reality check

my earliest memory of celebrating columbus day was in third grade. all the kids from grades 3-5 commemorated the day by dressing in colonial style clothing (i wish i had a photo of me at eight years of age in knickers and my mom’s frilliest blouse to post for you!) and spent the day learning about columbus and the earliest settlers. we did everything from writing on slates with chalk to hand-making ice cream and it was an absolute blast! it was teaching and learning (through experience and fun) at its best! unfortunately, now as an adult, i’m not sure that the foundation to what i learned was all that accurate!

looking at history is never simple! winston churchill was absolutely correct when he said,

history is written by the victors.

but with that stated, it is often difficult to navigate through various and contradictory historical sources to find truth. most of us in the united states have been taught that christopher columbus was a great explorer/adventurer and that he courageously proved wrong the popular belief that the earth was flat. he is also the “discoverer” of america and a heroic figure to admire, emulate and remember. he is of such national import, that he is one of only ten federal holidays defined by law. since this reflects the “normal” way that columbus is taught and remembered, my focus in this post is on what most of us as school children were never taught.

the primary text that i will draw from is entitled, people’s history of the united states: 1492 to present by howard zinn. amazon’s editorial book description reads,

known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, a people’s history of the united states is the only volume to tell america’s story from the point of view of — and in the words of — america’s women, factory workers, african- americans, native americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers.

in 1492, when columbus first arrived in the caribbean (thinking it was the indies), his very first act was kidnapping. here is a part of columbus’ log entry on that autumn day,

as soon as i arrived in the indies, on the first island which i found, i took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.

his barbarous act was unnecessary as later european observers described the arawaks of the bahamanian islands as much like the native peoples on the mainland, who were remarkable for their hospitality and belief in sharing. even columbus later described the “indians” he encountered like this:

they… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. they willingly traded everything they owned…. they were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. they do not bear arms, and do not know them, for i showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. they have no iron. their spears are made of cane…. they would make fine servants…. with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

when columbus returned to europe thinking that he had succeeded in finding a shorter route to south asia, he exaggerated reports and promises to investors and so his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men – their primary objective was gold and slaves.

when they arrived back in the caribbean, they went from island to island capturing “indians”. columbus set up a base in haiti and proceeded to send numerous expeditions into the interior to look for gold, but they found none. since he had to fill up the ships returning to spain with some kind of dividend they began hunting. howard zinn writes,

in the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. of those five hundred, two hundred died en route. the rest arrived alive in spain and were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town, who reported that, although the slaves were ‘naked as the day they were born,’ they showed ‘no more embarrassment than animals.’ columbus later wrote: ‘let us in the name of the holy trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.’

columbus and his men continued to believe that vast gold fields existed in haiti and so,

they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. when they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

the indians had been given an impossible task. the only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. so they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

trying to put together an army of resistance, the arawaks faced spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords and horses. when the spaniards took prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death. among the arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. infants were killed to save them from the spaniards. in two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 indians on haiti were dead.

records indicate that by 1550, only 58 years after columbus first landed, only 500 arawak “indians” remained. the chief source that zinn uses to recount what happened on these islands after columbus arrived is from bartolome de las casas. las casas was a young priest who participated in the conquest of cuba and for a time, even owned a plantation with indian slaves, but to his credit he repented and became a vehement critic of spanish cruelty.

book two of his history of the indies relates the atrocities committed against the “indians” by the spaniards. here are a few excerpts from zinn’s book:

the spaniards ‘grew more conceited every day’ and after a while refused to walk any distance. they ‘rode the backs of indians if they were in a hurry’ or were carried on hammocks by indians running in relays. ‘in this case they also had indians carry large leaves to shade them from the sun and others to fan them with goose wings.’

total control led to total cruelty. the spaniards ‘thought nothing of knifing indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.’ las casas tells how ‘two of these so-called christians met two indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys.’

when he arrived on hispaniola in 1508, las casas says, ‘there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. who in future generations will believe this? i myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it….’

the history books i grew up with said that columbus was the hero in a heroic adventure. they told me of no deceit, avarice, kidnapping, slavery, murder or genocide. the real story behind christopher columbus helps me to better understand how our country grew and developed in the manner that it did. it also helps me to understand how and why we, as a nation, operate in the ways that we do today. don’t get me wrong! i am extremely thankful to have been born in america and i believe in our country’s principles of “justice and liberty for all”. i dream of a day when this stated american value is truly descriptive of who we are as a nation domestically and internationally.

the first step in getting there is to acknowledge who we really are today and to do that, we have to understand the trajectory from where we have come.

dr. carl sagan said,

you have to know the past to understand the present.