(The commission and Spain are currently bickering over who will pick up the bill for the main event of 1992, an Atlantic crossing by replicas of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.)īut the politicization of Columbus has obscured the fact that Columbus-bashing is a proud American tradition. "Besides, Columbus never even met the Aztecs," she said.Ĭolumbus's defenders have not been helped by the fact that John Goudie, the chairman of the presidential commission in charge of coordinating the international quincentennial, was forced to resign last year after reports of financial improprieties. Cheney complained that the film was not balanced, and criticized it in particular for dwelling on Spanish human rights violations while whitewashing the less attractive features of Aztec civilization, such as cannibalism. For conservatives, the heroine of the moment is Lynne Cheney, chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, who denied a grant for a documentary called "1492: Clash of Visions," which unfavorably depicted Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors. (His diary is peppered with such perfunctory descriptions as "big and little birds of all sorts.")Īnti-Columbus fervor on the left has, of course, unleashed a counterattack from the right. It seems that besides despoiling the New World, Columbus traveled like a trunk, failing to take any note of America's natural wonders. In "The Conquest of Paradise," Kirkpatrick Sale stresses the explorer's legacy of environmental destructiveness - and his lack of imagination. In addition to the much ballyhooed novel "The Crown of Columbus," written by Louise Erdrich and her husband, Michael Dorris, two writers who tirelessly celebrate their American Indian ancestry, other revisionist works have appeared in anticipation of 1992. Weatherford argues that after the war with the British in 1812, Americans were searching for a non-Anglo-Saxon national hero, and Irving served up Columbus. He says that the navigator started the Atlantic slave trade and that his heroic status was a cynical invention of Washington Irving. Weatherford notes that Columbus never actually came to mainland North America (he landed in the Caribbean). Paul, and a leading anti-Columbus scholar. Its members have voted to condemn Columbus's arrival as an "invasion" and plan to hold counter-demonstrations to the Catholic Church's plans for a celebration of 500 years of Christianity.Ĭhristopher Columbus "symbolizes everything that is against basic American values," said Jack Weatherford, a professor of anthropology at Macalester College, in St. The National Council of Churches is not far behind. Morales said, "it's like the abusive family dynamic - if the abuse is denied, the pattern of abuse is likely to continue." "As long as that history remains untaught," Mr. "Our perspective is what Columbus did to initiate the age of modern colonialism," said Ricardo Levins Morales, a founding member of the alliance. The alliance has for its symbol a drawing of a galleon with a red slash through it. Its members publish a quarterly newsletter, "Huracan," devoted to tracking official quincentennial ceremonies and listing alternatives. The Alliance for Cultural Democracy, with headquarters in Minneapolis, will not be celebrating Christopher Columbus next year. (Those who claim that Leif Ericsson found the New World first, of course, dismissed Columbus long ago as a Gianni-come-lately.) The Italian explorer known to generations of schoolchildren as the first American hero is being counter-commemorated by American Indian groups and others as a founding father of colonial greed, slavery and genocide. Instead, as the quincentenary of his historic "encounter" (the notion of "discovery," among many other things, is hotly contested) approaches in 1992, he is sailing headlong into a revisionist squall as daunting as anything he encountered on the Atlantic. Unfortunately for the explorer, he is not best remembered for his chivalry. "I clothed her and gave her glass beads, hawks' bells and brass rings, and sent her back to the land very honorably, as I always do," he wrote. Take an entry from December 12, 1492, describing Columbus's discovery of a "very young and beautiful girl," a native Bahamian woman who was sent, presumably as a gift, to the Admiral's cabin. AMID many passages complaining about the weather and the mood of his men, there are a few sentences in Christopher Columbus's diary that read as if penciled in later to meet contemporary rules of political correctness.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |