The Ultimate Question for Columbus Day

[Amaranthine]

No, I'm not talking about the founders that ACTUALLY created our government like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and those people, but I just want to see opinions on the ever, ongoing debate in the centuries, did Columbus ACTUALLY find America or was it Amerigo, the man our country is named after?

I think they both found the country, it's just that Columbus found the islands near Florida and just MAYBE a piece of Florida. Amerigo actually landed ON the continent of America. Unless I am missing the boat somewhere, why not have a national Holiday for Amerigo?

So, place your opinions and observations guys. And historians please correct me if I said any misleading information.

[Malte279]

Neither was the first. Even if we ignore the arrival of the native Americans via the Beringstrait and the expeditions of the the vikings to "Vinland". There were quite a few other arrivals who just didn't make much of a fuss about it. There is strong evidence that in 15th century French and Baskian fishermen actually made almost a habit of landing in Newfoundland to salt / conserve their catch from the Atlantic but never found it to be remarkable enough to tell much about it. I think I once even read something about a Chinese expedition (but I don't know any details without looking them up). There are also reports about a Welsh expedition (those are actually supposed to have stayed and mixed with the Mandan tribe) and also one from Ireland.
Now I am not saying that every single report has a real basis but I am convinced that the native Americans and the Vikings were not the only ones preceding Columbus. Columbus' expedition however undoubtedly started the great attention to the "new world" which he still believed to be India. Now this is where Amerigo Vespucci comes in because he is the one to be credited with first stating that not only this wasn't India but it even was an entirely unknown (at least to the great public) landmass. The name America was created by a German mapmaker, Martin Waldseem¸ller who mistakenly thought Vespucci to be the discoverer. Later Waldseem¸ller tried to correct the mistake naming the continent Columba or Columbia instead, but by that time the name America had stuck.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

I can't believe we have a day named after Columbus, after the atrocities he committed. Sure, they were acceptable for his day and age, but they certainly aren't acceptable now, and when you're one of only two people to have a holiday named after you, you have to be slightly better than just a massacrist.

[Malte279]

Of many people in history there is but a one sided picture in the presence. I absolutely agree that an uncritical glorification of Colon (why has he actually ever been renamed Columbus?) is very much out of place. The same would be true for an exclusive demonization of historic characters.
The day Colon landed on that island (they are still arguing which of several possible places actually was his landing site) certainly did have a tremendous impact on history (or rather was an important step about historical events set into motion much earlier) and to commemorate and be aware of the significance of historical events is not generally a bad thing. The difference between commemorating and celebrating is crucial here. So far I don't think there is really a day that is conducted in the US as a commemorating day that goes without any celebration / glorification of events.

[Noname]

To be fair, he IS responsible for sparking the European conquest of the New World, and for all intents and purposes, he WAS the first. Sure, Ericson was there earlier, but that's like saying Martin Luther didn't start the reformation because Jan Hus had a similar movement decades earlier. Columbus's voyage had literally trillions or quadrillions of times the impact as Ericson's trip. One left behind an interesting historical footnote, the other changed human history in irrevocable ways.

Whether you like what he (and smallpox) did to the natives, at the very least, his actions are directly responsible for or indirectly contributed to:

-The creation of EVERY state in Western Hemisphere, where a majority of Western Civilization now resides, including the richest and most powerful country in the world.

-The rise of the triangular trade, which enslaved million of Africans, set up large-scale plantations the likes of which had not been seen since Roman times. Combined with modern shipping and bookkeeping, they formed what was, to that point in time, the largest commercial enterprises ever seen.

-Providing a place overseas to ship off religious dissidents, "surplus" population, and providing for the creation of some of history's largest empires.

-In a lesser achievement, Columbus also was the first to navigate the Ocean for that long and that far, going a very long time before seeing land.

-He also initiated the Columbian exchange of crops, livestock... and diseases... from one hemisphere to another. Cattle, wheat, and pigs were examples of crops shipped into the Americas, while corn, tomatoes, and turkeys were shipped into Eurasia and Africa.

-Most indirectly of all, Columbus's achievements would one day enable Western countries to grow in a place that did not have entrenched nobilities and monarchs. Even though they had a king, he was thousands of miles away, across the ocean, and given the changing intellectual climate, it was much for nobles to stake claims in the new world, where many people would later run in order to escape being serfs or tenants on a farm (given how many Africans were enslaved here, this is ironic, but it DID mean new land for European settlers.) In the long run, this contributed massively to the formation of republics in the new world. No Columbus means no colonies; no colonies means no George Washington or Simon Bolivar.  

I'm not saying that you have to like what he did, but his impact, both direct and indirect, is massive. Not every great individuals gets his due; fewer people in America know who Constantine the Great is than they know who Babe Ruth was... and the former is responsible for legalizing Christianity! So basically, like it or not, we really should recognize Columbus's impact.

EDIT: Yes, it probably was Amerigo, but Columbus was there before him.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

But not as a holiday. As holidays are primarily days of celebration, I find it in poor taste to celebrate somebody who, despite his positive effects on White European society, completely demolished someone else's.

[Noname]

Well, it was as much smallpox that did it as anything else... (yes, I know of the infected blankets, even though people didn't know about germs then.)

And it is true that if not for what he did, democratic government would likely not exist, as it would have no place free from nobility, autocracy, and oligarchy to plant itself. If nothing else, America was a fresh slate; a new piece of land for that to happen.

[Amaranthine]

Neither was the first. Even if we ignore the arrival of the native Americans via the Beringstrait and the expeditions of the the vikings to "Vinland". There were quite a few other arrivals who just didn't make much of a fuss about it. There is strong evidence that in 15th century French and Baskian fishermen actually made almost a habit of landing in Newfoundland to salt / conserve their catch from the Atlantic but never found it to be remarkable enough to tell much about it. I think I once even read something about a Chinese expedition (but I don't know any details without looking them up). There are also reports about a Welsh expedition (those are actually supposed to have stayed and mixed with the Mandan tribe) and also one from Ireland.
 

Absolutely, there were other people before Columbus and Amerigo that found America, but I'm talking about the actual HOLIDAY of Columbus day and the fact that Amerigo KNEW it was a different land.

I'm not saying that you have to like what he did, but his impact, both direct and indirect, is massive. Not every great individuals gets his due; fewer people in America know who Constantine the Great is than they know who Babe Ruth was... and the former is responsible for legalizing Christianity! So basically, like it or not, we really should recognize Columbus's impact.

Indeed it was, people thought he was crazy because he believed the world was round and not flat, and he really wanted to prove fact by finding a route to Asia where he could prove the Earth was round. I absolutely agree that his impact was big, still I don't think anyone should force people to recognize what he did, but just educate people.

But not as a holiday. As holidays are primarily days of celebration, I find it in poor taste to celebrate somebody who, despite his positive effects on White European society, completely demolished someone else's.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but holidays really are just that, holidays. They are traditional celebrations that pass down from generation to generation. And people just don't want to stop celebrating their traditions for their own reasons.

I'm not trying to justify Columbus Day or even Columbus himself, but it WAS terrible what the European ancestors did to Native Americans. But now our political correctness in society has changed and it's always going to change. That's just politics and life.

Edit: And I apologize if I sound insensitive to the Native Americans, I'm just saying that people seem to not want to give up traditions in general.

[Noname]

Actually... educated people knew the world was round in his time. It had been common knowledge among the intelligent people since the time of the ancient Greeks. What they did NOT know was the presence of two more continents on the other side... or Australia, for that matter!    

[Nick22]

Columbus made the discovery by accudent, and certtainly wasn't the first. there is dispute where he actually landed, it might have been in the Bahamas.. as for his impact it was incalculable. as has already been stated, his discovery eventually lead to the founding of America in 1776, haiti in 1804, Mexico in 1821 and myraid others. as for the native people diseases the europeabns brought over decimated them, and those that survived were worked to death. the treatment of natives by Eurpeans and later Americans is appaling, and that should be weighed in so childsren get a more complete picture of what happened..

[Noname]

They already weighed it when I was in school. Still, you can only criticize him so much... after all, we'd be in Europe if not for him, no America, probably no democracy, I'd be posting this under a kingdom, parliament or not... Heck, I'd probably be in Calabria or Warsaw if that were the case, as there would be nowhere in the Americas for my grandparents to have immigrated to...

[Malte279]

The idea that people at Colon's time or even in the middle ages predominantly believed the earth to be flat is a popular myth brought up in the 19th century when (curiously enough) people on the one hand were out to discard the middle ages as a time of barbary to be looked down upon in a time in which the "writing classes" were very convinced of the own time's superiority while on the other hand the middle ages were also romanticized by writers like Sir Walter Scott who presented the middle ages as an age of virtues which were felt to be lost in the industrialized business-world. As for the earth being a globe, just take a look at medieval churches. They are swarming with globes symbolizing the "earth ball". Many central European churches had (and have) a globe bellow the cross on the spires, there are figures of saints incorporating "earth balls". As for secular examples one can take a look at a piece of "crown jewlery", the Globus cruciger. A globe symbolizing the earth with a cross on top of it in the hand of a king or emperor. The main concern was not about "falling of the earth" but rather about starving and dying of thirst (in case the ships were not smashed in a storm or something to that effect) on a journey so far from any shore.

In a sense the US may lack a precedense for a day of commemoration that is not at the same time a day of celebration or fond memory of glorious sacrifice (as is usually the case with days commemorated to fallen soldiers). In Germany there is the very ambiguous 9th of November. It was suggested for a national holiday (9th November 1918 = Novemberrevolution that basically ended the Monarchy in Germany and put an end to WW1, 9th November 1989 = Fall of the Berlin Wall) the suggestion was turned down because the 9th of November is also the day (1938) for the dreadful pogromes against Jews that have often been euphemised as "Reichskristallnacht". There are more days of commemoration rather than celebration over here which are not always holidays in the sense of people getting a day of from work. January 27th is commemorated as the day of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp. On May 8th which is mostly VE day in the English speaking world the horrors of the Holocaust and the nazi regime are comemmorated and the question of responsibility is addressed. You can imagine neither day to be one of "merry celebration". I do not think that there is a single day remotely similar to that in the US as usually, even in case of commemoration (e.g. Martin Luther King day) the glory of the one commemorated rather than the evils that he fought (often seen as a matter of the past) are in the foreground. In case of the Columbus day I think it may be similar to the 9th of November in Germany and yet different as with the 9th November different events just "happened" on the same day while here we have a trigger for all that was to come with regard to horrors but also brought about events which ultimately created the state of things that we would refer to as today.

One thing is for certain (and here I must twist the famous anecdote of the egg of Columbus the other way round) if Columbus had not "discovered" America, somebody else would have before long. It is not likely (or much rather it would just plain nonsense to assume) that with a different explorer things would have turned out differently for the Native Americans. He is not alone to blame, but I perfectly agree that he is not a praiseworthy example.
One problematic thing about the glorification of people in the past is that there is hardly one who would really turn out as "good" as he or "she" is idealized. But do we have to fix so entirely on individuals at all when it comes to history?
I agree that in many cases the actions of a single person have had a strong influence on the turn of history, but especially in case of Colon it is more likely than not that there would have been a similar course of history with regard to the events closely linked to him if he had never lived (of course the overall image of the world would change drastically due to how people ever since habe been influenced by tales etc. of Columbus).

[Noname]

You are correct to an extent; although it is likely that someone would have been able to discover the New World besides Columbus, we do not know what that would do to history. For all we know, it could have taken another 150 years for someone to go to the Americas, or even longer!

By that time, it is unknown what would have happened in Europe. Would democracy have worked? Would Europe develop to the point that advances in transportation would have enabled the Europeans to send in troops fast enough to crush Washington and Bolivar's rebellions? Would the French Revolution (partially inspired by the American one) have occurred at all? We don't know.

[Malte279]

For all we know, it could have taken another 150 years for someone to go to the Americas, or even longer!

This is not very likely. Colon was a discoverer who gets a lot of attention naturally, but he did not trigger the age of discovery that followed in the the sense that there would not have been all the other expeditions if it had not been for the expedition of Colon. With the fall of Constantinople (1453) and the ever less stable situation on the Balkans the European countries were bound to look for other ways to India and even with the way round Africa rediscovered by Vasco da Gama it is not likely that in that age of exploring (promoted also by the momentous development of the printing press that made exchange of thought a lot easier and the development of new ideas and thoughts more worthwhile) nobody would have thought of sailing west for another 150 years. There can be no certainty about what if scenarios on history and I will not question for a second that the world would look rather differently had Colon not been there. Yet as for those differences I think they would not be on the general level (that is I don't think America would have remained undiscovered for another 150 years or the treatment of native Americans would have been widely different) but on a level much more delicate. Imagine the impact a different history would have had on billions of individuals just looking at your own lives. How many events / actions / time in our live was in some way determined by Colon? Books we read, lessons we had, movies we watched etc. Seeing that many a person's existance can be determined by an alarmclock set wrong (most of us will have such a story that their existence hung on a very thin thread) the not so general effects on the world can be even more striking than such general questions as when exactly the continent was discovered. And at the same time it is impossible to make good guesses on such "low level effects" as they would go into details of life that are just not recorded. One of such low level effects is that Washington and Bolivar would have probably never born had it not been for Colon doing what he did and when he did it, but other men who (as a consequence of Colon's actions) were never born might have performed similar tasks in a rather different setting.

[Noname]

This is not very likely.

Now who's saying their opinion as if it were fact? (to be fair, that's a less-than absolute statement on your part.)

Truth is, we don't know. It was over 150 years between Erickson and Columbus, and the largest differences between those times was navigation/shipbuilding technology, the incentive to get to trade routes, and the general levels of education.

This is hard to say; we know that Columbus did NOT intend to find a new pair of continents, and if the sea route around Africa had been developed more, it is possible that there would not have been as much incentive to find an alternate route. Other scenarios in the absence of Columbus's voyage when it happened are possible, such as a group of European nations leading an attack to dismantle the Ottoman Empire in order to restore the old trade routes (like a Crusade, of a sort), or to force it to reopen them for the west to use, at the very least.  

And on a lesser note, is putting spaces between your paragraphs too much to ask?  

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

^I think you erased part of your post on accident.
EDIT: Oh, you just weren't done yet. My bad. Ignore.

I as well can't imagine it would take 150 years for someone other than Colombus to make the journey, but the big problem I have with this holiday is, like I said, the whole Native American viewpoint. I also believe Andrew Jackson should be removed from the $20 bill for the atrocities he committed, like the Trail of Tears.

I don't have any Native American friends, but I would find it very hard to talk to them, saying Columbus was worthy of his own holiday for discovering America and bringing democracy and paving the way for the modern era. I couldn't speak to a Native American and say that.

That is, however, just me. I will not celebrate this holiday.

[Noname]

150 years is just a number I threw out there. Keep in mind that by 1650, Europeans were still exploring. Maybe they would have gone west Across the Atlantic later rather than soon. 150 could easily be 100, or just 50. We also need to consider that even IF someone went west Across the Atlantic Ocean, there was a good chance their voyage could fail. Columbus's voyage very nearly DID fail, in fact. Maybe it would have taken another 150 years for a successful voyage in that direction.

[Malte279]

Now who's saying their opinion as if it were fact?

First of all as you already noticed this was a less than absolute statement. Secondly I did come up with unimpeachable facts to base the assessment of the situation on. And thirdly the rule is very explicitly on statements that pose a thread to the peace in the GOF. I think I brought the example elsewhere that we are not going to hunt down anyone for making statements like "Black Forest cake is the best cake in the world!"
There is a crucial difference between such statements and statements directly attacking others like "your faith is pointless".
If you want to say more on the matter I strongly suggest this to be via email or MSN rather than warming up the whole matter here in the GOF again.

Other scenarios in the absence of Columbus's voyage when it happened are possible, such as a group of European nations leading an attack to dismantle the Ottoman Empire in order to restore the old trade routes (like a Crusade, of a sort), or to force it to reopen them for the west to use, at the very least.

It had been a very long time since the last successful crusade had been launched. One might argue the first one to be the only one which achieved temporarily the aim for which it was started.
Even before Luther came up religious factions were at odds with each other and the power of the pope was not quite the same as in 11th century anymore. While in 10th century the excommunication of Heinrich IV. forced that emperor into submission until the excommunication was lifted this sharp weapon of the pope had lost much of its cut ever since. The great shism with several popes in Rome, Avignon (more or less hostage of the French king), and Pisa had further damaged the image of the pope thereby diminishing his power to gather troops for crusades.
But not only the religious unity was cracked already but also the struggles of the different European countries both among each other as well as domestic wars (e.g. wars of the roses) made a unified advance against a common enemy very unlikely to achieve. The rise of trade as an ever more important factor and merchants as a factor to be reckoned with in politics would have given further incentive to the search for new trade routes at that time. The loss of some ships would have appeared an acceptable risk if the possible prize was a temporary monopole on a new trade route. New designs in shipbuilding and new means of navigation also changed the possibilities so dramatically from the possibilities existing in the middle ages that it would (in my opinion if you will, but it would be tricky to make a good argument on the likelihood of the contrary opinion) have been very unlikely for this new potential to remain unexploited for another 150 years.
Looking at the flourishing ship routes to the Americas in the aftermath of Colon's discovery also suggests the scenario that for 150 years to come expeditions would be launched but never succeed.
A failure of Colon to return, I will admit that, would have been likely to delay further expeditions in that direction under the support of the Spanish crown. Depending on how well known the failure would have been it might have even delayed expeditions in that direction with the backing of other European rulers but in a time of such extreme and rapid changes as the transfer from the middle- to the early modern age there are not many arguments in favor of the idea that so long a time span as 150 years would have passed before America would have finally been "discovered".

On the main point of the thread I think that a day of commemoration rather than unreflected celebration of the Columbus day would not be a bad thing. But I guess conducting commemoration on a day that is so crucial in every respect for the status of today is something that may not be easy to learn, especially if the day has been just celebrated so far.

[Petrie.]

To be fair, a lot of schools and govt. offices do not support Columbus Day as a holiday where you get time off.  NY isn't one of these as I had the day off but people are looking more into who Columbus really was and deciding for themselves whether he really is worthy of "praise" in this day and age.  I think in a few year's time, a lot of people will not "celebrate" Columbus for what really did occur, directly or indirectly from Columbus' interactions with natives in the Caribbean.

[Noname]

My God, can't you take a joke, Malte? The " " should have tipped you off...

And your facts are hardly unimpeachable... the rapid development of Europe did not necessarily mean that a ship or a fleet would necessarily sail into the Atlantic. Had things been different, such as repeated failures of voyages in that direction (a distinct possibility), history might have been "delayed."

And once again "150 years" is just a number put out there. If it makes you feel any better say "50 years" instead. 1542 instead of 1492. Suppose that there could have been two failed expeditions... or a third one which made it to a small island (e.g. St. Lucia), but brought back so little as to disincline any further exploration in that area for many years...

And as I recall, there were some successful (for a time) Northern Crusades... undertaken by Germans!  

There were some others as well (next passage from Wikipedia):

"A traditional numbering scheme for the crusades totals nine during the 11th to 13th centuries. This division is arbitrary and excludes many important expeditions, among them those of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. In reality, the crusades continued until the end of the 17th century, the crusade of Lepanto occurring in 1571, that of Hungary in 1664, and the crusade to Candia in 1669."

Could one have been directed against the Ottoman Empire? If the political climate had been different, sure.