On observing "Columbus Day."

[Scootaloo]

Well, it's that time of year again. it's funny how it can sneak up and pinch you on the ass when you weren't expecting it. it's columbus day, one of those "holidays" that you tend to forget about after leaving elementary school, until it rolls around and there's a story in the paper and you go "Oh... already?"

So here's the thing. In 1491, a Genoese sailor named Christobal Colon came to the crown of Spain with a proposition; if they fund his ships and voyage, he would find a sea route to the "Indies," thus enabling Spain to cut out the Turkish and Venetian middlemen, tap into the major source of wealth of the day, and pay off the debts of the Reconquista. Like any good sailor / salesman, much of what he promised was utter flimflammery, with a severe underestimation of the world's circumference being the highlight. After much haggling and a few threats to sell the idea to Portugal or France instead, the Spanish crown acquiesced, and granted Colon his ships.

Now, in our school history books, this part is heavily dramatized. Chritsobal - and his name is Latinized, to "Christopher Columbus" to make him sound more famous - is often portrayed as the "impoverished son of a poor Genoese merchant." He's given a melodramatic story, of rags to riches, last-minute interventions, miraculous happenings, and all of it is bullshit. We don't know anything about his family (we're not even certain he was Genoese!) there was no last-minute intercession by the queen to fund his voyages, he was never threatened with Mutiny by his crew, all of that is literal melodrama; all it needs is an intermission with a musical number and dancing dogs and it could have been shown at the Old Vic circa 1850.

Also important is to note the fabrication of the "proving the world is round" story. In an effort to lionize Colon further, his voyages are cast as the first kick of the Enlightenment, a scientific venture to defeat superstition (which is why the story often has a - false - mutinous, superstitious crew that Colon cows into obedience; the triumph of Colon's science over the crew's superstition.) In fact, it was a purely economic venture; most of the haggling between Colon and the Court was about how big of a cut Colon would be getting of the new-found wealth. For whatever reason, US history books like to gloss over this fact, just as they gloss over the fact that the 13 original colonies were also purely economic ventures. Apparently "in it for the money" isn't something we want at the roots of our country's history.

So anyway! Colon has his boats, and yes, "boats" is accurate, they were pretty small even by the day's standards - and he heads out to the Canaries for provisions, and then across the Atlantic. We all know the story from here, right? Colon lands in "the Americas" (for whatever reason, history books think "The Americas" is better than "The Antilles," but it's a niggling point) and lo, the old world discovers the new.

Cut to the Plymouth Colony. At least, according to our history books!

Now for most of you reading this, you of course know the story extends far past that, and you probably know that the PG story becomes NC-17 pretty fucking quickly. In about a decade, the Caribbean islands, save for Cuba, are almost totally depopulated as disease and warfare wrack the native Taino and Arawak people. Survivors are enslaved under Colon's governorship, and the whole place goes to hell so fast that the Spanish Monarchs literally deposed Colon and replaced him as governor, and the Catholic church condemned the treatment of the people of the islands. Now, for perspective... the Spanish crown and the Vatican, in the late 15th century... were ardent supporters and enactors of the fucking Spanish Inquisition. The people who were paying Torquemada thought that Colon was too harsh!

Not that the condemnation stopped the invasion and slaughter of the New World, of course. The Spanish and Portuguese moved into the New World rapidly, mostly for plunder rather than colonization; the wealth they brought back actually ruined Europe's economy, which spurred the colony movements of Britain, Holland, and France, and very likely contributed to the Ottoman empire declining so swiftly. In four hundred years, two continents of civilized nations had been reduced to smoking ruins and fragmented, nomadic tribes. Mostly by disease, but with a great deal of warfare as well. This rapid extermination of the Natives led to the equally rapid depopulation of western and central Africa, as entire nations from that nation were conquered, torn apart, and thrown onto boats to be shipped to the Caribbean and Brazil (as grotesque as slavery in the US was, we can still say "at least we weren't Brazil!)

So, there we have it. Two stories; one a melodramatic tale of heroism and advancement, the other a more "true to life" story of conflict and destruction. Our holiday, Columbus Day, is based on the former story, and in reaction, many people decry the idea of celebrating the day as such, and instead refer to it as "Genocide Day" or other derogatory terms, to express disgust at celebrating the man who, well, ushered in the deaths of probably over 22 million people.

Neither perspective is a good one to have, I think. The first is of course a lie... and the second, while it has valid points, is far too reactionary to really hold water.

"Columbus Day" deserves observance. Maybe not celebration, but it definitely needs to be marked on a calender and noted by people across the world. What's that, across the world? yes indeed.

On October 12th, 1492, Cristobal Colon stepped off the gangplank of the Santa Maria, and onto the sand of Antigua, and the entire world changed. No, he was not the first person from the "Old World" to meet the "New World" - the Icelanders definitely beat him to that, and probably others as well. But his high-publicity venture, his connection to a rising European power, and the wealth he managed to bring back, assured that this contact was going to be a lasting one, and not some seaside village living off rabbits like the Vinland colony.

I'm not being hyperbolic when I say it changed the world. Look at just three of the things I've already mentioned.

- Rapid, literally apocalyptic depopulation of the Western Hemisphere. The last time the Western Hemisphere saw such a rapid loss of population was when Yellowstone burped 13,000 years ago and wiped out most life - human and otherwise - east of the rocky mountains. That alone is worthy of the phrase "change the world."

- The influx of gold and other wealth from the Mexican and Peruvian nations into Europe led to a spiraling economic crisis that basically led to the modern conception of the nation-state. As economies went into utter meltdown from Spanish over-spending, nations fractured and re-emerged from Portugal to Russia, and even had an impact in the Maghreb and the Ottoman empire, devaluing currency all the way to India. A few scant years later, the silver mines of Bolivia would create a similar currency crisis in Eastern Asia; China bought literal tons of silver, resulting in a rapid devaluation of that metal, which was hte basis of the Chinese economy; and by extension every economy tied to China. Basically, while the population of the New World was dissolving, so too were the political and economic structures of the Old World - and this led to plenty of death in its own way.

- These two events led to a sudden need for more... "help." As Europe expanded into depopulated portions of the Americas (and depopulated more), they needed hands to work the land... Especially since precious metals were worthless and barter goods were the stock of the day! Led by Portugal, followed by other European powers, the cape of Africa was swiftly turned from "civilized trade partners" to "heathens to be enslaved." The crushing hunger for slaves not only impacted the kingdoms and nations of western Africa, but went further in as well. The result was that through a good chunk of Africa, a process similar to what was happening in the Americas was going on; whole nations were imploding, being destroyed, and their links to other nations followed suit, and transmitted the problem, like a contagious illness. The slave trade and the modern status of Africa, all tie back to the new world's "discovery."

Three things. Three utterly world-rocking global shifts, all because of this one dude named Cristobal. Bet you'll never look at an italian clothing designer the same way again!

But that's not all. Stepping out of the political arena... there's this thing called the "Colombian Exchange." Of course, this term refers to exchanges between humans as well, but... well, from a biological viewpoint, Cristobal Colon remade Pagaea. While the human element of things is starting to settle into something stable (yes, "starting," we're still a mess because of this) the exchange of biota is still ongoing and only picking up steam. This goes from the obvious of suddenly there's potatoes in Italy, wheat in Mexico, and maize feeding China, to less obvious things such as the introduction of the earthworm to North America, the introduction of human syphilis to the Old World, and the Amazon rain forest as we know it.

Cristobal Colon was a douchebag. He was a lair, a thief, and a murderer. By no account does he actually deserve "celebration," at least as we currently do today. But nor does the notion of Columbus Day need to be thrown out on the trash heap. It does not have to be a "day of mourning" any more than a "day of celebration." Asshole that he was, Cristobal Colon changed the world. You could argue that he did so in a manner similar to the K-T asteroid impact, but you can't ignore the fact that EVERYTHING you understand about the world today stems from one Italian guy getting off a boat four days from today, five hundred and twenty years ago, on an island you may never heard of.

The impact is so startling, that rather than craft a day to observe it, we could legitimately change the measurement of time; "BCE" and "CE" currently stand for "before common era" and "common era," but a strong case could be to replace "common era" with "Colombian Exchange," and knock the scale up by fourteen hundred and ninety-two years. That's the sort of impact we're looking at here.

So anyway. That's my take on the observance of Columbus Day.

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Cursing the memory of Columbus on Columbus Day is an exercise in pointlessness, really

if it hadn't been Columbus it would have been some other Spaniard or Portuguese navigator/explorer; if it hadn't been 1492 it would've been 1495, or 1500. The fine details would have changed a little; the broad outline, probably not so much. The unfolding of history since may have differed in some essentials, but there's no reason to expect that the eventual introduction of smallpox to the New World, and syphilis to the Old World, wouldn't have been just as devastating regardless of when they happened....or that the economics of plantation agriculture of sugar and tobacco wouldn't have inevitably led to the slave trade, for that matter. Columbus himself is kind of irrelevant; if he'd never set sail people would be talking about what a bastard John Cabot was, of Verrazano, or someone else.
who would've done the same thing.

Also considering that Columbus was an Italian you probably mean "Cristoforo Colombo"; the Spanish may have called him "Colon" but it's not what he called himself.

[Scootaloo]

2. My point is that it goes well beyond just the one guy

Love him, hate him, whatever, he is just the guy who happened to push the button. It's what happened after that deserves note, observance, and recognition. it's the defining moment of not just European or American history, but world history. People whacking reindeer in Siberia are impacted by this (if only because potatos will grow fucking anywhere.)

I would argue that it probably does make a difference when it happened, and which nation had a hand in it; a 1322 discovery by Songhai sailors would create a very different world than the 1492 Spanish discovery, or a 1730 French discovery, etc. Moot point though, it happened when it did, under the auspices of Spain. it's hard to argue about what might have happened on a later discovery date as well, since, well, we really have no conceptualization of what the world of 1570 would have looked like WITHOUT the Colombian Exchange.

I guess what i'm saying could be compacted down to, whatever your view of Columbus is, the Colombian Exchange is worthy of note, observance, and recognition, as an ongoing event that basically reshaped the entire world.

[earthside]

3. Origins of holiday were Italian-American in US.

Columbus Day started in Colorado - Tom Noel, Denver Post; September 26, 2010

In many Latin American countries October 12 is celebrated as a day to commemorate beginnings of hispanic ethnicity/culture.

So, the original post is, in my opinion, a pretty good synopsis of why Columbus Day -- October 12, 1492 -- is a significant moment in world history.

But in the U.S. it had resonance as a day of cultural pride in light of the discrimination faced by Italian-Americans at the turn of the century. It is too bad, I think, that the Ward Churchill-Russell Means crowd has decided to turn this into protest mainly targeted at those of Italian ancestry who still wish to celebrate on this day.

You know, most of our holidays are not 'celebrated' for what they were originally intended to be, but we don't have to let the 'white guilt' killjoys ruin them all by demanding that we apply our moral and ethical standards to events that took place in very different historical circumstances.

Even September 11 is morphing before our very eyes into "Patriots Day" or "Community Service Day" ... not a day of obsession over a horrible attack and for G.W. Bush's failure to do his job.

I suggest leaving Columbus Day alone (it never was in the top tier of significant national holidays) and creating a day with its very own historical -- positive -- significance for the indigenous peoples of the North and South American continents.