While tedious at times, Columbus’ personal journal did offer a lot of interesting things to think about, and showed much about the kind of person that he was. I was confused throughout much of it. First, by the fact that he constantly lied to his crew about the distance they’d traveled, then by the way that he acted when he reached land. All my life, I was taught that Columbus wished to go to India for its riches, so I was confused when his introduction stated his purpose as that of a missionary. Once he reached the land, he seemed to refocus on material goods, constantly expressing how many resources the land contained, rather than talking much about reaching the Great Khan. On first reading, I interpreted this as meaning that his true purpose had been riches all along, and Christianizing the Great Khan was just an extra excuse to go to India. After watching the video, I realized that he was talking so much about the goods in an attempt to distract and make up for the fact that he had failed in his mission to find the Great Khan. He kept talking about how easy it would be to Christianize the locals to make it seem that his missionary journey had succeeded despite not reaching the Great Khan. His very repetitive and excessive praises of the beauty and lushness of his surroundings also made more sense after the video explained his need to justify his journey.
While Columbus was usually painted simply as the hero who discovered the Americas when I was in elementary school, later teachings of him in high school made him out to be more of a monster. What he wrote in his journals seemed to confirm the more monstrous depiction of him. He came off as cruel and extremely manipulative. He lied to his own men every day, and had to qualms over taking multiple prisoners for months on end so he could present them to his monarchs. He complimented the locals on their intelligence only when he wanted to stress how easy it would be to Christianize them, and otherwise looked down on them. He knew that some of the islanders were attacked frequently, which would explain why so many were fearful of him at first, but he still scorned them as pathetic cowards every time they ran away from him. He took them prisoner, and when they tried to escape he lamented that he could no longer trust them, as if they were the ones in the wrong. I did further understand his distrust after watching the video and realizing that he kept calling them liars because they weren’t taking him to the Great Khan. After reading all of his condescending comments of the locals that he thought beneath him, watching the video portray him as a bit of an idiot who was desperately trying to convince his rulers that he hadn’t just wasted their time and money was very amusing.
Discussion question: Do you think Columbus ever questioned if he really was in Asia?
You pose an interesting question about what Columbus “really” thought. I wonder how one might go about answering it… After all, even in his “diary,” he is always very aware about his potential readers. He is always, to put this another way, giving us some kind of act. To what extent could we ever really claim to know the “real” Columbus?
Your article gives rise to a lot of issues I feel like historians have always been trying to answer. To answer your question, I would say that Columbus knew deep inside that he was not really in Asia since he kept trying to find the Great Khan (but could not find him) and justifying over and over again that his journey to the Americas was successful. In my opinion, the dedication he put in attempting to Christianize the locals proves that he knew he had failed because it was not the aim of his journey!
Hi Elena,
I too was confused with what Columbus was writing about and how he described his mission, as I was also only really taught about his plan to travel to India for riches. I enjoyed reading your comparison to his journal and the video and his portrayal. As for him questioning whether or not he was actually in Asia, the thought of him never putting the pieces together is pretty funny to me!
I think you’ve done a good job of calling attention to the increasing desperation of Columbus. It is interesting how his objectives seemingly shifted quite a few times. His journal entries certainly seemed to focus on what might be more appealing for his sponsors to hear. Perhaps this is why he never strayed from the hope of the “Great Khan” even when it seemed more and more obvious that he was in the wrong landscape. We’ll never really know how disoriented Columbus was as long as we know that his accounts were written to paint his journeys in the most favorable light.