![]() ![]() He learned the nautical trade sailing on Genoese merchant vessels and became an accomplished navigator. It was into this world of innovation, exploration, and economic competition that Christopher Columbus was born.Ī native of the Italian city-state of Genoa, Columbus became a sailor at the age of fourteen. Their efforts also created an intense competition among the sailing nations of Europe, each striving to outdo the others in finding new and more efficient trade routes. ![]() Prince Henry and his sailors inaugurated the great age of explorers finding new lands and creating shipping lanes for the import and export of goods, including consumables never before seen in Europe. The so-called Age of Discovery was ushered in by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) of Portugal. This movement to brand Columbus a genocidal maniac and erase all memory of his extraordinary accomplishments stems from a false myth about the man and his times. Some want to abolish it as a federal holiday, and a growing number of cities and states already refuse to acknowledge it and celebrate instead “Indigenous Peoples Day.” 3 In the United States, the vitriol directed against Columbus produces annual protests every Columbus Day. It has become fashionable to view him not as a devout Catholic concerned for the eternal salvation of the indigenous peoples he encountered but rather as deliberately genocidal: a symbol of European imperialism 1 and a bringer of destruction, enslavement, and death to the happy and prosperous people of the Americas. Peering into the future, Columbus (1451-1506) could not have anticipated the ingratitude and outright contempt shown by modern man toward his discovery and exploration of the New World. In reality, he was a dedicated Christian concerned first and foremost with serving God and his fellow man. In popular myth, Christopher Columbus is the symbol of European greed and genocidal imperialism. And who, on balance, we may yet celebrate as a doer of great good. In consideration of this, the author has revised and lengthened this article in an attempt, not to anticipate and refute every charge leveled against Columbus (which would require a much longer work) but at least to bring more nuance to a historical figure whose flaws do not fit into a simple category. Of this controversy, Columbus has, sadly but unavoidably, become an icon and a lightning rod. Editor’s note: As time passes, controversy over the historical Western project to explore, colonize, and Christianize the Americas and other non-European lands seems only to grow-bound up with heightened cultural and political preoccupations, both sincere and cynical, with issues of race, tolerance, and diversity. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |