Examining the reputation of
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'
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.