When He saw thee of an age with which
he was content, He caused thy name to sound marvelously in the
land. The Indies, which are so rich a part of the world, He gave
they for thine own. . . Of the barriers of the Ocean Sea, which
were closed with such mighty chains, He gave thee the keys. .
. .
- CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
There are several reasons why the voyages of Christopher Columbus, and not the voyages of earlier explorers to the Americas, changed the course of history. First of all, although contact between the people of the Americas and people from Europe and Asia occurred before Columbus, those cases have received little or no attention because nothing significant happened as a result of these encounters. Secondly, many factors involving the state of Europe in the late fifteenth century set the stage for Columbus' voyage to become the historical event that it did.
There is considerable evidence of pre-Columbian crossings, some substantial and some that is rather sparse, though intriguing. Most textbooks cover the Viking visits to North America because there is substantial evidence to support it. Viking legends have long described the visits they made to "Vinland," as they called North America, but archaeological evidence has been uncovered that supports these tales. As a result, most of the textbooks I looked at did cover the Viking visits.
However, only one of the textbooks covered the possibilities of other pre-Columbian visitors to the Americas. The American Nation (1995) discusses the possibilities of pre-Columbian contact via Pacific voyages:
There are many stories about seafaring peoples from Asia reaching the Americas. Most experts agree that such voyages were very rare, if they occurred at all. Still, some believe that even after the last ice age ended, people continued to cross the Bering Sea from Asia into North America. Others claim that fishing boats from China and Japan blew off course and landed on the western coast of South America. (54)
The pre-Columbian visits that offer undisputable evidence of their occurrence are the migrations from Siberia to Alaska between 70,000? and 12,000? B.C., which led to the peopling of the Americas, and the Viking visits. The Vikings journeyed from Greenland and Iceland to Labrador, Baffin Land, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, possibly Cape Cod and further south (Loewen 38). Archaeologists found a Norse settlement on the coast of Newfoundland in 1961, including eight Viking-style longhouses.
Sociologist and textbook author James W. Loewen discusses the evidence of these and other pre-Columbian contacts in his book Lies My Teacher Told Me. He explains that there is moderate evidence that there were visits from Indonesia to South America or vice versa between 6000? and 1500? B.C., from Japan to Ecuador around 5000? B.C., from Afro-Phoenicia to Central America between 1000 B.C. and 300 A.D., and from West Africa to Haiti, Panama, and possibly Brazil around 1311?-1460? (38) The evidence for the first two visits consists of similarities in their cultures such as in the pottery and in their fishing styles. The evidence for the visits from Afro-Phoenicia are South American sculptures and ceramics that bear Negroid and Caucasoid likenesses. The reports of West African visits originate from Portuguese sources in West Africa, Columbus on Haiti, and Balboa in Panama. There is some nominal evidence, mostly legends and cryptic historical sources, that there were still other pre-Columbian visitors to America: from China to Central America in 1000 B.C.; from Phoenicia and Celtic Britain to New England in 500 B.C.; from Ireland to possibly the West Indies or Newfoundland in 600 A.D.; from Portugal to possibly Newfoundland or Brazil in 1460; and from Basque Spain and England to the Newfoundland coast sometime between 1375? and 1481 (38). Some of the more interesting of these possibilities are the tales of an Atlantic crossing in the opposite direction, from Canada to Scandinavia or Scotland. Loewen explains that "two Indians shipwrecked in Holland around 60 B.C. became major curiosities in Europe" (37).
This fascinating account of Native Americans visiting Europe did not make it into even one of the textbooks. It seems that the textbooks only report on hard facts and do not present many of the mysteries such as this that abound throughout history, the kinds of things that stimulate a child's interest. Loewen conducted a study of high school level American history textbooks. He explains how one of the textbooks he examined, The United States-A History of the Republic, was written by two people who also wrote After the Fact, a book for college level history majors in which they "emphasize that history is not a set of facts but a series of arguments, issues, and controversies" (37). However, their high school textbook presents history as answers, not questions, like all the other textbooks. Loewen supports the need for stimulating young history students:
If textbooks allowed for controversy, they could show students which claims rest on strong evidence, which on softer ground. As they challenged students to make their own decisions as to what probably happened, they would also be introducing students to the various methods and forms of evidence-oral history, written records, cultural similarities, linguistic changes, human blood types, pottery, archaeological dating, plant migrations-that researchers use to derive knowledge about the distant past. Unfortunately, textbooks seem locked in the rhetoric of certainty. (37)
A more complete picture of the past would be revealed to students by including a complete account of both possible and definite pre-Columbian voyages. It would also help students understand the immense changes that Europe underwent between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries that partially explain why the consequences of the Viking settlements were different from the Spanish. The new European view of the world was responsible for Columbus' voyages taking on their phenomenal significance. Omitting the state of Europe at the time of Columbus from the textbooks lends to the glorification of Christopher Columbus, the man, and disregards the fact that Columbus was in the right place at the right time. For many reasons, the world was simply ripe for the encounter.
The Spain that Christopher Columbus left behind on August 3, 1492 and brought with him to the Americas was, like the rest of Europe, a land of violence and intolerance, racked with famine and disease, and obsessed with wealth and religion. These factors have everything to do with why this particular encounter with the Americas, as opposed to past encounters, had monumental consequences for world history.
For many centuries, under the rule of the Moors, Spain was a place of religious tolerance where Jews, Muslims, and Christians lived together in peace. Eventually this harmony collapsed as the Moors began fighting amongst themselves, and eventually were defeated by the Christian armies in the fifteenth century and driven from Spain. On the very day that Columbus set sail on his western voyage, the Jews who had not agreed to become Christian were being driven from Spain by royal decree. By the time the expulsion was complete, between 120,000 and 150,000 Jews had been driven from the homes that they and their ancestors had occupied for millennia (Stannard 62). The Inquisition, which relentlessly went after any variety of dissenter, attempting to do with the sword what it could not do by prayer, was at its most violent in the fifteenth century (Sale 32). This was Columbus' world, and he brought it with him to the Americas, determined to bring Christianity to the Indians . . . or else.
Many of those who did not consent to become Christians-in Europe, and then in the Americas as well-were doomed to torture and death. In addition to the Church-sponsored violence was the violence of everyday life. "Death was so daily, brutality so commonplace, destruction of the animate and inanimate so customary, that it is shocking even in our own age of mass destruction," says historian Kirkpatrick Sale (31). And then there was the violence generated by the nation-states that were just then forming in Europe:
Among each other the rising states would practice . . . relentless violence-officially called war-providing the fifteenth century with a steady spate of battle and siege and slaughter, whose reverberations touched every corner of the subcontinent and whose severity reached levels not merely double and triple but ten and fifteen times what they were just three centuries before. (Sale 33)
Considering the violent world Columbus and his crew left, it would have been surprising if the Indians had encountered people who treated them with respect and the utmost kindness.
Disease and famine added to the misery that was Europe in the fifteenth century. Unsanitary conditions made it a breeding ground for every imaginable type of pestilence:
Along with the stench and repulsive appearance of the openly displayed dead, human and animal alike, a modern visitor to a European city in this era would be repelled by the appearance and the vile aromas given off by the living as well. Most people had never bathed, not once in an entire lifetime. Almost everyone had his or her brush with smallpox and other deforming diseases that left survivors partially blinded, pock-marked, or crippled. . . . (Stannard 58)
Often disease was caused by extreme malnutrition, for famine was common in Europe, and especially bad in the fifteenth century when prices fluctuated constantly. Just the slightest fluctuation in food prices could cause the sudden deaths of "tens of thousands who lived on the margins of perpetual hunger" (Stannard 57-58). The quality of the soil and the agricultural techniques varied greatly throughout Europe, but even the relatively privileged area of France suffered at least seven country-wide famines, and innumerable local ones (Sale 35).
It is little wonder why people living in such deplorable conditions would develop an unsatiable quest for wealth. The masses were starving, but the rich did not want for food. In his book Imperial Spain, J.H. Elliot comments that "the rich ate, and ate to excess, watched by a thousand hungry eyes as they consumed their gargantuan meals" (306). And now the masses knew that such wealth was attainable, due to the invention of the printing press. The printing industry was well-established and widespread by the 1470s and allowed all of Europe to read the tales returning Crusaders told of the gold and jewels and spices in Asia. "Not that this was the first era in which the human soul coveted and strove for wealth-but perhaps the first in which the possession of material goods began so markedly to replace other values at the center of ethical and religious pantheons," says Sale (43). These values to which Europe was succumbing would prove powerful enough to dictate the course of American history. There may not have been colossal amounts of gold in the Americas, but its resources would make many Europeans fabulously wealthy. People no longer worked to maintain their existence, but to increase their money and power. This was the beginnings of capitalism.
Examining the whole of European culture as it existed in the late fifteenth century, in addition to understanding how different it was from the cultures in the Americas, clarifies what happened in the next five centuries. Europeans, seeing no improvement in their circumstances, believed that the end of the world was on the horizon. When the continents of the Americas were discovered, they saw a way to escape by, as Sale says, the conquest of Paradise (46). Instead of escaping, they transferred their culture to this new world, bringing their problems with them to the Americas. In the next 500 years, this culture slowly "came to prevail throughout all the earth-and in those countries where it secured itself more or less intact, particularly in North America . . . its priorities and visions, its preconceptions and powers, pretty much determined the fate of the earth" (Sale 45-46).
Few of the textbooks, old or new, cover this aspect of the clashing of the two worlds. Most of the textbooks discuss the fact that Europeans were searching for the riches of Asia, and how important it therefore was to find a trade route to Asia via water. Some, such as Five Centuries in America and A More Perfect Union, cite the Renaissance and how it sparked people's imaginations and made them eager to explore the world around them. Only one book delves deeper and even makes the connection between what was going on in Europe and how the Europeans behaved in the Americas. A History of US, which is a series of ten shorter textbooks, discusses this in the first two volumes: The First Americans and Making Thirteen Colonies. "The Power of the Press" chapter in The First Americans discusses the impact of the printing press, the Renaissance, and finding a route to the Indies. The "About Ideas and Beliefs" chapter discusses the religious intolerance in Europe, the violence that it caused, and the role it played in the conquest of America:
In 15th-century Europe most people were Roman Catholic. There were some Jews and Muslims, too, but no Protestants. . . The Protestant religions would get started in the 16th century when a man in Germany named Martin Luther protested and tried to reform the Catholic church. . . . Unfortunately, the clash between Protestants and Catholics led to centuries of hate and violence in Europe. Instead of talking calmly about their differences, Protestants and Catholics fought about them. Neighbors and relatives killed each other because they thought differently about religion, and yet all of them claimed to be Christian. Many people went to the New World to escape from those wars of religion. Many went in search of freedom of belief.
Remember 1492? That was the year Columbus made his first voyage to the New World. It was also the year all Jews had to leave Spain. Those who stayed were forced to convert to Christianity. If they only pretended to convert-and were caught secretly practicing their religion-they were burned alive. . . .
Some explorers thought they could serve God by converting the Indians to Christianity and, if the Indians wouldn't convert, by killing them. . . . Columbus and most Spaniards believed their religion was the only true religion. Suppose that you are convinced that your way of thinking is good for everyone. Suppose you are sure you are right. Can you be sure? (87-89)
Not only does the author, Joy Hakim, offer extensive reasons for why the Europeans treated the Indians the way they did, but she prompts the students to contemplate it further by placing them in the shoes of the Europeans. Hakim does this often throughout the text, the only textbook that really makes history come alive. She continues to cover the effect that religious movements in Europe had on the Americas. She discusses the Inquisition in "The Big Picture" chapter. The preface of Making Thirteen Colonies examines the birth of all religions, their development, and their effect on the world. She relates how this ultimately affected the Americas:
The ideas of all these people-with all their religions and cultures-made up an idea pool, a kind of cultural stew, that sailed to America across the ocean from Europe. (Both the good ideas and the bad came to America. One bad idea was slavery. Some of all the people we have talked about kept slaves.) (13-4)
All in all, Hakim devotes significantly more text to the state of the world in the fifteenth century than any other textbook, spanning several chapters as opposed to less than a page in the other textbooks. This is probably related to the fact that A History of US covers the negative as well as the positive parts of the story of America, unlike its competitors. It is difficult to understand the negative parts of the story without understanding the reasons behind them. Consequently, the students reading A History of US will understand the big picture in terms of what happened in the Americas as a result of the 1492 encounter.
Exploring Our Country | Living in the Americas | Living in the United States | Five Centuries in America | Liberty and Union | America!America! | The American People | America Past and Present | Our Country's History | The US: Its Past, Purpose and Promise |
|
Vikings | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Bjarni Herjulfson | N | N | N | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | N |
Leif Ericsson | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Viking settlement | Y | N | N | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y |
Renaissance | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
Crusades | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N |
Inquisition | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
expulsion of Jews | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
nation states | N | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N |
violence | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
famine | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
printing press | N | N | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N |
Marco Polo | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | N | Y | N |
quest for wealth | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y |
search for new trade route | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Portugal / Prince Henry | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | Y | N |
Bartholomeu Dias | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N |
Vasco de Gama | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N |
Life of Columbus | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | N | Y | N |
America: Yesterday & Today | Exploring America's Heritage | The US: Past to Present | America Will Be | The US & Its Neighbors | The US: Its History & Neighbors | America: People & the Dream | The American Nation | A More Perfect Union | A History of US |
|
Vikings | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y |
Bjarni Herjulfson | Y | N | N | N | Y | Y | N | N | N | Y |
Leif Ericsson | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y |
Viking settlement | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y |
Renaissance | N | N | N | N | N | N | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Crusades | N | Y | N | Y | N | N | Y | Y | N | Y |
Inquisition | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | Y |
expulsion of Jews | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | Y |
nation states | N | N | N | N | N | N | Y | Y | N | N |
violence | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
famine | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
printing press | N | Y | N | Y | N | N | Y | Y | N | Y |
Marco Polo | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y |
quest for wealth | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
search for new trade route | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Portugal / Prince Henry |
Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y |
Bartholomeu Dias | N | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N |
Vasco de Gama | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N |
Life of Columbus | N | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | N | N | N | Y |