Poli-ticks

Is Christopher Columbus being scapegoated?

By Arlene Violet
Posted 10/18/17

Nary has a Columbus Day arrived each year without some protest of the holiday. In Providence, his statue was defaced with red paint. Now, I obviously don’t think that Columbus discovered …

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Poli-ticks

Is Christopher Columbus being scapegoated?

Posted

Nary has a Columbus Day arrived each year without some protest of the holiday. In Providence, his statue was defaced with red paint. Now, I obviously don’t think that Columbus discovered America since it is obvious that the indigenous people did. That’s why I like Indigenous People Day. I also think, however, that Columbus may be getting a bum rap. Here’s why:
Professor Carol Delaney received her MTS from Harvard Divinity School and a PHD in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago. She was a professor at Stanford University and a research scholar at Brown University, both places which are hardly bastions of conservatism. I ordered her book, "Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem", and it was a thoughtful and readable scholarly work.

Her research took her to various cities where Columbus lived and formulated his project. His daily diary was used as source material as well as other contemporary writings. Her quest to get a clearer look at his legacy led her to Genoa to not only to see the precious documents there but to also get a sense of the city. Seville housed the Ferdinand Columbus’ library, including his father’s books. In Madrid, she met a direct descendant who had a trove of documents. In Simancas' library she perused the five hundred year old letters of Columbus and so-on to other depositories of source material.

She posits that Columbus was not only inspired to find a route to the Orient to obtain vast sums of gold by trade, but primarily to fund a new crusade to take Jerusalem from the Muslims (which was believed at the time to have an apocalyptic urgency since it had to be done by the end of the world). He was a deeply religious person and he embraced alliances with the natives. When he was physically present in the Caribbean he punished his men who harmed the natives. Despite living in a European culture that condoned slavery, Columbus himself would not and did not own slaves. When the Caonabo, an indigenous tribe, killed some Europeans that Columbus left behind, he ordered his men to pacify the Indians by making sure that they "receive no injury, suffer no harm, and that nothing was to be taken from them against their will; instead make them feel honored and protected so as to keep them from becoming perturbed” (Id at p.145.) What Columbus didn’t know was that the men under the commander he had left behind in his stead had gone on rampages, marauding the native villages and raping the women, thusly provoking the tribe.
Professor Delaney certainly makes the case that Columbus should be studied in the context of his times rather than through the microscope of present mores. After reading her book I was motivated to study further research on Columbus. It’s high past time that academics who sometimes lead the protests against Columbus delve into their own study of the man, which may lead to a reappraisal of his legacy.

Our Founding Fathers, some of whom owned slaves, are accorded the courtesy of a full study to exact the good and the bad. Christopher Columbus should have the same appraisal without the knee-jerk condemnation they is in vogue on college campuses. Perhaps before the next Columbus Day rolls around, the contributions and life of the man should be the subject of study, not condemnation.

Arlene Violet is an attorney and former Rhode Island Attorney General.

Arlene Violet

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