An American Tale

I can remember when I was a youth, in pre-school and kindergarten, learning about Christopher Columbus... the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María, his great “discovery” of America, and that the world was round, and such and such. All the children made hats and tunics decorated in white with the red cross, and had telescopes made out of cardboard. The textbooks gave him praises, he would occasionally manifest in TV cartoons or other popular mediums. Then there was the song, “In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue...”. Yes this is how it basically was up until high school... well without the singing and costumes and all. The celebratory nature of Columbus and his achievements were embedded in the educational system. Sure, eventually as you grew older you didn’t buy much of it, but at the most Columbus just appeared foolish for thinking he had reached the Far East and other than that he wasn’t too bad of a fellow... just confused, and that was with our hindsight vision. Nobody wanted to tell us that Christopher Columbus was not such a great person after all, that what he did was not such a great thing, and that there was proof of all of this. No, instead we were given cheerful warmhearted Columbus images and songs, diluted history, and a national holiday for the man. There is so much mythology surrounding Columbus, and all of it hides the true nature of things.

First of all, Columbus was not the first to claim that the world was round. This was an idea that already existed for thousands of years by his time, and had been proposed by philosophers and mathematicians of ancient Egypt and Greece. Aristotle reasoned that the earth was round by using observation and Eratosthenes of Alexandria, Egypt had been able to accurately measure the earth’s circumference to within four-percent. Scholars in Ancient India and in the Islamic world (including the African civilizations of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai) continued to use the progressive science and math of the classical civilizations and used this knowledge in their understanding of the world and how to create maps, etc. Even many of the learned scholars of the late Middle Ages in Europe believed that the world was a sphere. The only thing Columbus did was use that knowledge to propose a western route to Asia.

Second, Columbus was not the first to “discover America” as Eurocentric history has suggested. It is widely believed that the Vikings reached mainland North America at least 500 years before Columbus and that they had small settlements in what Leif Eriksson the Norsemen had called “Vinland”, which is today the province of Newfoundland in Canada. Some have proposed that the Chinese admiral, Zheng He, may have reached America 70 years before Columbus by using Chinese maps that already indicated that the continent of North America was known. Evidence of the Chinese in America may have also been found. Finally, according to tradition, Abubakari II, an African emperor from Mali set out to cross the Atlantic with a fleet of ships in 1311. Researchers have been working to uncover evidence of the Africans reaching the Americas shortly after. The interesting thing is that Columbus even wrote about "the presence of Negros there" upon landing on Hispaniola during his 3rd voyage, and that these black traders had given the Amerindians spear points made of "guanine" a gold alloy metal known to be unique to Africans at the time. This may also account for some of the Olmec statues that suspiciously seem to have African features. Nonetheless, whether it was the Africans, Vikings, or Chinese... Columbus was beat. In addition to that, no matter who it was who got there before Columbus, one set of people were there long before... the Amerindians, the tribes of Carib, Arawak, Taino and others who populated the West Indies, and of course the Maya, Aztec, and other indigenous civilizations on the mainland. These people who Columbus would dub the “Indians” (because he swore he was there somewhere in India and the Orient, and never renounced it his entire life) were the first to settle and discover Americas. So, Columbus discovered and claimed an occupied land. In fact, he never touched on the mainland in what is now Mexico until 1498. Moreover, he never set foot on any land that would today be the continental United States. So much for his discovery...

Finally, I save the worst for last. Christopher Columbus was born as Cristoforo Colombo in Genoa, Italy... maybe (some scholars now question his origins) and he became a navigator for Portugal and ultimately Spain, but he was more of a mercenary for hire rather than a heroic explorer. Whatever Columbus’ motives were for making his trans-Atlantic voyage, one thing is for certain... that he was lusting for riches. There is irrefutable evidence. His journal has survived the ages, and in it he had written multiple accounts in regard to his search for gold upon landing. Once he met the Amerindian populations of the islands, he and his crew members would use vicious tactics to try and find gold mines and procure any gold from the native people themselves. He kidnapped and enslaved the indigenous people of the Caribbean and Central America, like the Arawaks and the Carib and used them as a labor force when building settlements and searching for gold. If any of his slaves were caught stealing or lying, parts of their body, especially facial features, were cut off in order to make examples of the rebellious ones. He allowed his crew members to force themselves on the native women, a situation some historians have sugarcoated as “intermarriage”, and to bring back these women from their homelands to Europe. Of course, besides the brutality of conquest, diseases brought by the European sailors wiped out many of the native people. During the four voyages of Columbus, the Amerindian slaves were transported back to Spain on the caravel ships and the ones that didn’t die on the journey were used by the royal family to work in the galleys. In a deal with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Christopher Columbus was given territories to govern but he mismanaged them while in constant pursuit of more gold to pay off his debts to investors. At one point he was arrested and sent back to Spain in manacles and chains because he was accused being a cruel governor who frequently used acts of violence not only against the native people, but also the Spanish settlers. Eventually he was given back his freedom, but he lost all of his titles and his reputation. After a final voyage, which included being stranded in Jamaica for a year, he traveled back to Spain and died a fairly wealthy man from all the gold he and his men had initially acquired in Hispaniola. This all may be a little hard to swallow, but look for yourself. You can read Columbus' journal and other primary sources from the period.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end with Columbus. He was just the beginning for what became centuries of genocide and oppression against the native people of the Americas at the hands of the Spanish, Portuguese and later the British, French and Dutch. After the Spanish were successful with their discoveries, the Portuguese were upset so the Pope made Spain and Portugal sign the Treaty of Tordesillas which divided newly and formerly discovered lands amongst them. Spain received the Americas, with the exception of what became Brazil, and the Portuguese received Africa and East India. Eventually the colonial powers had to deal with the problem of too many Amerindians dying from diseases in addition to their cunning ability to hide and thrive in their native lands. So, soon after African slaves are sent over to the New World once the Portuguese began exploiting the African continent. Eventually, after years of exploitation and competition and fighting among European nations, the United States develops in North America. The U.S., a beacon of liberty, expands its borders with the notion of “manifest destiny”, wiping out the American Indians in the process and relegating the survivors to reservations out West. Many of their descendants today suffer from alcoholism, unemployment and a loss of their native traditions. History in a nutshell, a bit oversimplified, but truth is truth. It is the legacy of Columbus.

So, why on earth do we celebrate Columbus Day today? Why did it take me until college to uncover the dirty secrets on Christopher Columbus? Why is it that the only public outcries come from minority groups and not the mainstream? Why did the United States create a holiday in his name, when he didn’t even make it to American soil? It is also the only other American holiday not named after a president besides Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Call me crazy, but I don’t think Columbus deserves such company. Why is Columbus Day also Italian-American Day, especially when his origins and lifestyle are questionable, wouldn’t someone like Garibaldi be a better choice? It makes it hard for me to celebrate that part of my heritage when Columbus is attached to it.

Columbus arriving in the New World changed everything, but is it something to really celebrate? I guess it depends on which side you take. As a teacher, and a historian, I feel obligated to educate people on Columbus as I have done here. There is no use in sugar-coating history... it is full of bloodshed, exploitation, and enslavement, that is a fact no matter what. I wouldn’t be in America if it weren’t for its brutal conquest at the hands of the European explorers. We can’t do anything about that, circumstances bring us to where we presently are, but we can know the truth. As a Rastaman, I also feel that the Truth needs to be explained to the people. Descendants of African slaves in the West Indies have known about the real nature of Columbus for centuries. They were brought over because of him and his arrival, and they replaced that Arawaks and Caribs on the islands, of which there are none left now. Why does this have to be learned from a reggae tune by Burning Spear or Culture and not within a textbook given to the youths? It should be common knowledge, it should be accessible. Ignorance has created more damage to people than the initial act itself because people are powerless without knowledge.

Columbus Day celebrates an American mythology, an American Tale of progress, patriotism, and nationhood. It masks the truth with positive, community oriented spectacles. It subscribes to the belief that Columbus and his European predecessors brought civilization, Christianity, and democracy to the savage and backward American Indians and would later allow all people, including them, to have a better life. Columbus Day belongs in the trash bin along with the idea that the Pilgrims and Native Americans had a lovely Thanksgiving feast, that George Washington never told a lie, and that black slaves had a great time picking cotton on their massa’s plantations. Stop teaching the youths lies and myths, and give them the Truth! The truth will set them free! Christopher Columbus was a damn blasted liad, thief, and murderer. Rasta nuh love Christopher ComeBussUs!

Seek Knowledge!,
JAHsh