This coming weekend will be Columbus Day. It will be celebrated on the 14th, though perhaps a better word would be observed. If you happened to pick up any of the history we don't dare teach our children in school, you may understand why celebration is perhaps not the best word to use. Matthew Inman, AKA The Oatmeal, has put together a pictorial essay explaining quite simply why Columbus was awful.
Now for anyone who has grown up with the story of Columbus bravely sailing into the unknown to prove the world was round, well the facts of the matter are a bit different. I won't belabor them when the Oatmeal does a more than adequate job of spelling them out. It's the kind of thing that drives people to home-school their kids, lest they be exposed to anything that might suggest that our historical heroes were anything but unquestionably perfect. Columbus was very much a man of his times - and yet people seldom make the connection that those times included the Spanish Inquisition, among other wonders of European civilization.
However, the Oatmeal goes above and beyond simply telling the parts of the Columbus story that have been systematically omitted from the popular history by doing something different. We also get the story of Bartolomé de las Casas.
Columbus was posthumously edited into a brave explorer and seeker of knowledge by those who found that version of history useful for their purposes. It's difficult to speak accurately of the actual record of Columbus without risking Godwin's Law. Bartolomé's record is something quite different - and one that is hardly known by comparison. I admit to not having heard of him before the Oatmeal brought him to my attentions. I'll quote a small bit from the wikipedia entry:
Bartolomé de las Casas spent 50 years of his life actively fighting slavery and the violent colonial abuse of indigenous peoples, especially by trying to convince the Spanish court to adopt a more humane policy of colonization. And although he failed to save the indigenous peoples of the Western Indies, his efforts resulted in several improvements in the legal status of the natives, and in an increased colonial focus on the ethics of colonialism. Las Casas is often seen as one of the first advocates for universal human rights.[2]
It says something about our society that the comfortable myth of Christopher Columbus still holds greater sway over the American imagination than the troubling truth of Bartolomé de las Casas. One might argue that there is still an ongoing battle between those who would follow pleasing myths and those who prefer truth however unpleasant. Despite over 500 years distance in time, we're not so far removed from the moral questions Columbus and Bartolomé faced, or the two very different answers they chose.
Matthew Inman has offered up a powerful essay that is only made more impressive by its straightforward understatement. Go to the Oatmeal and see for yourself - and may you enjoy the holiday as best you see fit.
Thu Oct 10, 2013 at 5:26 PM PT: UPDATE: Matthew Inman earlier today on Facebook:
Holy Columbian caca! My Columbus essay got over 220k Facebook likes in the past 20 hours.
I'd actually considered starting a petition on the White House's website to rename Columbus Day to Bartolome Day, but unfortunately they've turned that section off until the government shutdown ends. Maybe next year, I suppose.