Columbus was a great seaman and navigator. His knowledge of winds and currents was top notch and you can see the route out and back take advantage of those and were the best and used for centuries. That was no chance, it was knowledge. He was an excellent seman and navigator.
He was definitely not a leader of men and he had problems with everyone under his command. Today we would say he was not a people person. For this reason he had problems where ever he was in command.
The opposite of this was Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico. He was a great leader of men with a magnetic personality.
I’m simply saying that to consider him a great man is heroification and we need to remember that these people had, in some cases, serious flaws. and yes, I realize many people were slave owners, but did they go around hanging people for believing in a different religion? To equate that to blaming him for “everything that has come out of America since 1492” is, honestly, a little juvenile (and to nitpick you, he set sail in 1492, but didn’t hit the carribean until 1493 ) And yes, he did enslave people, a lot of people, a lot of people he himself described as “incapable of hate” (and I can’t link a source because, as I said, I read it in an excerpt from his personal journal back when I was in college). Sure we can hold everyone to today’s standards, but to simply ignore all the terrible crap the guy did is an insult to the people he did that terrible crap to. I don’t condemn everyone who lived more than a century ago, but I understand that the founding fathers of the USA were slave owners and take the quote “all men are created equal” with a grain of salt due to that fact.
You can’t be serious. Killing people for believing in a different religion was the favorite sport in Europe, and MENA for several centuries afterwards. To blame Columbus for being part of his time is silly. Not to mention that Columbus dedicated himself to the sea and was never much of a governor so that I doubt he ordered the hanging of anyone. That is just mainly the product of ignorance, not fact.
Some cites would be nice
My goodness, it IS taking longer than we thought.
Anyone who does not know the date of the discovery of America is quite disqualified from expressing any opinion in this thread.
Or we could blame Fidel Castro for condition in Cuba in 2008.
We’re not talking some abstract responsibility. Columbus was the governor of Hispaniola and he personally ordered the enslavement of the native population.
Please get your facts right. Columbus did, very specifically and personally, initiate the European slave trade for Indians in the Americas.
From Admiral of the Ocean Sea, (1942), the definitive biography by Samuel Eliot Morison, (who was, by the way, an admirer of Columbus):
pp. 486-487:
[Columbus was in a dilemma in 1494 about what to send back by a fleet to Spain, since he had not found much gold in Hispaniola]
There is no question whatsoever that Columbus was a slaver, and a quite enthusiastic one. And though slavery was common at the time, Columbus was condemned even by some of his contemporaries for his brutality and lack of compassion. As noted above, even the King and Queen were not in favor of it.
In 1492, the idea that you could go from Europe to Asia by sailing west, all in one go, was a crackpot idea. The distance was simply too far. It would have been nearly impossible using the seagoing technology of the time.
When Magellan crossed the Pacific from South America to Guam, it took him 98 days and he lost 30 men to scurvy. Most of the rest of the crew were on their last legs. A direct voyage from Europe to Asia, assuming the Americas were not in the way, would have taken even longer, at the cost of most likely the entire crew.
Columbus did not merely “ignore” data, he deliberately distorted it in order to get the answer he wanted, an answer that was dead wrong. He was a crackpot.
Again, judging Columbus by today’s standards is just ridiculous. At that time slavery was just normal and widespread everywhere. In fact, the Spanish monarchy was quite ahead of its time in its concern for the temporal and spiritual rights of the natives. Obviously this was often ignored by the Spanish individuals who were more interested in their own greed but it does not detract from the fact that the Castillian monarchy was concerned and tried to preserve those rights. Columbus was just one more and his actions in this regard were not supported by the monarchy. I cannot see a reason to condemn him any more than anybody else of his time.
Condemning anyone who supported something which was common in his time is just silly. I have no doubt that the time will come when today’s policies restricting immigration from poor countries will be seen as evil but I think it would be silly for those people to condemn us for supporting those policies because that is the normal state of things today. I do not believe those who supported slavery centuries ago were any more evil than those who support xenophobic immigration laws today. They are all a product of their times.
condeming someone for supporting something that was common may be silly, but to completely ignore major factors in a person’s life, whether you’re judging them by today’s standards or those that existed in their own time, is equally as silly if not willfully ignorant. There were many people who were against killing people simply because they believed in a different religion, or enslaving people simply because they looked different than you, just because it was so widespread in European culture doesn’t make it any less horrific. Just as denying soveriegnty to the poor from other countries even though it’s one of the staples of the foundation of America is pretty horific, or denying rights to gay citizens regardless of the fact that they’re guaranteed by our constitution is horrific. It’s accepted in this day and age, but that doesn’t make it less horrific.
As for a cite, read wikipedia: “During his second voyage, Columbus and his men instituted a policy in Hispaniola which has been referred to by numerous historians as genocide. The native Taino people of the island were systematically enslaved and murdered. Hundreds were rounded up and shipped to Europe to be sold; many died en route. For the rest of the population, Columbus demanded that all Taino under his control should bring the Spaniards gold. Those that didn’t were to have their hands cut off. Since there was, in fact, little gold to be had, the Taino fled, and the Spaniards hunted them down and killed them. The Taino tried to mount a resistance, but the Spanish weaponry was superior, and European diseases ravaged their population. In despair, the Taino engaged in mass suicide, even killing their own children to save them from the Spaniards” Christopher Columbus - Wikipedia
Also, fine, 1494, but Columbus landed in the Carribean, the American continent was first “discovered” by Leif Erikson, who landed in Newfoundland around the 11th century. Plus there’s even a little evidence (much in debate, of course) that the phoenecians were here thousands of years before, but then you start getting into theories about Atlantis and all that kind of stuff and there’s really just not enough supporting evidence there
Well, I guess it is all a matter of POV. I have said Columbus was not gifted as a leader and had many human shortcomings. The fact that he was far from prefect in other areas does not detract from the feat. On the other hand I believe he was a great navigator and knew well enough what he was doing. There is a good chance that he knew more than he was letting on. Maybe he had talked to seamen who had been to Greenland or Nova Scotia. His route taking advantage of the trade winds was optimal. He obviously knew quiet a bit.
Try again.
Gosh, I can’t believe someone would not know the exact date; much less someone participating in this thread.
Precisely. The question was not whether the Earth was round — the question was how far is it to India? The leading seafarers of the day figured the journey to be about 12,000 miles, a voyage of certain death; Columbus was using the wrong figures and guessed the distance at 2,300 miles.
When he hit the West Indies it’s hardly surprising that he thought he had reached his destination. It tallied with his calculations.
Maybe a monkey just flew out of my butt. Which scenario do you think is statistically more likely?
Guy gets pretty lucky in regards to the New World being where he thought something else might ought to be.
Italian guy gets some insider information from some Norse folk, who happen to live a thousand away. They also speak different languages, and there isn’t any written record of note of the Norsemen preserving any charts or whatnot from a voyage to the New World. Furthermore, there are no Norse records in Italy or Spain of a “new world”. Also, said Norse voyage went down about 500 years ago.
I’m not saying the Norsemen didn’t make it to the New World at all, but by Occam’s Razor, scenario one sounds a lot more believable.
Denigrating Columbus for assorted misdeeds against the primitive and less-abled peoples he encountered misses the point that the historical deal for exploration is basically “winner take all.” Whether by luck or genius; lunatic guess or insightful reasoning–still winners and therefore still worthy of their place in history.
May not be fair; may not be noble, but there it is.
Tut-tutting about how naughty Genghis Khan or Timur or Alexander or Columbus were comes across as sour grapes and some sort of modern sense of fairness pasted upon conquerors in an effort to diminish the incompetence of the peoples they vanquished to defend themselves.
Except that the chances of Columbus choosing his route in ignorance and out of lucky chance are infinitessimally small. Columbus had good knowledge of Atlantic trade winds and currents because he had sailed there before and because he had studied and learnt from others.
there is a good possibility that the reason he was so intent in pursuing his plan was that he had information that land was to be found to the west. Maybe what he heard was myth but it motivated him. Maybe what they were talking about was St Brendan’s island. No one knows. But one thing which is certain is that it was not just that he was a totally ignorant crackpot with no knowledge. On the contrary, while he may have had some of his facts wrong, he was a superb navigator and sailor.
I’ve already presented a possible chain of reasoning upthread, one slightly more probable: Columbus began planning for his voyages in 1485, eight years after the first-ever printing of Ptolemy’s Geographica, containing the erroneous distances supplied by Marinos of Tyre. These may have seemed like “new” and daring figures when they were printed in 1477, and Columbus may have read of them; however, they were 15 centuries out of date and about as reliable as an Internet glurge letter.
So in other words, you’re saying that Columbus was a great man and worthy of a place in the history books because he went someplace that a bunch of other folks had gone to before and told him about.
Last week, I went to Albertson’s grocery store. My voyage was not crackpottery or luck at all; I went secure in the knowledge that it was there, since I had heard reports of its existence from other intrepid grocery shoppers. And indeed, I did reach the fabled store, and brought back wonders from it, including a container of marvelous material containing milk which had miraculously had its fat content reduced. Why don’t any history books mention me?
We heard how you enslaved the produce department and destroyed their native culture. They were a peace-loving society where fruits and vegetables lived together in harmony.
The he-learned-about-the-New-World-from-the-Norse theory doesn’t sound likely to me. If the Norse had reliable knowledge of a new continent somewhere to the West, why didn’t they go themselves? At the time of Leif Ericson’s voyage, Vikings were in pretty good shape, navy-wise; they were more than coastal raiders, certainly. Ericson’s voyage comes within 10 years of the reign of King Cnut, who ruled Norway, Denmark and England. Surely if there were clear directions to known lands the Vikings would’ve conquered them themselves.
I can only guess that by the time of Columbus, the Norse tales of Ericson’s voyage had achieved the status of legend: vague and pretty much useless. If Columbus had little more than legend to go from, it’s a wonder he didn’t set sail for Atlantis.
Well, at that time it was difficult to discern myth from certain fact so Columbus might have relied on several sources and ideas of varying degree of truth.
I believe National Geographic did an article years ago showing Basque fishermen had been fishing in the Terranova banks for some time before 1492 and had even come ashore and built temporary structures but never settled or showed any other interest.
At that time some guy could tell you stories about fantastic islands and lands and mermaids and dragons and it just depended on whether you chose to give his stories any credit. Even centuries later people believed in witches and the supernatural and it was difficult to separate true fact from myth.
It is very possible that Columbus based his beliefs in a mixture of sources, some more reliable than others and some maybe totally ficticious.
What counts is that he did the feat and thus opened the door to everything that came afterwards. Some Basques or Vikings probably set foot on American soil before he did but this did not have the same consequences. Like somebody who sees something shiny on the ground but does not realize it is a gold mine.
) And yes, he did enslave people, a lot of people, a lot of people he himself described as “incapable of hate” (and I can’t link a source because, as I said, I read it in an excerpt from his personal journal back when I was in college). Sure we can hold everyone to today’s standards, but to simply ignore all the terrible crap the guy did is an insult to the people he did that terrible crap to. I don’t condemn everyone who lived more than a century ago, but I understand that the founding fathers of the USA were slave owners and take the quote “all men are created equal” with a grain of salt due to that fact.