Their brief history of the holiday, however, leaves out important milestones such as the American Indian Movement's opposition to the holiday and the observance of alternative holidays established through legislation in some states. The History Channel gives a biographical overview of the life of Columbus and a summary of the controversies about Columbus. "Increasingly, Columbus became symbolic of an encounter that raised uncomfortable questions about conquest, colonialism, and destruction of peoples and habitats." It might not be fair to lay the blame at Columbus' feet, but since all sides treat him as a symbol, such questions cannot be avoided."Īnnenberg Media approaches Columbus under the heading History and Memory, pointing out "Until recently, Columbus was revered as an intrepid explorer and civilizer in many parts of the world, not least the United States." Annenberg's primary and secondary materials demonstrate that increased scientific and archaeological evidence propelled an historiographic change. On the other hand, the direct result of this and later voyages was the virtual extermination, by ill-treatment and disease, of the vast majority of the Native inhabitants, and the enormous growth of the transatlantic slave trade. "On the one hand, is witness to the tremendous vitality and verve of late medieval and early modern Europe-which was on the verge of acquiring a world hegemony. Their preface to this wall-to-wall, unadorned transcription summarizes the tension of conflicting interpretations. The Internet Medieval Sourcebook from Fordham University published extracts from the journal of Christopher Columbus in his voyage of 1492. Instead, the timing of his four voyages opened the New World to Europeans during an era of growing imperialism and trade expansion. Columbus set out to find a western route to Asia. The umbrella of Columbus Day hosts this variety of political, religious, and ethnic groups who have mobilized to create celebrations and traditions that reinforce and legitimize their own perspectives and experiences.īroadly speaking, the narrative of Columbus is one of unintended consequences. Why are cities, streets, and schools named after him, and why do memorials to him appear in every state in the country? Over the centuries, Italian Americans, Catholic and Protestant religious groups, American Indians, Hispanic Americans, government bodies, and more have seen Christopher Columbus as a symbol of unity and of opposition and of power. So why is he one of only two individuals with his own national holiday in America? (Martin Luther King, Jr., of course, is the other). Nineteenth-century author Washington Irving is responsible for ascribing that feat to Columbus in his 1828 publication, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, a fictional account represented as biographical. Renaissance scholars inherited their surety about a rounded shape of the world from antiquity. Neither were his voyages decisive straws breaking the back of the flat earth myth. The land had been inhabited for centuries, and other explorers from Europe, Asia, and Africa had already landed here. Contrary to what our grandparents-and perhaps parents-were taught, Christopher Columbus did not discover America in 1492.
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