebrations (such as Columbus Day) and their effects on American
thought towards present-day Native Americans. Official celebrations
of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage in 1992 were
muted, and demonstrators protested marking the anniversary at all.
It was in this spirit that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
signed, in October, 2002, a decree changing the name of Venezuela's
"Columbus Day" to "The Day of Indigenous Resistance"
in honor of the nation's indigenous groups. (For more, see Columbus
Day.)
In 2002 Columbus Day was renamed Indian Resistance Day in Venezuela.
On October 12, 2004, supporters of the president Hugo Chávez
destroyed a 100-years old statue of Columbus in Caracas. They did
this because they found Columbus guilty of 'imperialist genocide'.
They blotted the statue with slogans like 'Columbus=Bush'.
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