The Legacy of Christopher Columbus
an essay by
Nyssa Stephanie Rene Woods
email:mkwoods@csj.net
Homeschooled, 10th grade
Reverend James Caldwell Chapter NSDAR
746 words
Perhaps more than any other single figure in American History,
Christopher Columbus sparks controversy. By some people, he is
praised as a hero of courage and vision. Other people utterly
despise Columbus as a villain of the first order who enslaved the
natives. Somewhere in the mix of those divergent opinions exists
the truth about the legacy of Christopher Columbus.
Columbus was a man armed with the dream of reaching the East
Indies by sailing West. Columbus possessed mixed motives. First,
he wanted to bring the Christian Faith to the inhabitants of the
Indies. He was described by his contemporaries as a pious and
thoughtful man. These were the qualities which most impressed
Queen Isabella. Second, and arguably of equal or greater
importance as a motive, Columbus wanted a share in the wealth of
any trade with the Indies in order to secure his and his family's
financial future. Doing better by doing good is certainly a
familiar enough refrain in the opera of human history. Third,
Columbus was ambitious. He demanded of the Crown that he be named
"Viceroy of the Indies" and "Admiral of the Ocean Seas." These
were not titles attached to sinecures. Yet, Columbus' talents
were not in administration. Viceroy was a role beyond his
abilities and that is where the trouble truly began.
Legend says that Queen Isabella pawned her jewels to fund
Columbus' voyages. It is true that Isabella had some history of
putting her gems out as collateral in times of dire necessity.
However, the 1492 voyage was funded by back taxes owed the Crown
taken in the form of two small ships and crews.
The financing deal which the Spanish Crown worked out with
Columbus called for him to repay the Crown for the expenses of
mounting the voyages out of Columbus' share of the proceeds from
the resulting trade. At the time of the agreement, Columbus, his
mind filled with images of the untold riches of the East, had no
idea just to what extremes he would be forced in order to meet
his obligations.
Those obligations and the stresses involved should not be
understated. Instead of finding a land of great wealth in the
forms of carpets, familiar spices, and gold, Columbus was forced
to deal with very little gold, strange plants, stranger animals,
and uncooperative, to the point of homicidal, natives. Michael de
Cuneo wrote a letter dated October 28, 1495 in which it is clear
feelings in Spain existed that both Columbus' adventures may have
been a very expensive failure; and that the future livelihood of
the colonists whom Columbus had brought with him on the second
voyage depended on Columbus being able to show a profit. Cuneo
wrote, "I am very much afraid that he will have to abandon
everything."
Columbus' own letter to the Spanish Crown dated July 7, 1503
acknowleges that Spanish sentiment, "When I discovered the
Indies, I said that they were the world's wealthiest realm...But
because not everything turned up at once, I was vilified."
Faced with the urgent need to show a profit, Columbus turned
to the largest marketable resource that he could see- a resource
which conquerors, regardless of their culture, have always
utilized- human labor. It was an act of utter desperation when
Columbus ordered the catching of natives to ship back to Spain as
slaves.
Michael de Cuneo wrote the most detailed account we have of
the first islanders being taken as slaves in his October 1495
letter. Over one thousand six hundred islanders were captured.
All but five hundred and fifty escaped. On February 17, 1495,
ships laden with those five hundred and fifty natives, who were
to be sold as slaves, departed the islands. Yet, by the time they
had arrived in Spain, nearly two hundred had died and been
unceremoniously buried at sea. Cuneo wrote, "...we reached Cadiz,
in which place we disembarked all of the slaves, half of whom
were sick. For your information, they are not working people and
they very much fear cold, nor have they long life."
What is the truth about the legacy of Columbus? Was he a
pious man of great vision? Was he a great sailor? Was he an
ambitious man who found himself involved in a venture riddled
with political overtones and impossible demands? Was he an
incompetent administrator who made very costly mistakes? The
truth is, Columbus was all of those things, and more. He was a
man, like all men, jointly capable of great virtue and grave sin.
List of Works Consulted.
Traditional Publications
Baron, Robert C. ed.Soul of America Documenting Our Past Vol.I
1492-1870. Golden, Colorado:North American Press, 1994.
Davis, Kenneth C. Don't Know Much About History: Everything
You Need to Know About American History (But Never Learned).
New York: Crown Publishing, 1990.
Irving, Washington. Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus,
abridged ed. London: John Murray, 1835.
Kammen, Michael. Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation
of Tradition in American Culture. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.
Morison, Samuel E. The European Discovery of America: The
Southern Voyages 1492-1616. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1974.
Morison, Samuel E. The Journals and Other Documents on the
Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. New York: Heritage
Press, 1963.
Wilford, John Noble. The Mysterious History of Columbus: An
Exploration of the Man, the Myth, the Legacy. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Related Internet Sites Consulted
Columbus Day.
http://deil.lang.uiuc.edu/web.pages/holidays/Columbus.html
Columbus Navigation Homepage by Keith Pickering
http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/
1492: An Ongoing Voyage.
http://sunsite.unc.edu/expo/1492.exhibit/c-Columbus/columbus.html
On the 500th Anniversary of Columbus' "Discovery" of America
by Ken Ficara and Robert J. Howe.
http://www.panix.com/~ficara/writing/columbus.html