BY JANE RZEPKA, SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
Two hundred years ago, during a spirited debate in Europe, the Academy of Lyons offered a prize of 1,200 francs for the best essay on the topic: “Was the discovery of America a blessing or a curse?” A blessing or a curse for them, of course.
The topic, if not the contest, was popular, and scientists and philosophers came to one conclusion: Columbus’s conquest of the New World had been the greatest of all misfortunes. They noted that the reptiles and insects in the New World were very large, and the quadrupeds small, and the people cold. They told the world that the Americas were a dank and gloomy land where no birds sing and no dogs bark, a place “so ill-favored by nature that all it contains is either degenerate or monstrous.”
Centuries later, though the theory of American biological inferiority has long been relegated to the past, the cursedness, the greatest of all misfortunes, remains—now from the perspective of the indigenous peoples and their allies.
Here’s what I wish I could do: I wish I could write about the positive side of Christopher Columbus’s contribution to history, and then mention the drawbacks. Nice and balanced. But friends, there is no balancing—those days have been over for decades.
Historians now agree that Columbus was motivated simply by greed, not by the sense of adventure, or a commitment to exploration, or the desire for challenge. In advance of his trip he demanded ten percent of all the wealth that would ever be discovered for himself and his descendents in perpetuity, he demanded the titles “Viceroy” and “Admiral of the Ocean Sea,”—a hereditary title—and he would be governor of all new territories. Then, off he went, with outdated, inaccurate navigational calculations, to sail the ocean blue. In the course of four trips he reached the Bahamas (though nobody knows quite where), the Greater Antilles, the South American land-mass, and Central America, believing to his death that he had reached Asia. It was all so confusing that at one point, flawed stargazing led him to decide that he had sailed uphill—so says Tony Horwitz in A Voyage Long and Strange.
We all know that Columbus showed up on the doorsteps of established homelands and ancient civilizations. As many as eighty million people lived in the Americas at the time. According to Rethinking America, Columbus describes one group he encounters this way: “They are very simple and honest and exceedingly liberal with all they have. They exhibit great love toward all others in preference to themselves. ...I did not find, as some of us had expected, any cannibals among them....” So far so good.
But then the horror of this history begins. In Columbus: His Enterprise, we read, “With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
And that’s what he did. Christopher Columbus initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In 1495, on his second of the four trips, he rounded up 1,500 native people and imprisoned them in pens, guarded by men and dogs. He took the “best” 500 and loaded them aboard ship. Two hundred died, three hundred arrived at the auction block in Seville. He wrote, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.” Though he later changed his focus from slavery to gold, reading about Columbus includes pages and pages of graphic brutality.
In 1992, people around the world planned to celebrate the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee. Fireworks. Special Exhibits. Documentaries. Souvenirs. Tall ships. It would be grand. But in the face of the up-coming celebration, we all began to confront the truth about the guest of honor. Celebration gave way to repentance and reflection.
So it was, almost two decades ago, that many began to ask the religious questions in earnest. How can we combat racism in the histories we tell? How can we promote justice for indigenous people everywhere? How can we learn the rhythms of the planet and live in harmony? Where does greed get us? How will we use our power? If we are to celebrate, we can begin by celebrating the continued asking of these questions.
Back in 1991, my colleague David Rankin wrote, “I know...it is difficult to swallow. Inside, I want to resist the message. I want to refuse the changed perspective. I want to keep the heroes. A small voice pleads: ‘Why not shoot off the fireworks? Why not enjoy the party? What is wrong with pretending?’” And then he goes on to say that there is no pretending. No running away. “I must revise myself, my own mentality, in order for the cycle to end. Crushing our idols is not an easy task.”
We are what we celebrate, and genocide, brutality, elitism, and greed are not on the list.
But there is a progress in naming and facing the truth.
May we know that progress.
There is honor in telling the untold story.
May we know that honor.
There is hope in claiming a new vision.
May we know that hope.
Two hundred years ago, during a spirited debate in Europe, the Academy of Lyons offered a prize of 1,200 francs for the best essay on the topic: “Was the discovery of America a blessing or a curse?” A blessing or a curse for them, of course.
And that’s what he did. Christopher Columbus initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In 1495, on his second of the four trips, he rounded up 1,500 native people and imprisoned them in pens, guarded by men and dogs. He took the “best” 500 and loaded them aboard ship. Two hundred died, three hundred arrived at the auction block in Seville. He wrote, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.” Though he later changed his focus from slavery to gold, reading about Columbus includes pages and pages of graphic brutality. 