Columbus

[kent_allard_jr]

I only realized it was Columbus Day when I ventured to the mailbox this afternoon. Now I understand why I'm hearing so much about the holiday. May I say, for the record, that I'd be happy to replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day. Columbus is an odd icon, after all, a lousy geographer who happened to stumble upon the Americas and who spent the rest of his life denying his own accomplishment. He was America's First Sucker. He only keep the holiday because Italian Americans make it a big deal.

I'd like to raise my pet peeve against the anti-Columbus brigade, though: Could we stop putting scare quotes around his "discovery" of America? Yes, yes, the Indians (and the Inuit, and the Norse) found the continents before he did. No one has ever disputed that. Nevertheless, from his standpoint, it was a discovery, just as you or I might discover buried treasure in our backyards or discover the great taste of RC Cola. You don't have to be the first!

Comments

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Mostly true. One thing I've read, though is that Columbus didn't so much discover the place as reveal a trade secret. The Basques and others who were fishing off the American coast may or may not have seen land, but knew by weather and water patterns that there was a substantial landmass to their west.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I've heard that, and it could be true for all I know. I don't think that's why folks use the scare quotes, though.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I've heard, but can no longer remember the source, that part of Columbus's certainty that he could reach India by sailing west from Europe was based on a weird Bible exegesis which convinced him that the sphere of the Earth was only ~17K miles in circumference.

Ahah! I just found a children's science lesson guide which confirms the outlines of what I said above (though it doesn't mention the Bible exegesis.) Columbus thought the circumference of the Earth was 18,800 miles, and that the land distance from Spain to China was 15,000 miles, so that he would only have to sail 3800 miles due west.

In fact, the circumference is 25,000 miles and the land distance is closer to 8000 miles. 3800 miles wouldn't even get quite get Columbus from Lisbon to Santa Domingo. The actual distance from Lisbon to Tokyo (a good surrogate for the easternmost point of Asia) is 17,000 miles. If he hadn't run into a previously unknown ENTIRE CONTINENT, he and his men would have died four times over.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember hearing (from Colin McEvedy, IIRC) that Columbus used the smallest estimate for the size of the Earth (one that, as you note, was wildly off the mark) and the largest for the size of Asia (one that was close to the truth) to argue that China was just a brief hop across the Atlantic. I compared it to the neocon use of faulty intel in an LJ entry a few years ago. Americans: Engaging in wishful thinking since 1492!