Dispelling the Myths Behind Columbus

Ever since the election of Barack Hussain Obama as President, many myths have circulated as to his origins. While most reasonable observers have rejected the "birthers" phenomenon, some ideologically disposed people along with some Congressional leaders, have adopted some of this defamatory mythology. Mythologies about famous personalities are nothing new. In fact, mythologies of statesman and politicians are to be expected in partisan rhetoric. But mythologies of famous historical figures can have a life of their own if not checked and challenged. Recently, I asked my students, all college undergraduates, whether they were taught in grammar and middle school that Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean to prove that the earth was flat. To my astonishment, about half of my students raised their hands. Thankfully, some of them were also taught the actual explanations for Columbus' famous voyage.

Indeed, I too recall being taught in the public schools the same absurd mythology that Columbus sailed the Atlantic in order to disprove the earth was flat. Thankfully, when I studied philosophy in college and later in graduate school, I discovered that as early as ancient Greece, most educated and civilized peoples already knew the earth was a sphere. In fact, it was during the Islamic "golden age" that astronomical science had reached its peak in Baghdad, Spain, and Istanbul, and where Muslim scientists and theologians led the effort in scientific and astronomical discoveries.

This knowledge did not remain solely in the hands of the Muslim intellectual elite however. With Latin translations of many Islamic texts and ancient Greek texts from Arabic in the 12th century and onward, Christian Europe soon acquired the crucial knowledge of science and philosophy, ultimately heralding the famous Renaissance movement of Medieval Europe. Hence, by the late 15th century, most educated Europeans, including Christian clergy, were clearly aware of the spherical dimensions of the earth as well as scientific methods.

In addition to the flat earth nonsense is the assumption that European sailors, travelers, and others had some innate curiosity gene which led to the unparalleled growth of exploratory missions from Europe to Asia and the Americas. In other words, we still find a view that while the rest of the African and Asian people sat idly by, it was the Europeans who strived for adventure, wealth, and scientific curiosity. But this view is also questionable in light of history.

So why was the theory of the flat earth as the main basis for the Columbus voyage promulgated by American educators upon their students and within the educated American public? Given that we are once again witnessing the anniversary of Christopher Columbus' voyage to the Americas; it is worth considering how this myth and legend grew out of the reality of our founding as a nation.

But first, it is important to understand the historical context of what became known in the European lexicon, as the Age of Exploration or the Age of Discovery. In 1453, the Turkish Muslim Empire known as the Ottoman Empire, after many decades of attempts and effort, finally conquered the capital of Eastern Christianity, Constantinople. With the Ottoman takeover of Constantinople, the thousand-year reign of mighty Byzantium came to an end. The collapse of Byzantium sent shivers and panic throughout Western Europe. Many European Kings, princes, as well as Christian clergy believed that Rome and the remaining parts of Europe would eventually collapse in domino fashion as a result of the Ottoman victory over Byzantium. The Ottomans not only took Constantinople, but within a few years, dominated the crucial sea links and trade routes in and around the Mediterranean. In effect, the Ottomans along with the rest of the Muslim world now effectively controlled all trade on land (such as the silk road) as well as on sea between Europe and Asia (i.e. China, Japan, and India, and Cathay), as well as Africa. Hence, a "Cold-War" like panic took hold of Western Christendom.

Despite the Ottoman victories and imminent threats, there was one place that Christianity did not yield territories and in fact made territorial gains over the Muslim world: Catholic Spain. In 1474, the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile opened up a new period in the Iberian peninsula, and paved the way for the Age of Discovery. While both monarchs were Catholic, Queen Isabella was ideologically predisposed toward the promulgation of the Catholic faith in the Iberian Peninsula. Whereas Spain under Moorish Islam provided an environment of inter-religious cooperation and tolerance for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, continuing a tradition dating as far as 9th century Baghdad, under the Abbasid Dynasty, the new Spain of Isabella and Ferdinand, was to establish a new restrictive world order. Spain, under its Catholic monarchs would reject inter-religious cooperation, and further eradicate centuries of North African Moorish culture which it had previously adopted and exhibited. Analogically, one can view Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain as the ideological ancestors of the American conservative movement in the United States led by Reagan and seen in its extreme form in the neo-conservative movement epitomized by Bush/Cheney.

Hence, in 1492, Isabella and Ferdinand conquered the last vestiges of Islam in Granada, Spain. Also in 1492, the expulsion of Spanish Jews began. Spanish Jews were forced to either convert to Catholicism or leave Spain. About half converted while the rest found new homelands in North Africa and the rest of the Ottoman Empire. But for most Americans, 1492 is most famous for the commission granted to Christopher Columbus by Isabella and Ferdinand to search for an alternative sea route to the East, eventually leading to the discovery of Hispaniola.

Given the new aggressive religious policy promulgated by Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, along with Europe's utter dependence upon the Ottomans and the rest of the Muslim world for access to trade and goods such as spices, textiles, and other valuable commodities, the mission to find an alternative sea route to Asia became even more dire for Western Europe. Hence, Portugal, along with Spain, directed a navigational policy in order to break the trade monopoly of the Ottoman and the Muslim world. Indeed, a few years after Columbus' discovery of the Caribbean Islands, the Portuguese reached India via a circuitous oceanic route around Africa in 1498. Therefore, the actual reasons for the so-called voyages of discovery/exploration were due to practical economic realities, but equally important as a result of religious zealotry. In fact, they had nothing to do with astronomical debates about the earth's being flat.

Unfortunately, this historical reality was elided under a more popular version of historical fiction at the hands of Washington Irving, the brilliant writer and essayist of the 19th century (1783-1859). In his 1828 book titled, "History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus", Irving includes a fictitious discussion between Columbus and a religious council ridiculing him for traveling westward on the seas lest he be dropped into the caverns of hell. But Irving alone cannot be blamed for the perpetuation of this myth. Historians such as Daniel Boorstin also repeated the myth in his 1983 book "The Discoverers", along with the founder of Cornell University, Andrew Dickson White, who discussed the flat earth myth in his ideological battles against the medieval church. In other words, both perpetuated the Irving story for their own purposes. Hence, the popular flat earth mythology endured in the minds of most Americans, and unfortunately was adopted as history by American educators, due to Irving's attempt to create a hero out of Christopher Columbus, and due to the ideological battles between religion and science in the 19th century.

As educators and those residing in one of the most literate societies in history, it is our task to expose all myths for what they are, whether they relate to Christopher Columbus or to the origins of a sitting U.S. President. As we reflect upon another October 12, perhaps it is time for us to also reflect on the real causes of Columbus' journey and abandon age-old myths that do not serve the cause of history or inter-religious understanding.

Comments

[delightman88]

Has anyone read the letters Columbus wrote to Isabella after his first voyage? He wrote of how tame and submissive the natives were, willing to give the newcomers any and all of their bounty, including untold treasures which were seen more as sacred to the natives than of any material value. Columbus also remarked that the natives' obeisance made them perfect candidates for cheap (or free) labour. But when the Caribbean inhabitants balked at being driven off their land, they were raped, tied up in trees and burned alive en masse. For this the man gets a holiday named after him and I don't get my mail delivered.

[Arion]

Columbus set sail to prove there was money. That is, a lucrative trade route to the Indies. That said, anyone who reads his diaries and logs has to admit he was one damn fine sailor.

[michelesda]

C was a damned fine sailor alright, in that he didn't bother with the fancy instruments he was given for the voyage but sailed entirely by salty sea dog instinct. And he knew he would hit land, because he heard about the Vinland saga while stranded in Iceland for a few months. Certainly the Icelanders, being sailors themselves, knew the world was round, except that for some reason they thought it was shaped like a pine cone. Columbus, meanwhile, who also knew the world was round, and a spheroid, was a believer in some pulp literature of the time that made the world out to be only 18,000 miles around, not 24,000, and so thought the Vikings were naive in not realizing that Vinland was actually India. Which is of course why we still today refer to a certain ilk of aborigines who would prefer to be called "Native Americans" as "Indians," though why they are so keen to identify with the United Provinces of a Renaissance Italian Pimp is not immediately clear...

[arodnyc]

Wow,

What Happened to the Portuguese? I love the fact that you open the door just slightly in regards to past hearsays, but why didn't research the Portuguese influence? Go back to the drawing board and re-write this article.

thanks

[FearlessFreep]

It's worth mentioning that Vasco da Gama's discovery of the ocean route to Asia, in the short term, transformed Europe much more than Columbus' discovery. For example, when he returned from India the price of pepper immediately fell by two thirds. Pepper was added to salted meat, so cheaper pepper increased the practice of salting meat for the winter, and Europe's meat consumption increased.

[DanWJ]

So, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain started a repressive new world order, and were the ideological ancestors of Bush and Cheney? Really?

You might easily take a different perspective. The Muslim invaders conquered the Iberian Peninsula by force, presumably to spread the blessings of their more advanced civilization, with inter-religious cooperation and all. This makes the Moors the true ideological ancestors of Bush and Cheney.

Yes, it is a silly thing to claim, but not more so than the original analogy in this article.

[MarylandPete]

I have not been able to peruse all the comments so I'm not sure whether the following point was raised. Columbus participated in a well known correspondence with the Italian physician/­mathematic­ian/geogra­pher Paolo Toscanelli. In the mid 1470's Toscanelli wrote to Columbus about his theory that the spice islands, China, etc. could readily be reached by sailing west form Europe. Toscanelli based his conclusion on two errors. The first was that the circumference of the earth was approximately 18,000 miles rather than 25,000. The second was that the east coast of Asia extended farther east than was actually the case.

As other writers have noted, Columbus was aware of reports of land to the west by fisherman and other sailors. Using Toscanelli's conclusions Columbus deduced the land he reached was actually Asia. The Americas were about where Toscanelli predicted the east coast of Asia would be so Columbus reasonably concluded he had been successful in his quest.

[john456]

The importance of Columbus and the Portugese explorers is that they wrote down how they traversed and their experiences making the trips repeatable. Once Columbus' information was published, others could repeat the trip. As in any experiment it is the documentation that allows it to be repeated. Columbus wrote it down which is what makes it important. Also communications in Europe, at that point in history, allowed and encouraged the information to be exchanged, even when nations tried to keep trade routes a secret.

[raydot]

Astronomers knew the world was round, but at the time of Columbus no one had sailed around it yet. Hence: I was taught that the "theory" was that he sailed west to find a shorter trade route to India. For some grammar and middle-school teachers, that can be summed up in a simple koan: "The world was flat."

A student that doesn't take the time to follow that to an inevitable conclusion (by, say, studying philosophy in grad school) could indeed be left with that as a sole impression. But I wouldn't say we were "taught" that as much as we didn't spend too much time getting to the bottom of it, busy grade schoolers that we were.

[WmC]

Assuming all astronomers were familiar with Eratosthenes experiment (of about 200 BC) which correctly estimated the earth's (longitudinal) diameter, they almost surely would have deduced the earth was a sphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

[quest44]

I heard both views in school as to why Columbus set out to find America .
In Catholic school I was taught it was to prove the world was round and later I heard it was to escape religious persecution in Europe and to find a new trade route .

But I am disappointed that noting here was said about the true meaning of Columbus day ?
To the Native people who inhabited this country ,"America ," it was the worse day in history when Columbus landed bringing along with him a wave of Christian settlers who were set on converting the natives who they thought were savages. Those who wouldn't convert weren't trusted and therefore killed . It was the begining of the genocide of the Native people !
It was also the end of our clean air and water to make way for industry.
This is what Columbus Day means to the native people and all those people whose eyes are not shut .
So if you want the truth then seek it from those whose ancestors lived here and really know why Columbus came to this land and what it has meant to their people ever since that horrible day .
Does the German goverrnment celebrate the day the first Jews were killed in those death camp ovens ?
No they don't !
So why does this country make a holiday out of the day that began the genocide of the Native people and the take over

[FearlessFreep]

It should be more like Memorial Day.

[Arielman]

OK it was taught that the world was considered "flat" perhaps as in off the edge of a piece of parchment there might be monsters of the sea. I also read that Columbus did his homework, Masons of Bristol, England report his query regarding lands sighted by fishing west. His father, a pilot hired by the Italians might have been Danish!
The survival of Spanish-Jewish tradition in the "New World" perhaps shows they had left already before Columbus! Botanical descriptions of maize in early Arabic treatises and perhaps are depicted where the Chinese "discoverer" of North America died, in India, in difficult to date sculpture that was described by an archaeologist working on the origins of turquoise trade from mines in the American Southwest found in the Aztec culture in prehistoric Mexico.
Columbus named the east point of land in Cuba, "Cape Maysi" (Maisi), near Guantanamo. It is where in 1871, "Wanderer" sank in a storm, built in Setaket, NY outfitted for slave-running in 1858 by a cotton broker, boarded by a British anti-slavery blockade off Africa where it was thought "too luxurious" and landed on Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1859 with a cargo of slaves, a third of which perished in the "Middle Passage" and perhaps precipitated the American Civil War, as it became a "chess piece" and later mail packet for the Union, it was used in the early fruit trade in the Caribbean.
Surely Americans don't want to blame slavery on Columbus yet?

[rf dude]

Just another Carnival Cruise gone terribly wrong - and the bed turndown service was simply AWFUL...

[paixa3]

LOL,,,

[daffey]

Good peice. A little light on the terrors that Ottomans were visiting on the European mind set. I teach history and most adults I ask are aware that in Columbus’ day, the earth is flat debate was settled by most learned individuals. They also have a basic grasp of his reasons for sailing the new world. But it was a tumultuous time then, from fear of conquest by Ottoman forces, to the birth pangs of the Renaissance (mostly begun as an artistic revolution in Italy by the way), things were changing and many wondered if this culture that stretched across Europe would survive. And that must have been a frightening thought.

By the way, it’s worth defending Europe’s reputation a little. Islam had its golden age when Europe was till living in thatched huts, that’s for sure. But much of the knowledge Islam had came because Islam conquered the lands that had already been rich in learning, science, and philosophy. The Latin West, on the other hand, was in a land rich in culture and art, but almost void of any scientific or philosophical foundation. It had to be built from scratch, or await opportunities to return to the origins of Western science in order to obtain the sources upon which Europe would eventually build the traditions of humanism, enlightenement thinking, and the scientific revolution (all of which were actually taking root in the Middle Ages by the way).

[Cosatjockomo]

The Egyptians knew the earth was round thousands of years before Mohammad was born. When the library at Alexandria was destroyed that knowledge was temporarily lost.

[daffey]

Others had that information. It wasn't just the Egyptians. But you are right, the sacking of the library lost much that we probably still don't know.

[Horus45]

The biggest Columbus myth is the one that he discovered America.

Recent research shows that white Europeans had discovered America generations before Columbus took credit.
Until researchers admitted that, they had no way of explaining why the Native Americans of the Northeast looked so much different than the Plains Indians or the Southwest and Northwest Natives.
Natives of the Northeast had some European features and were lighter skinned.

[Macready]

exactly Horus . . the whole Columbus thing is a myth . . . the Vikings were there before him too!

[daffey]

There is plenty of evidence that Columbus was not the first. But this commemorates the one who set in motion events that would change the world. And while for the last 50 years or so, the vogue approach has been to emphasize the bad that happened, we often forget to emphasize the good. A country that would rise up and, despite its faults and flaws - many of which were not uncommon to humanity in general - would attempt to build a society on freedom, liberty, and equality. And despite their initial failings, they allowed for the chance to build a more perfect union, one that we all enjoy today - at least while America is still around. For what will a post-American world look like I wonder? What culture will rise up and carry the torch for equality, freedom, and liberty for all?

[gigli]

"For what will a post-American world look like I wonder? What culture will rise up and carry the torch for equality, freedom, and liberty for all?"

Well........Canada, India, Brazil, Chile, France, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Turkey, Indonesia - want more?
There are lots of countries and peoples on this world who love freedom, liberty and equality as much as the United States.

[lastpost]

“most educated and civilized peoples already knew the earth was a sphere”

All? Knew, or believed? (Define “sphere”)

“As educators and those residing in one of the most literate societies in history, it is our task to expose all myths for what they are”

Unless interpretation of the available evidence were to be superseded by access to absolute knowledge, I can’t quite appreciate how this definitive authentication process might occur.

Aren’t we simply devising stories? That we then use to navigate our way through life. Until such time as we walk slap-bang into something hard. That convinces us, that we didn’t really know what we were talking about after all.
Even if, though I’d have to experience it to believe it, all educators concurred. Who is to say that such a circumstance is not the product of a common, yet invalid, predilection?

[classicalgeek]

The ancient Greeks knew not only that the Earth is a sphere (from mathematics) but had a pretty good guess as to its exact size. True, they didn't cotton on to the fact that the Earth is actually an oblate spheroid.

"Unless interpretation of the available evidence were to be superseded by access to absolute knowledge, I can’t quite appreciate how this definitive authentication process might occur."

We have access to an amazing amount of primary souce documents, many of which are now being digitized to preserve them. This means that you don't have to be a researcher with a travel grant and have special access to private libraries any longer to view them; instead, anyone can see the documents for themselves and form an opinion based on what contemporaries of a historical event actually wrote about it. Having been one of those researchers (without the grant), I can assure everyone that access to primary documents is invaluable in forming a more accurate representation of what actually happened. Account books, purchase orders, and other kinds of unbiased primary documents are facts, not interpretations of history or people's beliefs.

[ghostclown]

"As educators and those residing in one of the most literate societies in history, it is our task to expose all myths for what they are"

Agreed, Professor. Especially those myths used to justify violence and amass power.

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/the-rest-is-silence/

[starwolf]

The MYTH?????Columbus DISCOVERED AMERICA!!!!!!!!

TO ALL THOSE OF NATIVE AMERICAN DESCEN[all my relations]......I DIDN'T KNOW WE WERE LOST!!!!!!!

[classicalgeek]

Agreed. And even if it were not for the Native Americans (I'm descended from them, too), the Vikings were over here in the 700 CE range.

[daffey]

Actually, I prefer pre-American. After all, those living in these lands before Columbus and the Europeans would not have considered their home 'America.' Plus, I am a native American by virtue of having been born here. So that term is rather flawed. Pre-American peoples, or Pre-Columbian descent, or something. But the term 'discovered' is usually not used in textbooks anymore for that reason. Heck, Columbus wasn't the first European to 'discover' it. That would go to the Vikings who tried and failed to establish a settlement (logistics and encounters with hostile indigenous people making that a failure). Though interestingly, some theorize now that at least a few of the Viking immigrants may have made their way into the interior of America. Interesting stuff.

[quest44]

Actually your version of what makes you a native American has flaws also because this land was never called America to begin with until the Europeans named it as such . So going back to the origin of America before it was called America native people were those who were here before Columbus ,,not the children born from the Europeans who raped and stole the land.

[quest44]

Gee neither did I starwolf ,lol. seems these people never heard of us ? Now I wonder why that is ?
Can't look at the truth I guess if you don't want to feel the shame for what really happened back then.