What exactly are we celebrating on Columbus Day? Columbus didn’t discover America, any more than I discovered St. Cloud. Both had people living there when we arrived. Columbus was never in the area that is now the United States. If we are celebrating the arrival of the first Europeans in America, it wasn’t Columbus. There was a settlement in the North American island of Greenland by the Norse as early as 980 (more than 500 years before Columbus arrived in America). Leif Erikson set foot in Newfoundland, Canada, in 1001. So let’s take a look at the life of Columbus. Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy in 1451. In his personal life, Columbus married a Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo in Lisbon, She was the daughter of a Portuguese Knight of Santiago and a member of the Order of Prince John. She died around 1484. How does Columbus, the son of weaver, land her without a dowry? She was 25 years old. Columbus later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, but never married her due to her lower social status. She raised both of his children, when he left town for the new world. He had one son with each woman. Though largely self-educated, Columbus was widely read in geography, astronomy, and history. Columbus formulated a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. Italy and Portugal felt Columbus underestimated the distance around the world to Asia so they wouldn’t fund his venture. (They didn’t know the American continent would also be in the way.) It was known the world was round at this time, despite myths that suggest otherwise. Following persistent lobbying, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II of Spain agreed to sponsor his journey. Columbus left Castile, Spain, in August 1492 with three ships. After a stopover in the Canary Islands, Columbus made landfall in the Americas on October 12, 1492 (later celebrated as Columbus Day). His landing place was an island in the Bahamas. Columbus subsequently visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti—the first European settlement in the Americas since the Norse colonies nearly 500 years earlier. He returned to Castile, Spain, in early 1493, bringing a number of captive natives (Indian prisoners) with him. Columbus would eventually complete four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean providing the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. In his next 3 voyages to the New World, he explored the Lesser Antilles (the small islands south of Peurto Rico in the Caribbean) in 1493, Trinidad and the northern coast of South America in 1498, and the eastern coast of Central America in 1502. Columbus continued to seek a passage to the East Indies. It’s not clear that he ever honestly knew he had landed on a landmass separate from Asia, as he never clearly renounced his belief that he had reached the Far East. The country of Colombia is named after him. Was Columbus an idiot? In some ways he was both intelligent and lucky. Columbus had a valuable understanding of trade winds which made him the master of the Atlantic. During his first voyage in 1492, he took advantage of the brisk trade winds from the east, called "easterlies." His first land sighting (and landing point) was the island of San Salvador in El Salvador. To return to Spain, against this prevailing wind, would have required a procedure referred to as “beating.” Beating involves moving the ship zig-zag into the upwind. (No sailing vessel can move directly upwind.) Beating allows the vessel to advance indirectly upward. Using this method would have exhausted his food and drinking water. By sailing back directly west initially, he skirted the “horse latitudes” of the Mid-Atlantic. The “horse latitudes” are dangerous for sail ships since it is incredibly calm (little wind). Columbus risked running into a tropical storm, which by chance, he avoided. Columbus then took advantage of the curving trade winds northeast to the middle latitudes of the Atlantic where he was able to catch the “westerlies” which blow to the coast of Western Europe. Was Columbus a good person? No. His quest for gold and brutal treatment of the Taino people, who were incredibly kind to him, reflect this. Historically, Columbus was never researched accurately. In all fairness, some of this information only became available in 2006, when a 48 page report was found in the archives in the city of Simancas, Spain. 1. During Columbus’ maiden voyage he took somewhere between 10-25 Natives as prisoners. Only 7 or 8 arrived in Spain alive. 2. Columbus wrote in a letter to a friend about one of the indigenous women he captured: "While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores." By 1499, accusations of tyranny and incompetence by Columbus had reached Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. They responded by removing him from power as Governor of Hispaniola. They were told that Columbus regularly used torture and mutilation as punishment. The 48-page report, found in 2006 in the national archive in the Spanish city of Simancas, contains testimonies from 23 people, including both enemies and supporters of Columbus, about the treatment of colonial subjects by Columbus and his brothers during his seven-year rule. 3. According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. 4. Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomeo on "defending the family" when Bartolomeo ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth. 5. Columbus put down native unrest and revolt by first ordering a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed, and then parading their dismembered bodies through the streets in order to discourage further rebellion. Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists: "Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place." Columbus and his brothers were arrested and imprisoned upon their return to Spain. They lingered in jail for six weeks before King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after, the king and queen summoned Columbus and his brothers to the Alhambra palace in Granada. There, the royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; restored their freedom and wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus's fourth voyage. But Columbus would never again be allowed to serve as governor. 6. The Taino people from Hispaniola suffered severely as a result of the Spanish presence. Their numbers were once estimated to be 3 million. 85% were dead by the early 1500’s. (Remember Columbus arrived in 1492.) The Spaniards removed men from villages to work in gold mines and colonial plantations. This kept the Taíno from planting the crops that had fed them for centuries. They began to starve; many thousands fell prey to smallpox, measles and other European diseases for which they had no immunity; some committed suicide to avoid subjugation; and hundreds fell in fighting with the Spaniards. By 1514, (in just 2 decades) half of Spanish men had taken Taino wives. They mixed with African slaves, (who would eventually win independence in Haiti), forming a new, tri-racial Creole culture. To quote a historian, “Very few Indians were left, 50 years after Columbus arrived.” The demise of Columbus During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then 41, suffered an attack of influenza and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death 14 years later. There are some suggestions he experienced intestinal infections as a result of sexually transmitted disease, but it’s more likely the infection was due to poor sanitation and improper food preparation on his ocean voyage. Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain on May 20, 1506. (Valladolid was the capital of Spain in the 1600’s.) New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, recently said Columbus was an important figure for Italian Americans, symbolizing their contribution to New York, and for that reason he opposes removal of the statues. I don’t know any Italian Americans whose pride rests on the contributions of Columbus. When you think about it, Columbus is the only person (other than Jesus) who never lived in the U.S. who has a holiday. And there isn’t much of a comparison between the two. I believe critical thinking is a process of reasonable inquiry in which solutions to ill-structured problems are constructed; adequacy of solutions is evaluated in terms of what is reasonable or probable based on current evidence and is reevaluated when relevant new evidence, perspectives, or tools of inquiry become available. New evidence is available. We need to adjust our beliefs accordingly. Thanks for listening, Frank
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AuthorFrank F. Weber is a forensic psychologist specializing in homicide and sexual and physical assault cases. He uses his unique understanding of how predator’s think, knowledge of victim trauma, actual court cases, and passion for writing true crime thrillers. His Award Winning books include "Murder Book" (2017) "The I-94 Murders" (2018) "Last Call" (2019) and "Lying Close" (September 2020). Archives
April 2024
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