Columbus Day Workshop

Okay, I don't have to make an introduction though, right? No, you're gonna hold the mic. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Could you please tell us what the purpose of the workshop was? Well, it's to get teachers to think about the role that Columbus plays in the curriculum and really to use Columbus as a kind of metaphor for whose lives are valuable in the curriculum and whose lives are unimportant and then how to equip kids to take a more multicultural and critical look at starting with Columbus but moving quickly on from there to the rest of the curriculum. Why the attack on Columbus right now? Why is there so much anti-Columbus rhetoric at this time? Well, it's his year.

It's a 2500 anniversary, I guess, and for so long, there's been such, the popular mythology of Columbus has been so wrong and has been filled with so many inaccuracies and the function of those, it would be one thing if it were just kind of like Santa Claus, you know, that Santa Claus doesn't exist, but the function of Columbus in the curriculum and the function of Columbus in our society is to justify some pretty raunchy things, it's to tell children particularly that it's okay for, that imperialism is okay, that it's okay for powerful countries to come into less powerful countries and to take them over and to rule over them and it's okay for white people to rule over people of color and that it's okay to think that it's okay to value the certain people's lives over other people that some people get a right to rule and other people are the followers and there's

just so much in the Columbus myth that needs rethinking and that functions in political ways that are very destructive, particularly to people of color and to third world countries around the world, but really I think to all of us. How is Columbus portrayed in children's textbooks and how does that compare to how Native Americans are portrayed? Could you tell us a little bit more about that, maybe some concrete examples? Well, the first thing of course is that Columbus is a good guy, the Columbus, if V is the hero of the story and all the books really tell it the same way, are almost all there, there's some changes now, but children are encouraged to think about Columbus as a child to kind of enter his thoughts, his dreams, his hopes to ride across the ocean with the brave admiral to be and to encounter these sort of alien people who really don't count, there's these kind of, they're there, but they're not there and Columbus plants the flag,

he claims it for Spain, he renames it and all is okay and all is wonderful and it's true that he didn't find the Indies, he didn't find what he thought he would find, found but he found something much more important, he found America and he was, you know, the discover of America and it's everything that you would expect a children's book to tell about Columbus and it's really hurting kids. Let me give you an example of, this is a brand new book, it's called Columbus A Triumphant Failure, it's published by Franklin Watts, it's a 1992 book and here's how they describe the, that first encounter, Columbus knelt to thank God for their safe arrival and claimed the island for Spain, all under the astonished eyes of a crowd of gentle, stark naked savages. Now there's no question ever raised in any book for children, well what gives Columbus

the right to do this? I mean they're already people living here, I mean is it because he's white and they're not, he's Christian and they're not, he's coming from a more technologically sophisticated and certain narrow ways, a more technologically sophisticated society than these other people, is that what, is it just might makes right, what is it? And so consequently, because the books don't pose the question and they never answer it explicitly, the kids I think have to puzzle that out and whatever they get encourages them to embrace a very deep kind of social inequality that some people have a right to rule over other people and, you know, and it's, and again it's never, it's never rectified in the literature at all. Just to go on with that particular book, the next page, the Indian simply thought these gorgeously dressed visitors must be gods and took pleasure in serving them and offering all they had. You know this is 1992, this is not some book that was published in the 40s or the 30s or anything like that and this is being produced right now and it's being read to kids all

over the country. Okay, I need to get back to what I asked for, I once, one of the questions was, what was the motivation of this group to come to this or how did he get here and the deal that he made up in Spain with whoever was in the bank at the time. But this is so often in the textbook, it's portrayed as exploratory, you know, and he was a scientist. Not a scientist, but I'm looking for this great navigator. Well, I think the first thing to keep in mind is that, you know, very few people know actually what, who knows, what Columbus had in his head, the children's book writers of course feel absolutely free to invent all kinds of nonsense about his childhood and how he was doing it all for, you know, God and Christianity and so forth and some of the books acknowledge that yes, he had personal motives too and what was wrong with that.

But from the record, it was a mission of conquest from the very beginning that if you read what's called the capitulations of Santa Fe, the contract that was drawn up between Isabella and Ferdinand and Columbus, it doesn't say anything about, you know, going for spices to the Indies or anything like that. It talks about finding new lands and taking them over. It was a mission of conquest. So that Columbus, one of his demands of the King and Queen, when he wasn't just asking for three ships and a few men to sail west, he was asking for a lot of things for himself and one of which was to become governor and viceroy of any of the lands that he encountered. So he wanted to be a dictator of these lands that he would find. It would give him the power to be judged, jury and executioner in the lands that would give him the power to divvy up land to whoever he would want. He also wanted a 10% cut tax-free of all the wealth that would be returned via the western route, not just that he brought back, but that everyone brought back forever. So that his sons would be, would get the 10% and their sons and so forth.

They'd also be governors, his sons and and and he also wanted to be declared admiral of the Ocean Sea, which would, it's not just an honorary title, it would give him a slice of the booty that would be captured by Spanish sailors and the high seas. So Columbus wanted a lot for himself and whether or not he was really concerned with spreading Christianity or any of that, who knows, but what we do know, for sure, from the record, from the contract it was drawn up, was that he wanted a lot for himself and for his family. Did he got anything? Excuse me? What did he get? I mean, he got anything. Yeah, he got it. Yeah, they agreed. They signed off on it and he was granted it and he did. You know, there's this myth that Columbus died unhappy and poor and so forth. Columbus died of average man. He got a lot of what he has and had he actually been in the Spanish.