Historical revisionists, that is.
I’m getting so sick and tired of crap like this:
Schools Emphasize Negative Aspects of Columbus
TAMPA, Fla. — Jeffrey Kolowith’s kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer’s picture on a timeline through history.
Kolowith’s students learn about the explorer’s significance — though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend.
“I talk about the situation where he didn’t even realize where he was,” Kolowith said. “And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy.”
Columbus’ stature in U.S. classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe his namesake holiday on Monday. Although lessons vary, many teachers are trying to present a more balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations.
You know, it’s all well and good to admit that Columbus was a less-than-nice man who acted pretty much like any other European adventurer would have, and brought European disease to the Americas which damn near wiped out the indigenous population, etc. ad nauseum.
So what?
Yeah, modern scholarship indicates that Amerigo Vespucci or Erik the Red or any number of other historical personages may well have been here first.
Again, so what?
The man who is identified with the commercial opening of the Americas is Christopher Columbus. Anyone else who tried before him either failed utterly or didn’t have the backing needed to make a commercial success of the dangerous trans-Atlantic voyage.
He should be honored for his courage and his vision, no matter what happened in the follow-through. He expanded the outlook of the human race of his time, and without him and the subsequent Spanish involvement in the New World, it’s unlikely that the British and the French would ever have bothered getting involved themselves, or at least not when they did.
And if they hadn’t, where would be all be right now? In truth, most of us would probably be peasants working our tails off for the nobility…because without Columbus and the Spanish, there is no English navy, probably little reason for (or ability of) English settlers to ever be relocated to American shores, and finally, probably no American revolution. And if you think the native indigenes would have produced a Rome, or a Spain, or an England of their own, I want to know what funky weeds you’re smoking.
I don’t tend to engage in “what if” history, but that’s the way I see it. I’m convinced the human race is better off because Christopher Columbus managed to seduce Isabella of Spain into hocking her jewels so he could buy three pissy little caravels and sail them off into God-knew-what.
And it’s a damn shame kids today are being propagandized otherwise.
LATER: This article seems to be fearless and politically-incorrect. I recommend it.
My sister once successfully argued in a debate setting in class that the Indians started it. According to her research, they and the explorers were getting along until some bright boy decided to raid the palefaces, and it all went downhill from there.
I, personally, take the tack that what happened with Columbus is really no different than most of the explorers throughout history. When two cultures meet, it’s rare that they both come out with the long end of the stick.