Why is the true history of Christopher Columbus overlooked?
Who was Christopher Columbus?
Christopher Columbus (translating to Cristoforo Colombo in Italian) was a Genoese explorer who is often credited for discovering what we now know as America but was really Turtle Island. Framing Christopher Columbus as the discoverer of America perpetuates the Whitewashing of history and the erasure of Indigenous peoples. The Tainos, Arawaks, Ciboneys, Guanahatabeyes, and other tribes Indigenous to Southern America already inhabited the Americas. Not only did Indigenous people previously inhabit what we now know as America, but the Vikings (notably Leif Erikson) are believed to have visited America nearly four centuries prior to Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus was born into a family of merchants, wool workers, and weavers. His family was respected among the ruling elite but not abundantly wealthy. Columbus worked as a chart marker, but he had more interest in sailing. Columbus launched his career by buying sugar; years later, he began trading along the Guinea and Gold Coast of West Africa. In 1484, Columbus requested John II of Portugal to aid him in the Atlantic crossing. After being denied, he turned his attention towards gaining support from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. The question remains: Why not acknowledge that Indigenous people were here first or that at least the first Europeans to step foot into what is now America were the Vikings? By framing Christopher Columbus as the first person to “discover” the Americas, we are normalizing colonial violence and portraying the genocide of Indigenous people as natural. We also deny Indigenous people’s existence and, with that, the trauma, violence, and displacement they have endured.
The Spanish Empire & Christopher Columbus
The Spanish Empire was seeking new trade routes to Asia, and it wanted Christopher Columbus because his voyage westward could lead to the development of a faster trade route. The Spanish Empire wanted to expand its hegemony to Asia by using Christianity to enforce assimilation. By using Christianity, the Spanish Empire could force its culture on its subjects and compete for power against other empires like Portugal. However, it is known now that Columbuses voyage, backed by the Spanish monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, led to the colonization of Southern America, not Asia. At this time, the Spanish Empire was eager to build upon its wealth by gaining resources and claiming ownership over land. Demonstrating that empires built their wealth through exploitation, violence, and land theft. Without these factors, achieving mass amounts of wealth/power would have been impossible. The Spanish Empire was fixated on extracting gold and silver and entirely open to using violent and dehumanizing measures. When Columbus set off on his voyage, he carried the flag of the Catholic monarchs. He also brought priests and missionaries. This symbolizes how Catholicism and Columbus’s expedition to Southern America were another measure for the Spanish Empire to expand and gain more power. Catholicism was a tool for Spanish colonial governance, enabling dominance dependent on control, conversion, and cultural assimilation.
Columbus’s Voyage to the Bahamas and Cuba
Christopher Columbus began his expedition, lasting two months, in what he believed was Asia. In 1492, he first arrived in the Bahamas, which he named San Salvador, which the Lucayans had previously called the island Guanahani. Archaeological findings have confirmed that Lucayans lived in pole and thatch dwellings. They used tools made from stone and bones and designed pottery from clay and shells. Lucayan people fished and commonly consumed shellfish. They also grew crops, including agave. When Columbus first encountered the Lucayans, he was greeted warmly with food and water. The Lucayans had asked Columbus and his men if they came from heaven, which he later wrote in his journal.
Columbus traveled along the Bahamas for a couple of days, and after unsuccessfully finding gold, he and his men captured several Lucayan people. It is currently unknown what happened to the Lucayan people they captured. After leaving San Salvador, Columbus sailed southward and arrived at the northern coast of Cuba. On October 28, 1492, he arrived at Puerto de Nipe and christened it by naming it “Juana” in honor of Prince Don Juan, the son of Queen Elizabeth. At this time, he believed he had reached the outskirts of Cathay (Northern China). On his brief voyage, he encountered the Taíno people. The Taíno people were friendly and greeted Columbus and his men with food. Taínos were farmers and fishers due to the landscape and natural resources of their environment. After he could not find gold, he continued his voyage to Southern America. Indigenous people were warm and welcome to Columbus, but he had his own goals he sought to achieve and did not care about the bloodshed in the process.
After arriving in Spain on March 15, 1493, he wrote a letter describing what he had found to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Columbus admits the Indigenous people were kind and generous people, “The inhabitants . . . are all, as I said before, unprovided with any sort of iron, and they are destitute of arms, which are entirely unknown to them, and for which they are not adapted; not on account of any bodily deformity, for they are well made, but because they are timid and full of terror. . . . But when they see that they are safe, and all fear is banished, they are very guileless and honest, and very liberal of all they have.” Columbus exploited the warmness of Indigenous people by enforcing violence (and sometimes sexual violence) onto them, proving that constant expansion and the need for resources create the conditions for violence and exploitation to arise. It is also rather interesting that Columbus finds it odd that Indigenous people do not have arms. Columbus serves as an early example of how early colonial figures viewed Indigenous people as “uncivilized” for not being equipped with weapons or living in a similar manner as the colonizers. In a later excerpt of his letter, he notes how he wanted Indigenous people to worship the Spanish Empire, “I gave them many beautiful and pleasing things, which I had brought with me, for no return whatever, in order to win their affection, and that they might become Christians and inclined to love our King and Queen and Princes and all the people of Spain; and that they might be eager to search for and gather and give to us what they abound in and we greatly need.” Columbus viewed Indigenous people as pawns. If he brought them items in his mind, it would result in them becoming loyal subjects of the Spanish Empire and accepting colonial violence as their fate. Columbus wanted Indigenous people to submit to the Spanish Empire because by doing so, it would allow for them to assimilate into the colonizer’s culture.
Columbus’s Initial Arrival in Hispaniola
When Columbus and his men arrived in Hispaniola (which is now known as the Dominican Republic and Haiti), they were greeted by the Arawaks, who were the people Indigenous to Hispaniola. The Arawaks had abundant agriculture of corn, yams, and cassava. Columbus became intrigued by the gold ornaments hanging from their ears and asked them to show him where the gold was. Columbus was determined to find gold, spices, and silk and was willing to exploit and dehumanize the Indigenous population for his own aims. In Hispaniola, Columbus left thirty-nine men to build a settlement called La Navidad in what is now Haiti. Columbus issued a court report claiming that he reached Asia (which was Cuba) and China (Hispaniola). He also promised the King and Queen he would bring enslaved people and gold so he could be granted more men and ships. Kidnapped several Indigenous people (anywhere from ten to twenty-five) to take back to Spain, but only eight survived.
Columbus’s Exploitation of Arawaks
Columbus and his men held Arawaks captive as they became aware of Columbus’s presence. Columbus abducted women and children and enslaved them for sexual intercourse; they were commonly gifted to crew members. Columbus and his men would violently rape and beat them. Columbus is a figure who is celebrated in America, even having his own holiday. As of 2021, there were around 149 monuments dedicated to Columbus in the United States, according to The Monument Lab. The United States has made it clear that it idolizes white violence and applauds the dehumanization of Indigenous people. This, of course, is very fitting since the United States was built off of the genocide of Indigenous people. The normalization of white violence upholds the roots of the settler-colonial project of the United States, ensuring that inhabitants of the United States do not question colonial violence but simply accept it. When Indigenous people are brought into discussions, especially in classrooms, they are portrayed as “backward” or “uncivilized.” But a lot of the time, their existence is wiped from the equation. I remember when I was in school, and I learned about Christopher Columbus. Indigenous people were erased from the discussion, or if they were brought up, they were framed in a negative light, and of course, Columbus was portrayed as a hero always. Promoting ignorance shields the masses from the grim reality that the United States’ existence depended on the bloodshed of Indigenous people and the enslavement of Black people, too. It was no secret Columbus was committing atrocity, but it will always be hidden by using white supremacy or the erasure of Indigenous people. The violence used to build the United States was always there, but those born with the power did not have to see it (White Americans) and could escape it by never educating themselves or resorting to racist logic.
According to Columbus’s notes, men “seized about five women each as their concubines, while others marauded across the island in search of villages with gold.” As for pregnant Arawak women who were abducted, they would give birth, and their babies would be fed to hungry dogs. Columbus established a business in which he would trade young Arawak girls (above the age of nine) for sexual slavery. Columbus and his men failed to discover gold fields, prompting them to go on a slave raid in 1495. They rounded up 1500 Arawak men, women, and children and forced them into pens guarded by dogs. Of the 1500 Arawaks rounded up, 500 were chosen to be put on the ships, and 200 died on the route. The remaining Arawaks were put up for sale and later died in captivity. Arawaks above 14 were coerced to bring gold to Columbus and his men every three months. Those who succeeded received a copper token worn around the neck. Those who did not obtain a bronze token had their hands cut off by Columbus and his men and bled to death. The Arawaks would find tiny specks of gold in the streams, but there were no significant quantities of gold. The Arawaks, who realized they could not meet Columbus’s demands, fled. When Columbus and his men noticed them escaping, they would send dogs to hunt down the Arawaks; when they were found, Columbus would kill them.
The Fate of the Arawaks
Most Arawaks resorted to committing suicide by using cassava. As Columbus realized there were only minimal amounts of gold, he enslaved more Arawaks and coerced them to perform intensive labor. Arawak men would mine while the women worked with crops and cassava. The Arawaks died by the 1000s due to exhaustion; Columbus would also mindlessly kill the Arawaks by testing the sharpness of his weapons on them. Columbus and his men were ruthless killers and should be remembered as such; Americans’ idolization of Columbus demonstrates how America will always be a settler-colonial country built on violence and dehumanization. When we Americans celebrate Columbus Day, we are celebrating the violence and trauma Indigenous people endured. Columbus nearly eradicated the population of Arawaks by forcing them to perform intensive labor and forcing women and children into sexual enslavement. The mindless murdering of the Arawaks displays Columbuses and the Spanish Empire’s thirst for monetary power and desire to use superiority to attain it. Despite Columbus’s goal of erasing the Arawaks, a small population of Arawaks still survives, primarily in Guyana, French Guiana, and Venezuela.
Columbus is a Villain, not a Hero.
In the United States, Columbus Day is commonly celebrated on October 9; we should scratch his entire legacy. His legacy is nothing but blood. Among Italians, Columbus became a symbol of acceptance and assimilation into White America. In Matthew Frye Jacobson’s book “Whiteness of a Different Color,” he discusses how the social construction of Whiteness was framed during mass immigration. Roughly around the 1870s-1920s, the United States saw a massive wave of immigration where migrants would arrive at Ellis Island. Whiteness became more restrictive and excluded certain Europeans, such as Irish people and Southern Italians. The majority of Italians fleeing were Southerners and Sicilians desperate to escape poverty. However, in Italy, there has always been a divide between the North and the South; the divide dates back to when the South was separated by city-states called “The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.” Southern Italy was settled primarily by Greeks, and Germanic Lombards settled in Northern Italy. When Italy became unified in 1861, the South was left with high poverty rates, so organized crime began to develop. When Southern Italians attempted to flee poverty, they, among other Europeans, were split into two categories: they were either designated as Whiter and more worthy of citizenship or closer to Blackness and ousted from White America. Darker-skinned Southern Italians were sometimes not allowed in schools, labor unions, or movie houses. Southern Italians were often employed at jobs typically performed by Black people. The holiday commemorating Columbus became a symbol for predominantly Southern Italian’s acceptance of Whiteness. Italians, particularly Southern Italians, need to reevaluate how they became viewed as White. All Americans need to ponder how the United States thrives off of colonial violence and idolizing villains (such as the founding fathers, war criminals, etc). The celebration of Christopher Columbus represents how systemic racism is embedded in America’s foundation.
Sources cited
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, “Columbus Reports on His First Voyage, 1493.” www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/columbus-reports-his-first-voyage-1493#:~:text=The%20inhabitants%20.%20.%20.%20are%20all,.%20.%20.%20.%20But%20when%20they.
