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Reconsidering Columbus:

Reconsidering Columbus:. Discovery and Indigenous Presence Dr. Joyce Rain Anderson Bridgewater State University. How would you feel if someone walked into your home and claimed everything for themselves?. Discovery. What does it mean to find something?

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Reconsidering Columbus:

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  1. Reconsidering Columbus: Discovery and Indigenous Presence Dr. Joyce Rain Anderson Bridgewater State University

  2. How would you feel if someone walked into your home and claimed everything for themselves?

  3. Discovery • What does it mean to find something? • What does it mean to discover something? • How did the Papal Bull shape the discovery of the “New World”? (Doctrine of Discovery) • How does this shape our understanding of “civilized”? • Declaration of Independence for whom (“merciless Indian savages) • Who makes these determinations?

  4. “The Danger of a Single Story” Christopher Columbus Cristòffa Cómbo, Cristoforo Colombo, Cristóbal Colón 1451-1506 Didn’t set out to prove earth was round, but rather believed it was smaller in circumference. Not first to cross Atlantic: Leif Erickson 1000 AD and likely others. There are many others of Italian heritage who can be celebrated during October. “Columbus’s governance of Hispaniola could be brutal and tyrannical. Native islanders who didn’t collect enough gold could have their hands cut off, and rebel Spanish colonists were executed at the gallows. Colonists complained to the monarchy about mismanagement, and a royal commissioner dispatched to Hispaniola arrested Columbus in August 1500 and brought him back to Spain in chains. Although Columbus was stripped of his governorship, King Ferdinand not only granted the explorer his freedom but subsidized a fourth voyage.” https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-christopher-columbus

  5. Did “Americans” discover Europe first? According to Jack Forbes (2011) a group of Natives from Americas followed Gulf Stream to Galway Ireland in 1470s. Columbus knew about them, even saw them in Galway as he wrote in margins of his books, “a man and a woman of great stature on two wood” and in letters to his contemporaries (Forbes 4-6). Columbus believed them to be from Cathay (Asia). Forbes speculates that this encounter prompted Columbus to pursue his journey to the “New World.” (The American Discovery of Europe.)

  6. The Papal Bull "Inter Caetera," issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the New World. The document supported Spain’s strategy to ensure its exclusive right to the lands discovered by Columbus the previous year. It established a demarcation line one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands and assigned Spain the exclusive right to acquire territorial possessions and to trade in all lands west of that line. All others were forbidden to approach the lands west of the line without special license from the rulers of Spain. This effectively gave Spain a monopoly on the lands in the New World. The Bull stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be "discovered," claimed, and exploited by Christian rulers and declared that "the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself." This "Doctrine of Discovery" became the basis of all European claims in the Americas as well as the foundation for the United States’ western expansion. In the US Supreme Court in the 1823 case Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in the unanimous decision held "that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands." In essence, American Indians had only a right of occupancy, which could be abolished. The Bull Inter Caetera made headlines again throughout the 1990s and in 2000, when many Catholics petitioned Pope John Paul II to formally revoke it and recognize the human rights of indigenous "non-Christian peoples. “https://www.gilderlehrman.org/content/doctrine-discovery-1493

  7. Claiming the land for Spain—what the Doctrine of Discovery allows First Landing of Columbus on the Shores of the New World; painting by Dióscoro Puebla(1862)

  8. Notice that there is no landing on what is now the United States.

  9. SAY THEIR NAMES 💫 Before someone misnomered them as ‘Indians’ and colonized their lands for foreign European interests they came from Xaymaca, Quiqueya, Boriken, Kaiman, Arubeira. They danced and sang and lived on the isles of Yuma, Bahama, Caycos, Amonana, Begos and Guanasa. They traveled the seas, visiting and trading with their neighbors and cousins on Abacoa, Manigua, Poregari. They had languages and culture and spiritual foundations.

  10. What do you think about these statements? “It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language.” “With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” 

  11. Why do we celebrate Columbus Day? • http://digg.com/video/why-celebrate-columbus-day Adam Ruins Everything https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8PQXiJiLOY

  12. WHAT ABOUT OTHER COUNTRIES? Genoa—birthplace of Cristóbal ColónNo National Holiday in Italy Día de la Raza in many countries in Latin America when the races joined together Discovery Day in the Bahamas Día de la Hispanidad and Fiesta Nacional Spain Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) Argentina Day of the Americas Belize Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas) Uruguay El Día del Encuentro de dos Mundos(The Day of the Encounter Between Two Worlds) Chile https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/italians-who-fought-for-justice/

  13. States that now celebrate Indigenous People’s Day or Native American Day ▪︎ Alaska▪︎ Hawai’i▪︎ Minnesota▪︎ Oregon▪︎ South Dakota▪︎ Vermont Over 50 cities and growing United Statesand Columbus Day “The first documented observance of Columbus Day in the United States took place in New York City in 1792, on the 300th anniversary of Columbus’s landfall in the Western Hemisphere. The holiday originated as an annual celebration of Italian–American heritage in San Francisco in 1869. In 1934, at the request of the Knights of Columbus and New York City’s Italian community, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared the first national observance of Columbus Day. President Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress made October 12 a national holiday in 1937. In 1972 President Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making the official date of the holiday the second Monday in October.” (Smithsonian Magazine)

  14. Let’s try these exercises!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0jq7jIa34Y (Supaman)

  15. What might be done ? Should we celebrate Columbus? Why or why not? How can we honor Italian Americans? https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/italians-who-fought-for-justice/ How can we honor Indigenous peoples? What other holidays or celebrations or monuments should we think about with a critical lens?

  16. Other Questions? • Katupâtush! Thank You!

  17. Sources and Additional Readings • Bigelow, Bill. Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools, Ltd., 1998. • Carro, Jessia. “Do Other Countries Celebrate Columbus Day?” Indian Country Today October 12, 2014. https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/do-other-countries-celebrate-columbus-day-qCtYe488b0SHClFLc8Ybsw/ • Columbus, Christopher. Excerpts from journals https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/columbus1.asp • Dunbar Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History) Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2015. • Doctrine of Discovery. “https://www.gilderlehrman.org/content/doctrine-discovery-1493 • “First Encounters in the Americas.” Facing Historyand Ourselves. • https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-2/first-encounters-americas • Forbes, Jack. The American Discovery of Europe. Carbondale, IL: U of Illinois Press, 2011. • Kassam, Ashifaa. “'Nothing to celebrate': leftists in Spain lash out at Columbus Day celebrations” The Guardian, October 12, 2015. • Shear, Sarah B., Ryan T. Knowles, Gregory J. Soden & Antonio J. Castro (2015) “Manifesting Destiny: Re/presentations of Indigenous Peoples in K–12 U.S. History Standards,” Theory & Research in Social Education, 43:1, 68-101, DOI: 10.1080/00933104.2014.999849 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2014.999849 • Teaching for Change https://www.teachingforchange.org/ • Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. Harper Perennial Classics, 2005. • Zinn Education Project. https://www.zinnedproject.org / • Zotigh, Dennis W. and Renee Gokey. “Indigneous Peoples’ Day: Rethinking American History. Smithsonian October 7, 2018. • http://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-american-indian/2018/10/08/indigenous-peoples-day-2018/#Dl3UofT46dx2spgG.99

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