Posted on October 12, 2021
This is an update of my post published on October 12, 2010:
This day has many other names besides the five given above and is either celebrated or commemorated with sorrow by many different groups and countries, especially in the so-called New World.
On this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus's expedition spotted land after voyaging across the Pacific Ocean from Spain for five weeks. The land they spotted was an island in the Bahamas. Columbus dubbed the island San Salvador and reported that the natives called it Guanahani. Actually, these days nobody knows for sure which island was the site of Columbus's first landing! People from at least three different islands in the Bahamas claim it was their island.
In the following journal entry from October 12, Columbus demonstrated the way of thought prevalent of Europeans of his time:
“They [the native people he met on the island] ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language."
It goes without saying that the way of thought prevalent of Europeans of Columbus's time was horrible. Specifically: it was super-duper racist. It was wrong factually, and it was wrong ethically.
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Some folks display signs like the one above - "Columbus didn't discover anything - 1000s of Native nation were already here." Other say, "Columbus didn't discover the Americas; he invaded them." |
Here are a few other things that Columbus got wrong:
Columbus understood what all educated Westerners understood—that the world was round. However, Columbus differed from the accepted view of scholars in the size of the world. And Columbus, it turns out, was very, very wrong.
- He thought the world was smaller than it was.
- He thought that Europe was larger than it was.
- And he thought that Japan and other inhabited islands were far east off the coast of China rather than being quite close.
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Note that "Cigangu" is Japan, "Gallia" is Ireland, and "Hispania" is Spain. The Canary Islands are spelled "Canarie" on this globe. |
Columbus thought the distance from the Canary Islands (near Africa) to Japan was about 2,300 miles—but it was really almost six times farther, more than 12,000 miles away!!!
If it hadn't been for the fact that the Americas and their attendant islands had been close to the location Columbus expected to find the East Indies, Columbus's first expedition would have ended in death for all.
A few things that Columbus got right
Columbus was considered a brilliant mariner (one who steers a ship), and he knew how to use the trade winds to cross the Atlantic going westward and back again eastward. Without this knowledge, his first expedition would not have succeeded.
If that first expedition had failed, I wonder how long it would have been before there was sustained contact between the Americas and the rest of the world. Do you think that the "discovery" might have gone the other way? - that Native Americans might have explored and then "discovered" Europe, or Eastern Asia, or possibly even Africa?
If there was no "successful" Columbus, world history might have been dramatically different - but whether or not that history would have been happier is a huge question.
Check out this video about Columbus.
Check out this book about the Taino (indigenous Caribbean people). Decenter Columbus - and instead celebrate the native peoples who had already "discovered" the Americas.
Also on this date:
