Christopher Columbus. The Vikings. Someone else. Whatever. Personally, I don’t really care who “discovered” a continent already the home of 40 to 50 million people. I’m sure it’s all very exciting for some to argue who deserves the title of "first European", and that’s terribly lovely for them, but to me it all feels like an antiquated pissing contest (my ship is bigger than yours!). It’s a title, a moment. I don’t care.
Potential title conflicts not withstanding, Columbus did indeed land in the Caribbean, not so very far from here, in 1492 (though, notably, he did not land in the US though we are the ones who so enthusiastically celebrate Columbus Day). His actions from that point on, and not those of the Vikings, did indeed help shaped the dynamics of the entire continent. However, the textbooks somehow forget to mention the details of his actions after landing.
On his first voyage, Columbus kidnapped some ten to twenty-five Indians and took them back with him to Spain. (pg 60)
When an Indian committed even a minor offense, the Spanish cut off his ears or nose. (pg 61)
Pedro de Cordoba wrote in a letter to King Ferdinand in 1517, “As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide. Occasionally a hundred have committed mass suicide. The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth… Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery.” (pg 63)
As soon as the 1493 expedition got to the Caribbean, before it even reached Haiti, Columbus was rewarding his lieutenants with native women to rape. On Haiti, sex slaves were one more perquisite that the Spaniards enjoyed. Columbus wrote a friend in 1500, “A hundred castollanoes are easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.” (pg 65)
I’m not arguing European Americans of today should personally feel responsible for these atrocities. They were committed long ago, by different people with different values, blah, blah, blah… I get it. We’ve “moved past” this, right?
Glorifying Columbus with a national holiday isn’t just moving past something, it’s grossly redefining history. The Columbus of textbooks is a highly abbreviated fiction. I like fiction. However, I like my fictions labeled as fiction and my facts labeled as fact.
If all we’re looking for in a hero worthy of celebration by national holiday is a man who was willing to exploit others in the pursuit of wealth, there are plenty of other explorers we could similarly glorify. To me, heroes must have some other credit to their name than just the bravery to hunt for new sources of gold.
In the end, there are lessons to be learned from this section of our past and Mr. Columbus specifically, but only if we retell the whole story rather than just the pretty parts.
When Columbus was selling Queen Isabella on the wonders of the Americas, the Indians were “well built” and “of quick intelligence.” “They have every good customs,” he wrote, “and the king maintains a very marvelous state, of a style so orderly that it is a pleasure to see it, and they have good memories and they wish to see everything and ask what it is and for what it is used.” Later, when Columbus was justifying his wars and his enslavement of the Indians, they became “cruel” and “stupid,” “a people warlike and numerous, whose customs and religion are very different from ours.”
It is always useful to think badly about people one has exploited or plans to exploit. Modifying one’s opinions to bring them into line with one’s actions or planned actions is the most common outcome of the process known as “cognitive dissonance,” according to the social psychologist Leon Festinger. No one likes to think of himself or herself as a bad person. To treat badly another person whom we consider a reasonable human being creates a tension between act at attitude that demands resolution. We cannot erase what we have done, and to later our future behavior may not be in our interested. To change our attitude is easier.
- James Loewen in Lies My Teacher Told Me, pg 68
More valuable than reenactments of shouts of “Tierra!” and glorifications of the voyage itself, are the lessons in the ways humans justify exploiting other humans. When we understand how we’ve justified atrocities in the past, it makes it easier to pinpoint slides towards this sort of “cognitive dissonance” in the future.
We all “split” to some degree. Our ability to see “us” and “they” is what makes watching football fun (okay, fun for some people- I still don’t get it) and allows us to like our children even though they are arguably just as bratty as the neighbors’ hellions.
However, when we actually begin to view others as less human, less deserving of basic dignity than whatever ‘us’ we might belong to, we’ve moved into a dangerous territory. In this realm, our actions are no longer bounded by the ethical sense of right and wrong we’d apply to others within our group. This is how we justify mass murder, mass rape, mass enslavement. This is how we justify stripping others of rights that we’d demand for ourselves and our families. This is how we justify insularity in the name of loyalty.
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We label those who can’t swallow these high school fictions as somehow less patriotic than those waving flags at the parade. To me, patriotism isn’t about glossing over the details and offering blind acceptance of either the past or the present. I believe the true patriots include those who yell, point, and promote change in the name of truth and fairness. I believe patriotism certainly includes wanting your country to be better. I have no problem with the concept of “loving ones country.” However, I’m maintaining the right to not like it on occasion.
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Other Columbus Day articles and posts I enjoyed can be found at Biblioblogography and here. Lies my Teacher Told Me by James Loewen (the source of all quotes in this post) is an excellent book about the ways American history has been revised and rewritten.
