And here, Columbus was wrong. He calculated the size of the Earth as liberally as he could in favor of finding it to be smaller (one can only guess that he did it to justify a mission other correctly saw as unattainable). The actual correct circumference of the Earth had been worked out correctly 1700 years previously. Had the Americas not been in his way, had Columbus only had his intended objective in his path, he and his ships would have all perished. Columbus miscalculated and was saved only by dumb luck. How is that admirable?

As for Columbus’ achievement in opening up the Americas to European expansion, there were quite a few navigators who were venturing out far enough that the Americas would have been discovered sooner or later, most likely sooner, by navigators running into the eastern edge of what is now known as Brazil. It’s not as if the “discovery” would have waited another hundred years. Maybe a few decades later, at most. As for how that would have worked out, who knows? Assuming that what Columbus did was better than the alternative is just as faulty as the other way around.

As for spreading the news about what he had found, Columbus spread the wrong news–he never knew what he had actually found. At best, one could credit him with letting Europeans know about a land mass reachable by sea voyages westward. But really, if I found and spread the word about a great new restaurant in Tachikawa, but it instead turned out to be a great new supermarket in Mitaka, I might get props for accidentally turning people on to it, but I would be laughed at for getting the nature and location of what I’d found so dismally wrong.

Some people resist this idea and insist that we should just record the facts, but of course we can’t remove the subjective historian from history. Even if we can imagine a camera filming history “objectively,” well, someone has to point the camera, and eventually someone has to watch it, and then subjectivity comes in again.

Some people make the mistake of assuming that the history that they learned in school was somehow impartial, or was the least-partial-possible presentation of the facts possible. They can’t see the slant in it–the slant, in the case of the US, toward the white male upper class. On the front end, this slant tends to naturalize some weird assumptions, e.g. that 98% of the great things that ever were accomplished were the actions of people belonging (at least partially) to the white-male-upper-class group. On the back end, this slant tends to limit the scope of vision, so only the actions of white-male-upper-class guys seem to matter in the world. (Go watch the news.)

Regarding the 21st-century-perspective criticism: I think this is a cheap dodge, and it stinks of the kind of pseudo-multicultural argument that winds up excusing genital mutilation and genocide. “Well, we can’t really judge them, because they see the world differently…” “Well, we can’t really call Columbus a racist monster, because everyone [European] was a racist monster…” I call BS on that. While we must recognize multiplicity of perspectives and cultures (it’s a *fact*), that doesn’t mean that we must accept them all as equally good and right; after all, I have a culture, too. Being aware of multiplicity and valuing variety doesn’t mean that I give up my right to want justice. (Just as being aware that I am myself situated in a cultural milieu doesn’t let me off the hook for assessing the justice of my beliefs and practices.)

Ultimately, history belongs to the living. There’s no one else for it to belong to! So yes, we damn well can refuse to celebrate Columbus’ errors and his role in the genocide of the Native Americans, esp. since as a culture we seem to have ongoing problems recognizing the humanity (much less the human rights) of non-Europeans. We don’t have to be happy about Columbus’ crimes just because we wouldn’t be here without them. (Does that logic work if, say, your dad is a hit man? “Well, I can’t really disapprove of killing for hire as a job choice–after all, it put me through college!”)

Sean: Intentionally or unintentionally, Columbus’ voyage was the first stone in the avalanche we refer to as the settlement of the New World. (And we all know who was caught under that avalanche…and still haven’t gotten out.) The Vinland colony lasted only a few years and never re-rooted itself, nor did it incite a similar avalanche, which is why it’s a historical curiosity rather than a basis for a national holiday. (But it’s one of my favorite historical curiosities.)

Generally national holidays are constructed around people that are at the center of one storm or another, but those people are generally neither as grand nor as monstrous as we make them out to be. I think Columbus was a schmuck, and (based on the historical record) schmucks in the wrong place at the wrong time are uncommonly good at precipitating human rights abuses on an epic scale.

–Jack

If there is any revising of history going on, it’s making him out to be a hero. We honor the man with a federal holiday and parades when he was no more than an idiot that HAPPENED to run in to land, nothing more. The Vikings actually established a colony here for awhile, but that’s ignored because someone, somewhere, decided Columbus was “an alright guy”.

And the point truly is who got there first because every text book in America says he did. (hence why I don’t agree with your comment about my blogging isn’t logical because I’ve never gone around saying I did it first) The point very much is about who got there first in this particular case because people continue to perpetuate the idea he was first when he wasn’t. Teach about him all you want in text books, at least be honest about it. As for the holiday and parades, I don’t agree with those in the least.

Also, discovery isn’t always about who got there first. It’s about who spread the word about it first. There were likely primitive peoples who traveled between ice floes who got to the U.S. first and “discovered” it but Columbus spread the word among the people of Europe (the people most of us are descended from). He was the first prominent person in Europe to tell other Europeans of its existence. It’s about civilizations learning of something, not random people stepping foot on the soil..

By your logic, you shouldn’t bother to blog since you’re almost certainly not telling anyone anything that hasn’t been revealed elsewhere. The point isn’t who got there first. The point is who told the most people who then in tern regarded that person as the original source of that news for their geographic location. If Columbus hadn’t landed in America, it’s hard to say what the shape of the U.S. might have been as Europeans wouldn’t have settled it. That’s the point of the holiday – celebrating what became of us as a result of that discovery. Now, we enlightened white folks may scoff and say he trampled the indigenous peoples (which he did and it was wrong but we modern people are hardly doing right by native Americans either) but we wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t.