It's always interesting to read about the intense reaction from certain communities to anything that disparages/challenges Columbus and his 'discovery' of North America.
As a European (and particularly, as a Brit) I tend to look at most of our 'explorers' as violent colonisers, and consequently have complex (but mostly negative) feelings towards them. It also seems that's the way the public opinion here is moving (at least in my microcosm).
Is that the same in the US? I understand it may be a little different, in that Columbus is so tied into the grand mythos of the creation of the US.
Columbus isn’t as high profile in U.S. schools as he was 30 years ago. It used to be a school holiday. No longer. That may have, at least partially, due to recognizing his negative role in regard to natives. It’s been a while so my memory in the matter is a bit fuzzy.
I grew up in a very conservative, southern, rural area. And we had fall break and never any mention of Columbus Day. In other words, if you called fall break Columbus day, no one would have cared. It just didn't come up. So I don't think revering Columbus has much to do with conservative vs liberal as much as certain ethnic groups like Italian Americans claiming him as one of their own.
It's a generational thing, but I would say that a large portion of Americans under the age of 50 have a "complex" opinion on the colonization of the Americas. Columbus isn't revered like he was 30-40 years ago.
Yeah, well, those of us over fifty aren't exactly tickled to find out that we were fed a heaping bucket of bullshit in grade school. Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!
True. Which is unfortunate because I'd like to think there are/were plenty of Italians and Italian-Americans more worthy of recognition. Dude never got to the mainland of the United States, sailed centuries before there was a United States, and didn't even sail for Italy.
>I tend to look at most of our 'explorers' as violent colonisers, and consequently have complex (but mostly negative) feelings towards them. It also seems that's the way the public opinion here is moving
Yes, I would say it is generally the same in the US, although I'm in Seattle which is a very liberal area. I imagine the opinion likely differs depending on where you're from and how you were raised
Keep in mind that you are in Seattle, where many people will today celebrate "Indigenous Peoples Day." Outside of liberal enclaves like Seattle, I guarantee you that there will be lots of schoolchildren singing about how "Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492."
One can't help but enjoy the delicious irony of there being a federal holiday for a person who never stepped foot in this country, who sailed under a flag that wasn't his own nationality, who by all historical accounts was a raping / murdering / pillaging rogue. And then getting schoolchildren to sing about him. Says something about our country, its values, and its education system.
4 States in the US celebrate Indigenous People's Day on Columbus day. This idea has been spreading over the years.
The largest resistance to this change is from Italian Americans (the holiday was created as a way of cementing their acceptance as a cultural group in the US which had long resisted their integration) and older people who feel that the left is destroying "the culture" of America (as if that's a longstanding concrete thing and not "something that was basically made up 40 years ago).
I think you see similar things in the US culture when it comes to the Founding Fathers (Jefferson in particular) and how there are conservative elements who will not stand for anyone challenging the narrative that these were solely brilliant, morally upstanding men who only wanted the best for the world with the idea that they were flawed human men of a time in which slavery was still happening and women were often just chattel.
TL-dr; There's a lot of people that feel that the importance of Columbus is more important than the fact that he raped someone.
I agree. It would be terrible to say that Columbus and Jefferson were on the same level of shitbaggery in almost any way.
My point was that the same "we have to defend our past" tropes tend to come out when attacks on either happen. You see it as well in people who defend the men of the confederacy. Any statement that "these are complex men who did things that led to our current world order, some good others bad" is met as an attack. There is a group of people who look at history and feel that everything is black and white, good vs evil, and that's simply not the case.
Columbus, despite being a violent and horrid person, changed history. Jefferson, despite being the Author of the Declaration of Independence, owned other humans.
>Any statement that "these are complex men who did things that led to our current world order, some good others bad" is met as an attack.
Except that's not how the statement is put forth. Instead we get something along the lines of "so and so was a murderous scumbag racist who blah blah blah, oh by the way you're a racist for not accepting that at face value". That doesn't exactly promote civil discourse about changing the status quo as to how so and so is viewed.
This isn't something of great importance to the overwhelming majority of the population and it doesn't play much of any role in most people's identity which explains to some extent why the discourse is dominated by a bunch of extremists on both sides (aka the few people who care) yelling at each other but that doesn't make those extremists right.
There is a parallel here. Jefferson was so cruel to his slaves that his friends tried to prevail upon him to be more considerate, for example in suggesting that he might reconsider his policy of breaking apart families for no particular reason other than the fun of causing suffering.
People are made of many parts. Jefferson was brilliant and farsighted, but also a vicious, selfish monster -- by the standards of his time.
Columbus himself was a true psychopath and deserves to be remembered as a pure villain. Other figures in European settlement/takeover of the Americas can have “complex” legacies.
New Haven has a large Italian-American community, and Yale released this the day before Columbus day. Even if the local Italian-American community had a nuanced view of Columbus by the 1960s (and they probably didn't), it would have been considered a cultural/historical holiday. It seems like releasing the map the day before the local community's heritage day was not done as a coincidence, and today we might call 'trolling'.
It might seem illogical, and yet less than a mile from where I sit there is a statute of Christopher Columbus, donated by the local Sons of Italy chapter. Generally they get together on this day each year and hold some speeches too. So while it is historically odd, he has become a symbol for many Italian-American groups.
I am told that the Knights of Columbus was founded in part because the Freemasons and the Catholic Church didn't get along, and thus Italian Americans could not generally join the Freemasons. Columbus was picked as an Italian who was important in America's history, to make it seem both Italian and American. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_Columbus#Early_year...
Even if the map isn't authentic, to quote the original article "Archeological discoveries at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland confirm that the Vikings had settlements in the Americas long before Columbus set sail".
"Although the Irish had reached and even established a religious community in Iceland before A.D. 800, there is nothing to connect Brendan with this venture. Nor is there any reliable evidence to show that either Brendan or any of his countrymen had ever reached Greenland or America."
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 78.8 ms ] threadAs a European (and particularly, as a Brit) I tend to look at most of our 'explorers' as violent colonisers, and consequently have complex (but mostly negative) feelings towards them. It also seems that's the way the public opinion here is moving (at least in my microcosm).
Is that the same in the US? I understand it may be a little different, in that Columbus is so tied into the grand mythos of the creation of the US.
I know some places are celebrating the same day as Indigenous Peoples' Day instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas
https://your.yale.edu/work-yale/benefits/paid-time/official-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbbMIg-Aw8E
Yes, I would say it is generally the same in the US, although I'm in Seattle which is a very liberal area. I imagine the opinion likely differs depending on where you're from and how you were raised
One can't help but enjoy the delicious irony of there being a federal holiday for a person who never stepped foot in this country, who sailed under a flag that wasn't his own nationality, who by all historical accounts was a raping / murdering / pillaging rogue. And then getting schoolchildren to sing about him. Says something about our country, its values, and its education system.
The largest resistance to this change is from Italian Americans (the holiday was created as a way of cementing their acceptance as a cultural group in the US which had long resisted their integration) and older people who feel that the left is destroying "the culture" of America (as if that's a longstanding concrete thing and not "something that was basically made up 40 years ago).
I think you see similar things in the US culture when it comes to the Founding Fathers (Jefferson in particular) and how there are conservative elements who will not stand for anyone challenging the narrative that these were solely brilliant, morally upstanding men who only wanted the best for the world with the idea that they were flawed human men of a time in which slavery was still happening and women were often just chattel.
TL-dr; There's a lot of people that feel that the importance of Columbus is more important than the fact that he raped someone.
My point was that the same "we have to defend our past" tropes tend to come out when attacks on either happen. You see it as well in people who defend the men of the confederacy. Any statement that "these are complex men who did things that led to our current world order, some good others bad" is met as an attack. There is a group of people who look at history and feel that everything is black and white, good vs evil, and that's simply not the case.
Columbus, despite being a violent and horrid person, changed history. Jefferson, despite being the Author of the Declaration of Independence, owned other humans.
Except that's not how the statement is put forth. Instead we get something along the lines of "so and so was a murderous scumbag racist who blah blah blah, oh by the way you're a racist for not accepting that at face value". That doesn't exactly promote civil discourse about changing the status quo as to how so and so is viewed.
This isn't something of great importance to the overwhelming majority of the population and it doesn't play much of any role in most people's identity which explains to some extent why the discourse is dominated by a bunch of extremists on both sides (aka the few people who care) yelling at each other but that doesn't make those extremists right.
Columbus was a clown, imperialism is bad, rape and enslavement are reprehensible, celebrating Columbus seems like a poor choice. Any thoughts?
People are made of many parts. Jefferson was brilliant and farsighted, but also a vicious, selfish monster -- by the standards of his time.
And https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/christopher-colum...
Native Americans are not exactly fans.
Fixed!
Source: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/brendan_saint_1E.html