Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
QotD: Judging Columbus
I should be judged as a captain who went from Spain to the Indies to conquer a people numerous and warlike, whose manners and religion are very different from ours, who live in sierras and mountains, without fixed settlements, and where by divine will I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen our Lords, an Other World, whereby Spain, which was reckoned poor, is become the richest of countries.—Christopher Columbus
You may judge him more harshly than he judged himself. Or maybe more leniently. But however you do it, happy Columbus Day.
Published in Group Writing
I don’t know how much of a ‘mistake’ it really was. Without knowledge of the Americas, they thought they had 10-12k miles of ocean between Europe and the Far East. Nobody was going to finance that trip. But convince the queen it’s much shorter and easier to do, and you might get some funding.
The latest Catholic Culture podcast has a great interview with Robert Royal, author of Columbus and the Crisis of the West.
Columbus developed the first practical, repeatable method of sailing across the Atlantic. We rightly celebrate Charles Lindbergh for being the first to fly across the Atlantic even though he obviously didn’t discover France. We rightly celebrate Neil Armstrong even though he clearly didn’t discover the moon. Columbus’ achievement belongs in the same league.
Maybe he’s just letting them hang themselves, so to speak. Maybe he’s hoping that a display of religious prejudice will give some “undecideds” something to consider come election day. I don’t know, but maybe.
I retired last year, but during the 24 years that I taught elementary school, I taught about Columbus every year on this date. We learned how he decided to take (what he thought) was a more direct route to the Indies, by sailing West, since he knew the earth was a sphere. And that when he arrived in the Western Hemisphere, he assumed he’d gotten to the “Indies” so that is why he referred to the people he met as “Indians”. That piece of information alone generated so many “Aha!” moments for my students in each state where I taught. They weren’t offended learning about Columbus. I didn’t present him as some type of amazing person, but someone who was willing to try something that other people hadn’t tried. It gave them a perspective they will not get in any other class for the rest of their education, I’m pretty certain. Sigh…sometimes I wish I could go on teaching forever, just to give students information I know they aren’t going to learn from any other teacher. (But I’m tired…of the bureaucracy…)
I’m so glad that education had such an enthusiastic teacher as you were! Thank you!
Best answer. IMHO.
Here is my take on the Great Navigator. https://pepperandvinegar.blog/2020/10/12/oh-columbus/
He really did know where he was going and he got there, but what was there was totally unexpected.
Is it so much that or that he hit land too soon and it was more believable that abstract calculations by ancient peoples were wrong than to believe a giant landmass in the middle of nowhere had gone undetected for hundreds of years?
No, I think there were navigators who had an idea but they did not know what was further west. The calculation of circumference was the error and that was not Columbus’. Now, I going to get out my copy of “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” and try to remember the story of the longitude error. Of course sailing in those days was all “Latitude Sailing” since that was all they knew. Columbus did much the same. Latitudes were known. Sail a latitude you know until you hit land.
Packing for a westward journey to visit lands I’ve never laid eyes on. Since I’ll be disembarking in Port-land, I suspect I’ll encounter a person or two whose manners and religion are very different from our own.