Until now, I had never thoroughly considered how truly impactful 1492 was for the rest of the world, nor why Columbus’ arrival was so significant in comparison to the Vikings (as used in the example). During my earlier years in grade school, Columbus was portrayed as this great historical figure who should be praised for having discovered the Americas. A few years later, my class did a project on Columbus and our vision of him was completely shattered. We read about how poorly he treated the Natives and how many were killed and how he destroyed the culture of these people and I was infuriated. After all, he technically didn’t even discover the Americas, yet he was receiving all of the credit. After reading his text though, I wonder why he’s been portrayed as both a villain and a hero. Columbus was eager to explore and reported back to the King and Queen loyally. Why must we categorize people into good and bad?
At the time, there was no significance about this “discovery” for most Europeans because these two worlds were so distant from each other and entirely different. Columbus said so himself that he wasn’t able to accurately capture his experience in words. It’s fascinating to really think about how difficult it is to explain something from scratch and to recognize that Columbus was constantly doing this through his writing to the King and Queen.
What I also found extremely interesting is not that Columbus didn’t realize he was changing history, but the fact that he wasn’t quite sure if the trip was even worth the effort (taking into account his shipmen’s reluctance). If he hadn’t been so loyal to the King and Queen, and if he hadn’t promised them rewards, would he have abandoned this mission, and if so, what would Latin America be today? After all, the “discovery” of the Americas could’ve happened any other year by any other person yet it’s this date: October 12th, 1492 that marks the beginning of everything as we know it today.
Side note: I don’t think it’s human nature to be so eager to believe in myths such as this one. I think we believe in them because as impressionable children, we were presented with opinionated information and have thus fallen victim to stories and beliefs such as myths, in other words, we were taught to believe in them. If we as children had been motivated to question our teachers and to form our own opinions based simply on facts, I don’t think so many myths would exist.
Sophie
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