It’s vacation time in France and the weather is splendid. The skies are clear and blue, the temperatures are those of spring although we’re only now getting to say goodbye to February. With my original vacation plans up in the air thanks to French bureaucracy, I cancelled them and settled in for a calm vacation in Central France. With a thick book and splendid company, I was all set for the two weeks before me. And because plans are futile, I ended up having a delightful time exploring a new region of France with a friend.
My reading material was Laurence Bergreen’s Columbus: The Four Voyages. Alongside the writer’s praise worthy style and generous inclusion of pictures and maps, I found myself passing hours amongst its pages. Needless to say, it did not take me very long to get through this assortment of Columbus, his son, and Las Casas’ journals.
As a sailor, I have a great appreciation for the voyages, nautical abilities and determination of Christopher Columbus. I’d like to say “apart from all that went along with it,” but I won’t as our actions can’t be separated from their consequences. Many things captured in this book’s pages was knowledge that was new to me. Additionally, the variety of standpoints presented, offered me a real understanding of life at the time. Apart from the horrors committed and originated from these voyages, there were some other things which struck me.
Firstly, I admire the human nature. Our constant fear that the end of the Earth is at hand. From the days of Jesus’ apostle’s, to the 2012 Mayan calendar, all of the time before, between and since. We live in fear of the end of things as we know it, in the greater sense. We attempt to pin an elusive bird. In the later part of Columbus’ life, at the time of his fourth voyage, he estimated (along with many other calculations) that the world would end in 150 years. Seeing that the eighteenth century is long gone, it is easy to see once again, his faulty judgement. Our obsession with doom and our futures distract from the only thing that we do have; the present, the now.
Secondly, after adopting the term “rediscovered” whenever talking about Columbus’ voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, I never looked back. That is, until now. There certainly were people, entire civilisations, inhabiting the space. However, for the historical point of view that we use, I believe that it is accurate to say that Columbus ‘discovered’ these lands.
As Ivan Van Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus shows, other peoples were in contact with those in the lands between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans before the time of Columbus. While they may have come across these lands, they did not make lasting contact with them. Neither do we use their version of history. With each person telling the story, the story changes. The indigenous peoples would not have said that Columbus ‘discovered’ the land between the Atlantic and Pacific, as far as I think, I reckon they would be no quicker to use the word, “rediscover”. What was there to rediscover?
It is not a complete ideology as yet but since learning more about the world at that time, and thinking upon our story as beings and our different versions of history, I’m disinclined to use to word, “rediscovered” in place of “discovered”.
Lastly, the world knows not peace. There were not any good, old days, and we are no more horrible today than we were six hundred years ago, and then no more than fourteen hundred years before. We there is more than one person, there is war, injustice and hurt.
So, there you are, at the end of part one of a three-part series. Look out for part two coming soon. We’ll be moving back to the Eastern side of the Atlantic for that post. There will be lots of idilic pictures and reminiscing about the sunshine.
As always, thank you for reading! Even if you don’t agree with this latest train of thought, let me know what you think of it. Have you considered it from this point of view? Can you add anything to my thought process? I’m delighted to read your comments!
Follow your fire,
Rushell Rousseau
Great Perhaps 
‘Follow your fire.’ Yes.
I think you’re in the process of evolving a point of view on these matters. I’ll say though that I have a big issue with the idea of ‘discovery’ in the context of Columbus and the Americas.
I’ve always had a desire to read the writings of Bartholome de las Casas, saviour of the Indians, as he was called. I read somewhere recently that historians are now saying that Las Casas greatly exaggerated the ill treatment of the native peoples to win adherents to his agenda to protect them. With all the revisionism taking place of late I’m a bit unwilling to accept that. We know the horrific treatment meted out to the enslaved Africans, so why should we believe the Europeans were any less brutal to the ‘Indians’?
The other issue that comes to mind is ironic. I’ve recently seen people I know dismiss Las Casas because he was the one (they say) who suggested that Africans should be used to perform the hard labour in the colonies and not the ‘Indians’ who were dying like flies under the system. He thought Africans were better suited to the job. I’ll need to find out more about this. I find it hard to believe that someone who showed such compassion for the native peoples would have endorsed something as brutal as what transpired during and as a result of the trans-Atlantic trade in African bodies.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello!
I’m definitely developing, changing, and some times hanging onto ideas. So much thinking so little time hahaha!
It is easy to understand why people, myself included can find issue with the whole ‘discovery of the Americas’ point of view.
Oh dear! After reading from the logs of these folks I have been exposed to how their actions and reports were very extremely self seeking and often used lots of ‘tit for tat’ reasoning. I’m not too surprised to learn that it is thought that Las Casas was trying to win adherents to his agenda as that seemed to be the operating standard of their day. However, I mean, how far can that theory go when an entire civilization was just about removed from society? The thing was there, then other things came, then the thing was gone. Your point on the subsequent treatment of the enslaved Africans just adds my reluctance to take the ‘Las Casas overstated’ theory too far.
I think in Lower six we touched on the difference in Las Casas’ eyes between the native people and the Africans. From what I can remember, Las Casas saw the natives as being under the Spanish crown and so they ought to be treated as such. As you said, they were also unaccustomed to the type of labour expected from the Spanish. Whereas, the Africans were not seen (by Casas) as Spaniards, therefore not Catholic and not deserving of the same treatment… [Okay, just took a pause to find something better than my memory/6th form books, and I came across this which I think means that Casas was more of the person you’ve thought him to be, you should have a look: https://studylib.net/doc/8836041/bartolome%C2%B4-de-las-casas-and-the-african-slave-trade%5D
Anyway, thank you for leaving your thoughts! It was very much appreciated and now I’ve learned something new!
Cheers!
Rushell
LikeLike
Also, I’ve just found another interesting read on the topic over here: http://origins.osu.edu/milestones/july-2015-bartolom-de-las-casas-and-500-years-racial-injustice
LikeLike