In 1892 the United States Indian Office (later known as the Bureau of Indian affairs) ordered all Indian Schools to celebrate Columbus Day on October 21. Indian students were to pay homage to the so-called "discoverer" of the "New" World. Officials felt that Indian students must be made to see that Columbus’s accomplishment was not only a red-letter day in American history but also a beneficent development in the fortunes of American Indians. According to the popular histories, it was only after Columbus that Indians entered into the stream of history. It was only after Columbus did Indians begin the slow and painful climb out of the darkness of savagery. Many Indians wished that Columbus had discovered some other country.
President Benjamin Harrison sent down the order to celebrate Columbus Day in the schools. The idea was to use Columbus Day rituals to teach the ideals of patriotism. Patriotism was to be celebrated by supporting war and the importance of loyalty to the nation. In 1934, Columbus Day became a Federal holiday.
The Columbus story as taught in
American schools has changed. To celebrate Columbus Day this year, let’s look at some of the reality of the Columbus story.
One of the misconceptions that children are sometimes taught is that Europeans in 1492 thought the world was flat—except, of course, for Columbus who proved that it was round. In fact, it was well-known at that time among geographers, astronomers, cartographers, and educated people that the world was round. Anaximander, the Greek founder of scientific geography, had suggested that the world was a globe back in the sixth century B.C., This concept was popularized by the Roman geographer Aurelius Macrobius in the late fourth century A.D. and by the English cartographer Johannes de Sacrobosco (John of Hollywood) in the early fourteenth century. By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, virtually all European cartographers ascribed to it. In keeping with this concept, world maps reflecting the great discoveries of this period depicted each of the four known continents as being separated from the poles by open sea. By the time of Columbus, people viewed the world as a globe, composed primarily of land masses which were surrounded by water.
At the time Columbus first set sail for the East, no educated person questioned the fact that one could reach the East by sailing west. The concern was about technology: the ability of ships to cross the Ocean Sea (as the Atlantic was then called) without having the crew starve or drown.
Columbus misjudged the diameter of the globe and the amount of water it contained. Columbus accepted the Ptloemaic value of 20,400 statute miles for the diameter of the globe, approximately 20 percent less than the correct distance. European world maps at this time showed the island of Taiwan off of the coast of China. Thinking the earth was 20 percent smaller, Columbus may have assumed that he landed on Taiwan or some other island off the coast of China.
There are some historians and geographers today who question the notion that Columbus was confused about where he was when he landed on an island off the coast of the Americas. If Columbus actually thought he was off the coast of China, they ask, why would he take formal possession of territory that he believed to be under the suzerainty of the Great Khan? It would have been an act of abject madness to land on an island within the Khan’s domain and lay claim to it. Second, why did Columbus load up on glass beads and other trinkets when setting off to see the Great Khan?
The answer may lie in another story, one that some scholars accept as factual. In 1483 or 1484 a Spanish ship was blown off-course and carried across the Ocean Sea. The ship was driven to an island—presumably Hispaniola, in the Caribbean Sea—where the natives went without clothes. After many days of hardship and suffering, three to five surviving crew members (of the original seventeen men) managed to reach Madiera. At that time Columbus was a resident of the island and took care of the pitiful survivors as best he could. Unfortunately, all died within a few days, but before the pilot died, he gave his log and charts to Christopher Columbus. Thus, it is possible that Columbus actually knew he was not in Asia during his 1492 voyage.
Columbus was not the first European to set foot on the Americas. Scandinavian sea kings, commonly called Vikings, had earlier colonized Greenland, had sailed off the coast of North America, and had attempted to establish a colony on North America.
In 986 Viking voyager Leif Eiriksson, sometimes called "the lucky" visited and settled an area called Vinland which is the northern tip of Newfoundland. Archaeologists have excavated a Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows which dates to this time. The Vikings had some encounters with Native Americans whom they called Skraelings (probably Beothuk.) The colonies were eventually abandoned, due in part to opposition from the Native Americans. According to one story, Leif and the other Viking warriors fled their village and cowered behind some rocks when the Skraelings attacked. Freydis Eriksdottir, then nearly nine-months pregnant, tore open her blouse to expose her breasts, picked up a shield and sword dropped by the fleeing Vikings warriors, and counter-attacked. She repelled the attack and defended the brave Viking warriors
In 1002, a Viking group under the leadership of Thorvald, the brother of Leif Eriksson, sailed south along the coast of North America. The group arrived at a heavily wooded promontory which they named Kiarlanes (Keel-Cape) because it looked like the keel of a ship. Here they found three Indian canoes camouflaged with brush. There was a conflict in which eight Indians were killed and Thorvald was wounded. His wound proved to be fatal and he is buried at a place which the Vikings called Krossanes (Cape of the Cross). There are some who feel that Kiarlanes is present-day Cape Cod.
In 1005, a group of Vikings under the leadership of Thorfinn and Gudrid Karlsefni settled in the northeast, possibly along the St. Lawrence. They brought with them livestock and other supplies. The settlement lasted for two years, during which time Gudrid gave birth to a son. The settlement was abandoned because of conflicts with Native Americans.
While the Vikings are the best documented pre-Columbian "discoverers" of the Americas, there are also other early contacts. These include the fishing crews from Bristol, England who set up fish-drying stations along the coast of New England and the Canadian Maritimes. By 1480, large fishing vessels were sailing out of Bristol loaded with salt and returning loaded with cod.
Even earlier than the Bristol fishing vessels and the Vikings, was the voyage of Saint Bendan who sailed out of Dingle Bay in Ireland about 512-530. With a crew of about a dozen men sailing in a 36-foot, skin-covered boat called a curragh, he sailed to North America and then returned to Ireland after seven years. His adventures were written down between 700 and 900 and published as Navigatio Sancti Brendani (The Voyage of Saint Brendan).
Contact between Europe and the Americas was not one way. There are also reports of American Indians "discovering" Europe. There are several reports of Indians in kayaks being blown off course and landing in Ireland and on the European coast. Pliny’s Natural History, written in 100 B.C., reports that Native American merchants arrived in the Netherlands, blown off course by a storm.