Columbus as an Anti-racist symbol in American history, yes, you read that correctly -A couple great essays on Columbus Day

 History, like current events, tends to be complex. And when we write or speak about historical happenings, obviously, what gets discussed or reported is not necessarily what happened. Everyone knows that. 

But what's more important, is the way in which different aspects of history get looked at, emphasized, or de-emphasized. And different things become exposed or become clearer because they are looked at from different angles or perspectives. 

People tend to choose what they wish to remember, what they try to forget, and what the presumed lessons might be from real events that occurred in the past. And this changes over time.

When I was in graduate school studying Chinese history, my adviser, Sherman Cochran, simply loved a book called " Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past," by Paul A. Cohen.  Every time he spoke of it, his eyes lit up. Basically it's a history of how Americans have approached the study of Chinese history and how that has changed over the decades. Very interesting. Well worth reading for the serious historian.

(You can learn more about the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1952590.Discovering_History_in_China )

And nowhere at the moment, is this perhaps more true than with Columbus. He's shifted from hero to villain, when the truth was, obviously, much more complex. Of course, most people know that Columbus "discovered" America by accident while engaged on a ground-breaking, high-risk attempt to open a new trade route to India. Most of us also know that he never realized that he had found a pair of new continents and that when he did land, he not only treated the indigenous inhabitants very badly, he paved the way for years of exploitation and colonialism. Yet for decades he was and to many still is, remembered as a heroic figure. This needs to be put in context and not just swept aside as uninteresting and wrong headed. If I can cite Sherman Cochran, my above mentioned thesis advisor, an important part of studying and learning history is what motivated the people of a certain time and place to do and believe the things they did? And again, with Columbus, what not only motivates the people who are quick to cast him as a villain and destroy his statues, but what also motivated the people who worked hard to put those Columbus statues there in the first place? 

The answer, interestingly, is that both groups of people, the Columbus-statue-builders, and the Columbus-statue-destroyers, were motivated by anti-racism and the desire to make the United States a more equal and culturally embracing place to live. Yes, both sides.

Here are a couple essays that I found on the subject that I think are well worth reading. They both discuss Columbus and his fame and role as a hero in the context of Roman Catholic Italian-Americans seeking Italian-American heroes and symbols at a time when Protestant White Supremacist Nativist sentiment was an important part of the American societal landscape. In other words, they speak of the use of Columbus as a symbol and force against American racism.   

The first one is by Heather Cox Richardson, a historian and history professor at Boston College. She is responding to a recent 2020 White House Proclamation celebrating Columbus day. ( https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-columbus-day-2020/?utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0konL1VlriDq137qBSx70ko0JVWbTZev-2Gl50b1W9AicHtgpNjf06FZk ) Personally, I find her essay much more interesting and thoughtful than the White House Proclamation. 

Heather Cox's essay on Columbus from October 2020.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-12-2020?r=4msj0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy&fbclid=IwAR2KFmRd8HvIyHfI0VJECUeCnZDtIjBhlkm31ovtnW1uekJerGX70EwK8iI

Jason Colavito is an author and popular historian who specializes in analyzing and explain the actual facts behind sensationalized claims of ancient and early history, particuarly those involving claims of "ancient aliens." Here he writes of Columbus, again, as a symbol for countering discrimiation against Itlaian Americans. 

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-two-faces-of-columbus-how-a-genocidal-tyrant-became-an-anti-discrimination-icon-for-italian-americans

(As another aside, again when in graduate school studying Chinese history, my thesis advisor, Magnus Fiskesjo, recommended that I read a book called "Terra Cognita -The Mental Discovery of America," by Eviatar Zerubavel. If you have any interest in Columbus and the "discovery" of the New World by Europeans, I highly recommend this book. The author is an Israeli cartographer and his focusing is to find an answer to the question of "If Columbus did not know he had found new continents, when and how did Europeans realize they had found completely new continents? A so-called "New World"? In this book Zerubavel approaches the important question, seeking answers in maps by early explorers and others to see what they were representing of their discoveries and when and how they came to realize they had "discovered" something completely new. The answer, of course, is complex, and depicts an evolution of thought as more and more evidence is collected. Again, well worth reading. 

You can learn more about the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/379776.Terra_Cognita

Current Reading: Endurance, Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing

Endurance, Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing. 1959. Carrol and Graff Publishers. New York. 282pp. 

In 1914, a British expedition set sail for Antarctica. Carrying 27 men, its goal was to land on the southern continent and be the first men ever to traverse the continent on foot. Unfortunately, the expedition soon met with tragedy. The ship, The Endurance, became trapped in the ice and unable to escape. As the ice shifted and pressures on the ship grew, it became clear that the ship was going to be crushed and the only sane course of action was for the men to abandon the ship and set up camp on the Antarctic coast. Trapped, with no way home, but fortunately still equipped with a shipload of supplies, these men under the command of Ernest Shackleton survived six months alone and abandoned and out of communication with the outside world, moving camp and travelling several times in the process. And not a single one of them died despite these harsh conditions in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

It's an amazing story and one that's been told many times in many formats including both books and documentaries. Yet this book is considered the classic. It often appears on lists of recommended non-fiction or top 50 non-fiction books you must read and so on, It's been on my personal list of desired reading for years, I think, and it's often recommended reading in schools or courses on leadership. Much can be learned of leadership and management from following the actions of Shackleton as he kept his men together, united, and focused despite challenges from weather, boredom, a sense of feeling trapped and hopeless and more, 

I'm about  a third of the way though this book but enjoying it greatly.

     

Book Review: Terra Cognita -The Mental Discovery of America, by Eviatar Zeruvabel

Years ago, I had the opportunity to ask Magnus Fiskesjo, one of my thesis advisors at Cornell, about Gavin Menzies books on his alleged (and easily disproven) claims of the Chinese discovering America. Dr. Fiskesjo recommended I read this book instead, I did and found it quite interesting and encourage others to do so as well. Please note while I read the first edition, there is now a second edition of the book. (This essay was originally written as a review on . Amazon.com)

As we all know, Columbus was not aware in 1492 that he had landed on a new continent. Hence the lingering odd term "Indian." This work discusses in great detail the often ignored process, and it emphasizes process, of how and why and when Europeans began to realize that they had discovered an entire new continent (or two) that was completely unconnected with Asia.

The author is an Israeli geographer and does this in large part through discussions of period maps and a couple globes. (The work includes 31 plates of period maps showing how cartographers in Europe viewed the relationship between newly discovered areas of America and the rest of the world.) He emphasizes in great detail the need to look at varying definitions of terms like "continent," "discover," "North America," and so on.

A great deal of time is spent not only on explorers, be they Spanish, Italian, Viking, English or Russian (who approached North America from the West but were the first to truly prove it is not attached to Asia) over a period of many centuries, as well as the cartographers and writers in Europe who disseminated, analyzed, sorted, filtered and processed the new information that was being uncovered and tried to put it in a context. (In fact, this work was first recommended to me by a professor who recommended it as partial refutation of Gavin Menzies silly claims that the Chinese not only discovered America in 1421, but, somehow, instantly new what it was and then told Columbus.)

Best of all, the work is only 118 pages long, plus plates and footnotes, making it a relatively quick read.

It does provide a great deal of information on the context of actions that might otherwise have been missed. (i.e. Coronado was apparently searching for a mythical seven cities of gold, but was not sure how these cities related to the civilization of China and the spice areas of SE Asia, for instance, and thought there might be a connection between the two.)