Yesterday’s Columbus Day shenanigans have reminded me again why I have trouble with people who fail to properly understand history, and so I’ve decided to write about why context drives everything, and how easy it is to distort history. When discussing history, we’ve got, fundamentally, primary and secondary sources. A primary source is a witness to or direct commentary on the event, and more likely than not, is accurate. However, not all primary sources are created equal. Taking the word, for example, of a Soviet Commissar at Stalingrad is probably not going to reflect the same kind of source as a General’s private diaries, or a discussion with a veteran who was a private at the time. Secondary sources, on the other hand, are what John Q. Public generally identifies as history—works on a period/event/battle/etc., usually a collection of primary sources. Secondary sources are not considered serious citations, and should not be used as more than a jumping-off point, or to discuss and build on, or refute, that author’s analysis and argument. That being said, there are definitive secondary sources that color most any major era or event (Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire will inevitably be mentioned any time someone is talking about the fall of Rome, or the Byzantine Empire. This is not just a cliché—Gibbon’s work is a natural place to start from, because it’s so comprehensively researched.) and they are often addressed in arguments about these eras, if nothing else, to establish common reading between the arguing parties. However, for most people, their sources are entirely secondary sources, and usually ones with a bit of spin, or failing that, not a lot of depth. This is where the Columbus angle comes in. As previously mentioned, I’m not too big on Columbus—the man was certainly a bold navigator, and a brilliant sailor, but I don’t find him too remarkable. His expedition was one of several financed to strike out in search of trade lanes, and if he hadn’t found the New World, someone else would have. I don’t view him as particularly relevant to the United States, because the direct results of Columbus’ voyage was that the pope decided the New World belonged to Spain and Portugal—not England. That’s why I look at Hudson instead, but I digress. In recent years, there’s been all sorts of an uproar about Columbus being celebrated, with many people comparing him to Hitler, Stalin, or any other of the plethora of villains that line the walls of history, waiting to be used as an inadequate comparison in an argument people don’t fully understand. This is where I’ll circle back to why context drives everything. It’s easy, from a modern perspective, to look back and see Columbus as little more than invader (as Howard Zinn, drawing primarily from Bartolomeo de las Casas’ accounts, did), and the conquistadors that followed him as the same. The temptation to believe that Columbus brought slavery to the new world, that he worked to exploit the locals, etc., etc. is very real, and is certainly rooted in truth—the late 15th and early 16th centuries were not nice times to be alive. What starts to sound ridiculous, though, is the level of comparisons offered. I’ll examine a few of these, and point out why they’re either unnecessary, ridiculous, or in a couple cases, untruthful, and show where in the greater context these things fit. I’ll be addressing three major allegations—that Columbus brought with him an exploitative imperialist regime unheard of in the New World, that the natives’ sovereignty was compromised by the arrival of Europeans, and that Columbus was a murderer on par with any of the great dictators. 1. Columbus brought with him an exploitative imperialist regime unheard of in the New World. If this allegation stopped after “regime,” I’d conclude it as certainly true—Absolute Monarchist Spain was not a benevolent place, and their colonial rule was quite harsh, especially in regards to treatment of the natives. Where this becomes ludicrous is the second part of the sentence—that such a regime was unheard of in the New World, whether on the islands of the Caribbean, the jungles of the Yucatan, or the mountains of Pennsylvania. To symbolize this idealized view of the natives, I offer the lyrics of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer,” shown here: On the shore lay Montezuma With his coca leaves and pearls In his halls he often wandered With the secrets of the worlds His subjects gathered round him Like the leaves around a tree In their clothes of many colors For the angry Gods to see The women all were beautiful Men stood straight and strong They offered life in sacrifice So others could go on Hate was just a legend War was never known People worked together And they lifted many stones And they carried them to the flatlands But they died along the way And they built up with their bare hands What we still cant do today --- It’s laughable to believe that Montezuma, the God-King of the Aztecs, was a benevolent ruler who spent his days contemplating the secrets of the world in peace—this incarnation could be, in fact, Montezuma the Zen Buddhist. The real Montezuma was likely far more concerned with ensuring he had enough fresh sacrifices, and waging Garland Wars (or Flower Wars) with his various tributary states, to attempt to get more. The Aztecs were certainly one of the most cruel and destructive regimes to have ever ruled—old world or new. Besides the Aztecs, the New World contained a great many tribes who were prone to violence—this comes as no surprise to most scholars, who find the same thing throughout history and indeed across the globe. However, most of this violence was not institutionalized and organized the way Columbus’ slavery operations were (though it is worth noting, a great many slaves at the time were taken either by Africans themselves, and then sold to Europeans at the shore, or by Arab and Persian slavers in East Africa), excepting the Aztecs and a few other larger states. While Columbus’s arrival and the Spaniards who followed was, no doubt, a violent shock to the New World, it would be a stretch to say that it was out of what they were used to. Primitive peoples without medicine, science, or philosophy are quite used to death and suffering, even if they’re peaceful (the scale of sickness that hit the New World will be discussed under allegation 3—by far, the epidemics of smallpox were the worst killers). The shock of arrival from Colombus was heralded in a different way, largely, by the second allegation. 2. The natives’ sovereignty was compromised by the arrival of Europeans. While, on the surface, this seems like a reasonable accusation, and there’s certainly truth to it—many native nations were either destroyed or displaced by the arrival of Europeans, the part that’s difficult to swallow is the notion of sovereignty. Sure, some of the larger tribes, such as the Cherokee, the Pueblo, the Aztecs, the Iroquois League, or the Sioux had what would be considered a nation, with laws and land, but a great many tribes were significantly smaller, and they lived largely without a concept of sovereignty—especially if they were nomadic in nature (such as plains tribes as the Lakota, the Comanche, the Apache, etc.). To accuse the Europeans of taking their land holds truth, but not a complete truth. Most land in present-day North America was simply uninhabited, or sparsely populated. It wasn’t a question of marching in and seizing someone else’s territory—more a question of establishing separate territory uncomfortably close. Now, in the refutation of this bullet, I will say I do not condone the poor treatment of natives and native lands by Europeans, particularly that of the Cherokee or other such tribes that were friendly with the colonists who lived and worked near them, but I must establish that the overwhelming majority of land colonized by Europeans was simply uninhabited. the best evidence for this is the location of cities. While some of North America’s cities are built over native sites (Mexico City stands at the top of this list), the vast majority of modern metropolises were built somewhere the Natives had no reason to live, or in some cases, willingly vacated. The famous story of Manhattan being sold to the Dutch for a few beads and other trinkets is usually portrayed as shameless swindling of native man by imperialist Europeans—this is laughable. The tribe that lived there at the time, the Lenape, were not seafarers and did not see the value of the land. They had no concept of intercontinental trade, or the necessity of a base for large-scale fur trading. In many ways, they had no understanding why the Europeans would care about such land anyway, and it wasn’t that important to them. This scenario is replicated throughout the New World, as the Europeans arrive and establish their own settlements, usually a good distance from nearby native settlements. Cities such as Quebec City, New Orleans, Albany, Jamestown, and Charleston, were settled where Europeans needed them to be, and generally speaking, far away from tribal territory. This is where the issue of sovereignty comes in. In Europe, one does not have to be in a city to be in the sovereign territory of a nation, such as France, and to claim that it must be inhabited to be sovereign is ridiculous. However, the French, historically speaking, have clearly marked that which is their land and which they have claim over. There is little doubt of where France starts and ends, and this was as true in the 1600s as it is today. Modern diplomacy was built out of talk between nations to ensure that sovereignty is not being infringed. In the 1500s and 1600s, that was not the case with Native Americans. They may have hunted and ranged comfortably outside of their settlements, but for the European colonists, there were few ways to know whether or not they were settling in native territory, and most natives were not territorial in the first place—if the Europeans built a settlement somewhere they hunted, they would continue to hunt there, possibly in talks with the Europeans (this would lead to problems later on down the line, as Pontiac’s Rebellion was rooted in disputes over game when Europeans settled past the lines they claimed they would settle), and only really got frustrated or angry when Europeans began to greatly outnumber the natives, and take a lot of land that the tribes hadn’t realized they’d always considered theirs (again, consider—the tribes were largely pre-diplomatic in nature, excepting the Iroquois and such larger nations). This process was gradual, and as much, if not more, a product of misunderstanding than malicious intent. Now, as time goes on, this process DOES become outright malicious, and sovereignty is violated (Jackson’s seizure of Native lands on the East Coast and expulsion to Indian Territory), so this talking point seems valid. The problem is, again, it’s context. In North America, we’re seeing over two centuries passage of time in between the arrival of colonists and the major seizure of historically Native land (For reference, I’m starting with the punitive measures of the French and Indian War taken against those natives who had allied with France—there were seizures before then, but they were significantly fewer and smaller scale, or they were conquest of existing nations, such as the Aztecs), which is the first large-scale, direct seizure of native land. If you look elsewhere, the Spaniards preferred integration (combined with conversion to Christianity, naturally), and several states in Mexico still carry the names of the tribes that were there. In present-day US and Canada, we have the drama play out that I’ve described above. I suppose, in a roundabout way, that Columbus’ arrival led to the threats to native sovereignty, but by that metric, Columbus’ arrival also led to Marilyn Monroe being famous, the Cold War, and the interstate system, since all of these require an America to occur. Now, to backtrack just a bit, I must explain why I do not consider the outright conquest of nations to be worth mentioning. While the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and the Inca is certainly a direct threat to sovereignty, it is also not disguised as anything else. The Spaniards land, they declare that the locals can either pledge allegiance to the King, or perish by their swords. The natives perish. I don’t consider this remarkable, because this is, quite simply, what Spain did at the time. Again, context. In present-day Pennsylvania, this was a similar tactic used by the Iroquois, and in classical times, the Roman Republic. It’s difficult to see this as some kind of uniquely colonial conquest, when in fact, such a causus belli was considered legitimate for the bulk of human history. The allegations of jeopardizing sovereignty are usually phrased in such a way that the Spaniards did not consider the natives people, and thus, did not give them the same consideration as Europeans. While that’s true, it has more to do with strength of arms than anything else. There is little doubt that had the Spaniards had enough forces, they would’ve delivered similar ultimatums to France and the UK—and in fact, they did, in the Anglo-Spanish War, which concerned the Spaniards’ claims to territory in the Low Countries, and the UK threatened that, the same way the Aztecs threatened the Spanish claim to the New World (a claim that was guaranteed by the pope, please bear in mind). The Habsburg-Valois war was similar—this time, the prize was Italy. The point is, the Spaniards treated most everyone like this if they believed they had superior force of arms. To look at it as uniquely colonial is incorrect and lacking proper context. 3. Columbus was a murderer on par with any of the great dictators. This allegation is, in my humble opinion, the most egregious of those presented. As previously stated, I do not admire Columbus, and do not think he was a particularly good person, but to pretend he’s Hitler, or Pol Pot, or even Louis XVI, is just imbecilic. There were not enough people in the Caribbean for him to even approach the numbers of negligence that suffered under the latter reign of the Capets, let alone have him compete with the industrialized and organized murder machine of Hitler. What this argument usually leads to is allegations that all the deaths that occurred during the colonization of the New World can be pinned on Columbus, since he showed up, took slaves, butchered those who resisted, and moved on. That argument does not make much sense. Columbus did not dictate Spanish colonial policy, nor did he sign treaties guaranteeing settlers would not move past certain geographic limits, nor did he then violate those treaties by settling or urging settling beyond those limits. To blame colonial wars, disease, and famine that occurred between 1492 and the end of the American colonial period (usually considered to be 1890 or so, with the death of the so-called Wild West) on one man who happened to discover a few islands is so bizarrely rooted in a counter-factual. Specifically, this argument hinges around an alternate history where no European influence in the Western Hemisphere has somehow brought about development that didn’t occur in the two millennia they weren’t there (which seems off—the big trait that developed parts of the world in the middle ages and renaissance shared, whether they were in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, or North Africa, was that they had constant interaction with many foreigners, unlike the relatively isolated and sparsely populated Western Hemisphere) and said development included no wars, no introduction of disease, and no violent regimes. Disease is what killed the most, and Columbus almost certainly had no concept that he or his colonists were carrying diseases that would be wildly epidemic. To Columbus, and most living people in the 1400s and 1500s, smallpox was simply a fact of life, as were a variety of other debilitating diseases. The idea that people lived without it somewhere was foreign. Though later on, there is deliberate introduction to diseases (going back to Pontiac’s Rebellion, when the British, not the Americans, as popularly remembered, gave smallpox-infected blankets to the natives), this is after over two centuries of medical and scientific advances. The bulk of the natives effected by disease are dead comfortably before 1600. While it is certainly destructive, it is equally unintentional. So, given the proper context, it’s difficult to see why Columbus is viewed as such a villain. A garden-variety thug with an unusual innovative streak, sure, he fits that bill, but the willingness to cast him as some kind of colonial supervillian intent on nothing more than the total domination and extermination of native peoples has made for quite a bizarre caricature. For the last portion of this essay, I’d like to talk about why people are so obsessed with the idea of Columbus as a villain. It’s rooted almost entirely in modernity, with, again, a loose understanding of history. Most people’s knowledge of history is a blend of popular commercial history, whatever they were taught in school, and what they can look up on Wikipedia in five-ten minutes or so. While this is a fine base, without more in-depth research, people read what they can, and then fit it into their overall narrative. If your narrative is egalitarian in nature, then it stands to good reason that Columbus would be a villain in your narrative—he clearly believed in his own superiority, and that he deserved to get rich off of slave labor and exploitation. So, he’s cast in a role he does not quite fit. Again, context rears its head. If Columbus is to blame for the diseases that wiped out whole tribes, for the slavery and exploitation of two continents, and for the violations of the sovereignty of so many nations, is he not equally to blame for all the innovations, market forces, and positives that come out of the New World? If we blame Columbus for the destruction of the Aztecs, should we not also blame him for the peaceful freedom granted to Brazil by Portugal? If we blame him for the Trail of Tears, shouldn’t we blame him for the rise of liberalism ignited by the American Revolution? If we blame him for the forced conversion of natives to Christianity, shouldn’t we blame him for ending human sacrifice in Mesoamerica? This is usually missed by people against Columbus in their willingness to fit him in this villain’s role, because they’re looking at a narrative of the past through a decidedly modern lens. They want to accentuate the negative, partially out of guilt (if you’ve never felt your stomach sink just a little bit while reading about Wounded Knee or the Trail of Tears, you’ve got a whole separate problem this essay will not address), and partially out of cognitive dissonance. They want to enjoy such a modern, egalitarian, forward-thinking world without acknowledging the bloody steps it took to get here. There is no peace without war first, and there are precious few routes that lead to riches without hard work and personal sacrifice. So, they feel shame, and want to reconcile their current views with the actions of those that founded the country. Columbus, Cortez, Washington, Jackson, and countless others are used to fill this villain hole, for “perpetuating slavery,” or “enforcing imperialism,” or that ever-favorite buzzword of the modern left, “being racist.” It matters little what face the villain has, only that he is one-dimensional—a vile, treacherous, greedy, bigoted, and aggressive sort, a kind of antithesis stuffed with straw to the modern altruistic progressive. That’s where we get the hatred of Columbus Day, and the shame over colonialism. While, as mentioned, there is plenty of negativity to be found in colonial and imperial history, there’s a lot of good, too. The United States, in particular, would not have come about without colonialism. Without colonial rule, Britain, the home of John Locke and Adam Smith, would’ve never risen to the ideological prominence it held in the 1700s through today. There’s little productive to be accomplished in disowning our colonial history, just as there’s little productive to be accomplished in being proud of someone like Columbus. The best answer is to reconcile the two—I, again, champion Hudson, though I’m open to the idea of an Explorer’s Day, or even a Colonial Heritage Day, in which we explore all that made colonial history possible from both Europeans and Natives. What I am not in favor of, nor will I ever be, is the trendy condemnation of historical figures because it fits a popular worldview. Follow the evidence. Embrace context. Learn real history, not just what you want to believe. The world’s complex, but only if you aren’t capable or willing to understand the complexities.- Stolen without shame from Philip S. Bolger, who I am completely, madly in love with right now.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 00:18:16 +0000
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