In five thousand years of recorded history, scarcely another figure has ignited as much controversy… . Christopher Columbus, rediscoverer of America, was a visionary explorer. He was a harbinger of genocide. He was a Christianizing messiah. He was a pitiless slave master. He was a lionhearted seaman, a rapacious plunderer, a masterly navigator, a Janus-faced schemer, a liberator of oppressed tribes, a delusional megalomaniac.
—Ian W. Toll
So begins a review of a 2011 biography of Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), who set out for India under the patronage of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Believing he had reached the East Indies, Columbus claimed islands in the Caribbean for Spain; he made four voyages between 1492 and 1498, exploring Caribbean islands and areas of Central and South America. A heroic icon to many in the United States, Columbus is commemorated with a national holiday. While his explorations were indisputably a turning point in European expansion and, many argue, the start of a new global era, several centuries of scholarship have revealed Columbus as a complex and controversial figure whose accomplishments have been oversimplified, possibly even fictionalized, but certainly glorified. The following Conversation includes texts that comment on the reality and image of Columbus and present a range of perspectives on the meaning and appropriateness of the national holiday that honors his legacy.
Sources
Christopher Columbus, from Journal of the First Voyage to America (1492)
King Ferdinand of Spain, The Requierimiento (1513)
John Vanderlyn, Landing of Columbus (1847)
Walt Whitman, Prayer of Columbus (1874)
Jack Weatherford, Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus (1989)
Michael S. Berliner, The Christopher Columbus Controversy (1991)
National Public Radio, Wilma Mankiller Reflects on Columbus Day (2008)
William J. Connell, What Columbus Day Really Means (2010)
Laurence Bergreen, from Columbus: The Four Voyages (2011)