What Your History Books Got Wrong
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W. Loewen
T H E NEW P R E S S NEW YORK LONDON
© 1992 by James W. Loewen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publisher. Illustration credits appear on page 39. Requests for permission to reproduce selections from this book should be mailed to: Permissions Department, The New Press, 38 Greene Street, New York, NY 10013. First published i n the United States by The New Press, New York, 1992 This edition published by The New Press, New York, 2006 Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York ISBN-13 978-1-56584-008-9 ISBN-101-56584-008-9 CIP data available The New Press was established i n 1990 as a not-for-profit alternative to the large, commercial publishing houses currently dominating the book publishing industry. The New Press operates i n the public interest rather than for private gain, and is committed to publishing, in innovative ways, works of educational, cultural, and community value that are often deemed insufficiently profitable. www.thenewpress.com Book and poster design by Sandra
Brannon
Printed in the United States of America 10
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A l s o b y James W. L o e w e n Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White Mississippi: Conflict and Change (with Charles Sallis, et al.) Social Science in the Courtroom Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
C o n t e n t s Introduction
1
Somebody Was Already Living Here
1
The Words We Use Determine H o w We Think Exploration before Columbus
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8
Eurocentrism Affects What Textbooks Include and Exclude W h y Was Europe Ready To Act Differently This Time?
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Textbooks Make up Details about Columbus To A v o i d Uncertainty Textbooks Make the Obstacles Seem Greater
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Textbooks Make His Motives Seem Purer
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Textbooks Omit What Columbus Did w i t h the Americas
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Textbooks Omit Changes the Americas Caused in Europe and Africa Textbooks Make Columbus Seem More Tragic W h y Do Textbooks Lie?
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Columbus and the "Century of Progress"
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Historiography: H o w History Changes, Depending on W h e n and Where It Is Written
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Objections to Teaching the Truth about Columbus The Result of All This Is Boring History
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Further Reading, a Video, and an Invitation to a Dialogue
35
A n examination of the w a y the following textbooks tell the story of Christopher Columbus:
The American Pageant, by Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy
The American Way, by Nancy Bauer
Land of Promise, r
by Carol Berkin and Leonard Wood
A History of the United States, by Daniel J. Boorstin and Brooks Mather Kelley
The United States—a History of the Republic, by James West Davidson and Mark H. Lytle
America Past and Present, by Robert A. Divine, T. H. Breen, George M. Frederickson, and R. Hal Williams
American History, by John A. Garraty with Aaron Singer and Michael Gallagher
The American Tradition, by Robert Green, Laura L. Becker, and Robert E. Coviello
Discovering American History, by Allan U. Kownslar and Donald B. Frizzle
The American People, by Gary B. Nash, Julie Roy Jeffrey, John R. Howe, Peter J. Frederick, Allen F. Davis, and Allan M. Winkler
American Adventures, by Ira Peck, Steven Jantzen, and Daniel Rosen
Life and Liberty, by Philip Roden, Robynn Greer, Bruce Kraig, and Betty Bivins
The Challenge of Freedom, by Robert Sobel, Roger LaRaus, Linda Ann De Leon, and Harry P. Morris
The American Adventure, by the Social Science Staff of the Educational Research Council of America
Triumph of the American Nation, by Paul Lewis Todd and Merle Curti
vi
Introduction I n fourteen hundred and ninety t w o , Christopher Columbus sailed i n f r o m the blue. American history books portray h i m as our first great hero; so does our whole culture. Indeed, n o w that Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays are combined as President's Day, Columbus is one o f only t w o people the United States honors b y name i n a national holiday (the other is Martin Luther King, Jr.). The one date f r o m history class that everyone remembers is 1492. I have surveyed fifteen widely used high school and middle school textbooks of American history to learn what they say about Christopher Columbus. 1 have also asked hundreds o f m y college students t o t e l l me what they remember f r o m high school and j u n i o r high about Columbus and the European exploration of the Americas. So I have a good idea what gets taught and what gets learned about Columbus i n many schools i n the United States. Columbus was so pivotal that, like Jesus, historians use him to divide history: the Americas before 1492 are called "pre-Columbian." The textbooks give Columbus a l o t o f space—eight-hundred-word essays on average, a map, and a portrait. They make quite a story out o f his life. Their heroic collective account goes something like this: 1
Born i n Genoa, Italy, of humble parents, Christopher Columbus grew up to become an experienced seafarer. He sailed the Atlantic as far as Iceland and West Africa. His experiences convinced h i m that the w o r l d must be round. Therefore, the fabled riches of the East— spices, silk, and gold—could be had, he reasoned, b y sailing west, replacing the overland route through the Middle East, w h i c h the Turks had closed o f f to commerce. To f u n d his enterprise, he beseechejl monarch after monarch i n Western Europe. Finally, after being dismissed once more b y Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Columbus got his chance. Queen Isabella decided to underwrite a modest expedition. He outfitted three p i t i f u l l y small ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and set f o r t h f r o m Spain. A f t e r a difficult westward journey of more than t w o months, during w h i c h his mutinous crew almost threw h i m overboard, he discovered the West Indies on October 12, 1492. U n f o r t u nately, although he made three more voyages to America, Columbus never k n e w he had discovered a New World. He died i n obscurity,
unappreciated and penniless. Without his daring, though, American history w o u l d have been very d i f f e r e n t — f o r i n a sense he made i t all possible. Unfortunately, almost everything i n this traditional account is either w r o n g or unknowable. The textbooks have taken us on a trip o f their own, away f r o m the facts of history, into the realm of myth. Moreover, the textbooks leave out almost everything important that w e do k n o w about Columbus and the European exploration of the Americas. Texts omit the causes, most of what Columbus actually did, and many of the results o f his voyages. I n place of these, to make h i m a bigger hero, they invent all kinds o f details that never happened. Reading this b o o k and the accompanying poster w i l l be something o f a voyage o f exploration itself. We w i l l enter a w o r l d u n k n o w n t o those who read only conventional history textbooks—the w o r l d of historic evidence. We w i l l see what historians really k n o w about Columbus, based on the original sources, and compare i t to what the textbooks tell us about the man and his mission. This is a journey into never-never land, where textbooks make up what they want us t o believe about Columbus, instead of revealing what really happened. Amnesia seems t o afflict our textbooks: a hundred years ago we knew important historical facts that n o w w e seem t o have forgotten. F i nally, we w i l l see that the true significance of Columbus's f o u r voyages to the Americas was not that he "discovered" them—which he d i d n o t — b u t what he did w i t h them. I n the process, w e w i l l discover h o w history is w r i t t e n and how i t is distorted. Just as the w o r l d was never the same after Columbus's voyages, i f this b o o k succeeds, your w o r l d w i l l not be quite the same. You w i l l see h o w different biases can affect the w r i t i n g of history, even of basic textbooks. Once y o u k n o w how they lied to y o u about Columbus, y o u might be more critical of what history texts tell you about other topics.
Was Already Living Here The first thing textbooks leave out is the fact that the Americas were already inhabited. That's not quite fair. Every textbook says that people lived i n the Americas before Christopher Columbus landed. However, when textbooks swing into what they see as their main story—the settlement of the Americas
1. The fifteen textbooks are: Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy, The American Pageant (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1983); Nancy Bauer, The American Way (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979); Carol Berkin and Leonard Wood, Land of Promise (Glenview, ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1983); Daniel J . Boorstin and Brooks Mather Kettey, A History of the United States (Needham, Mass.: Prentice Hall, 1989); James West Davidson and Mark H. Lytle, The United States—A History of the Republic (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981); Robert A. Divine, T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R, Hal Williams, America Past and Present (Glenview, III.: Scott, Foresman, J 987); John A. Garraty with Aaron Singer and Michael Gallagher, American History (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982); Robert Green, Laura L. Becker, and Robert E. Coviello, The American Tradition (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, 1984); Allan U. Kownslar and Donald B. Frizzle, Discovering American History (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974); Gary B. Nash, Julie Roy Jeffrey, John R. Howe, Peter J . Frederick, Allen F. Davis, and Allan M. Winkler, The American People (New York: Harper and Row, 1990); Ira Peck, Steven Jantzen, and Daniel Rosen, American Adventures (Austin, Tex.: Steck-Vaughn, 1987); Philip Roden, Robynn Greer, Bruce Kraig, Betty Bivins, Life and Liberty (Glenview, III.: Scott, Foresman, 1984); Robert Sobel, Roger LaRaus, Linda Ann De Leon, and Harry P. Morris, The Challenge of Freedom (River Forest, III.: Laidlaw Brothers, J982J; Social Science Staff of the Educational Research Council of America, The American Adventure (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1975); Paul Lewis Todd and Merle Curti, Triumph of the American Nation (Orlando, Fia.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982). 1
2
by Europeans—Native Americans pretty m u c h drop out. The omissions begin w i t h their various presentations of Columbus. Indians play b i t parts i n the Columbus story as textbooks t e l l it. I n A History of the United States, Boorstin and Kelley devote 214 lines o f text—almost t w o thousand words—to the story o f Columbus's f o u r voyages to America. This is the longest account i n any o f the fifteen books I have surveyed. Yet i n i t , Native Americans get only five words: "The natives called i t Guanahani, and Columbus named i t San Salvador." To be sure, A History of the United States goes on to allot its next t w o pages o f text, one page o f photos, and a map to American Indians. This tiny section o f 1250 words tries to cover f o r t y thousand years and more than f o u r hundred societies, f r o m Peru to the Arctic, i n less space than Columbus gets! Several other books do m u c h better than that. Four books allot their first chapter to Native Americans. The American Adventure, f o r example, gives three chapters—forty pages—to "The Earliest Immigrants." Discovering American History and The American People supply interesting information o n Native Americans i n the twentieth century. A t the other extreme, though, The American Pageant w i n s the "honor" of the worst and shortest treatment: i t gives Indians before Columbus not a single paragraph and leaves them out of the twentieth century as well.
Textbooks Underestimate the Population of the Americas What should American history textbooks t e l l us about the people w h o lived here when Columbus came calling? First, we need to k n o w h o w many people lived here. Calculating population may sound boring, but it's not. Estimates o f Indian population have gone through an interesting cycle. I n 1840 George Catlin, a painter and student of Indian culture, estimated that i n 1492 fourteen million Indians
/ •/-;
I'. Tftis Catlin portrait of a leader of the Mandan tribe in South Dakota dramatizes the Indian population decline. In 1838, ivithin eight years of his finishing it, smallpox struck the Mandans and reduced their number from sixteen hundred to just thirty-one.
lived i n what later became the United States and Canada. He believed t w o million were still alive i n 1840, w h e n he was painting portraits of surviving Indians i n the West. I n 1921, anthropologist James Mooney concluded that only one m i l l i o n Native Americans had lived i n the United States i n 1492. Beginning around 1947, scholars returned to estimates of f o u r t o twenty million. They have carefully assembled reports f r o m the very first European visitors, before disease and increased warfare struck d o w n many Indians. I n 1975, historian Francis Jennings t o o k some pains to demolish the Mooney figure. He showed that the assumptions i t rested on were incorrect and concluded that ten to twenty m i l l i o n was a more accurate figure. H o w do the fifteen textbooks I surveyed, all w r i t t e n after Jennings, treat this topic? N o t very well. This is where textbooks reach their first controversy. Authors could let readers i n o n this furious debate o f the 1960s and early 1970s. They could tell h o w and w h y these estimates changed—but they don't. They seem to feel they must present "facts" f o r children to "learn," so they hide the controversy. Instead, they simply state numbers— wildly different numbers! Challenge of Freedom claims that "nearly one million Indians lived i n N o r t h America." Most of these lived i n Mexico, leaving only a couple hundred thousand f o r the United States and Canada. American History suggests that one million people lived i n the United States and Canada. The American People says f o u r million, but American Adventures proposes "as many as ten million." The most common answer, supplied b y five textbooks, is the o l d (discredited) figure o f one million; only t w o provide estimates of ten to twelve million. Four omit the subject o f Indian population altogether. 3
Authors Seem Obliged To Give Answers Rather Than Teach Issues It's pretty f u n n y to realize that students i n some classes are learning less than a million, while those i n other classes learn more than ten million. This shows that y o u can't j u s t memorize answers f r o m a text, not even about something as "factual" as numbers. Nevertheless, the problem isn't w i t h the estimates—it is w i t h the approach. Why do these authors f e e l they must give simple answers like these? Population estimates aren't something to memorize. They are based o n reasoning, arguments, and weighing o f evidence. Only one book, The American Adventure, admits that there is a controversy, and even then only i n a footnote. The other textbooks keep students unaware o f the controversy and ignorant as t o the methods of social science. Columbus himself wrote that the Americas were "filled w i t h innumerable people." When he landed on Haiti, he saw towns and fields without end. Columbus made Haiti his headquarters and called i t Hispaniola—Little Spain. (Hispaniola is n o w divided into t w o independent nations, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.) I n 1496 Columbus
2. I discuss whether the first Americans should be called "Indians" or "Native Americans" on page 6, below. 3. Only one of the fifteen history textbooks includes footnotes. Publishers claim that footnotes would be too hard for students. It's really just the opposite. Having no footnotes is hard for students, because it makes it difficult to see if authors got their facts right. For a review of the literature about Native American population, see Melissa Meyer and Russell Thornton, "Indians and the Numbers Game," chapter one of Colin Calloway, ed., New Directions in American Indian History {Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988). See also Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), especially p. 16.
2
asked his brother, Bartholomew, to oversee a census of the Arawaks on Haiti. Bartholomew's men counted 1,130,000, excluding children under fourteen and very old people— i n other words, excluding a l o t o f people. A t that time, the Spaniards controlled about half the island, so its total population was probably more than twice that number. Bartolome de las Casas spent most of his long life i n the Caribbean, w o r k i n g f o r better treatment of the Indians and w r i t i n g a history o f Spanish-Indian relations. He included summaries o f the journals that Columbus kept on his first and t h i r d voyages. Since Columbus's original journals are lost, Las Casas's summaries are the best record we have of these crucial undertakings. Las Casas estimated that Haiti "contained more than three or f o u r m i l l i o n people" when Columbus landed. Modern researchers agree. What about the rest of the western hemisphere? Current scholarship suggests that i n 1492 between sixty million and ninety m i l l i o n people hved i n the Americas, including ten to twenty m i l l i o n i n what is n o w the United States and Canada. A b o u t twenty-five m i l l i o n are thought to have lived i n Mexico alone. (By way of contrast, about five to eight million people lived i n Spain, five million i n England, Scotland, and Wales, and seventy-five to ninety million i n all of Europe.) 4
5
6
IMifira Wm 9? IMiliiMp mm 1
i
Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) was a metropolis of100,000 to 300,000people (see Robert F. Spencer and Jesse D, Jennings, The Native Americans [New York Harper and Row, 1977], p. 480). When Cortez first saiv it, he proclaimed it "larger and more pleasant than any city in Europe." This is the central market, as shown in the Seeds of Change exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution.
M y college students are amazed to learn of these numbers. That's because their high school history books gave them the impression o f an overcrowded Europe settling a virgin American wilderness.
Were Indians Primitive or Civilized? Our history books not only imply that f e w people lived here, they also portray most of those w h o did as primitive. American Adventures describes Columbus's arrival this way: "Who were these people w h o greeted them on the shore? They were practically naked. They were not dressed i n fancy silk robes and j e w e l r y . . . . " American Adventures is right that the Indians were practically naked; but today, many Europeans i n Haiti are also practically naked Club M e d vacationers. It's a w a r m country. Being naked doesn't mean one lacks sophistication or culture. American History b y John Garraty indulges i n the most open use o f the primitive/civilized division: "With historical imagination it is not hard to see the Spanish conquerors as the first Americans must have seen them. Here were gods come f r o m heaven to rule them," Garraty writes. "These gods looked d o w n at f r a i l canoes f r o m enormous floating fortresses. H o w strong they seemed i n their shining clothing, h o w r i c h i n color."
The Wreck of the Santa Maria Garraty did not need to resort to "historical imagination." Primary sources, f r o m people w h o were on the scene, are the basic evidence f o r history. American History could have used Columbus's o w n journal to tell the true story of the "floating fortress" Santa Maria. On Christmas Day, 1492, Columbus's flagship h i t rocks o f f Haiti. Columbus immediately notified the nearest Indian leader, Guacanagari. I n Columbus's account, summarized by Las Casas, Guacanagari "wept and sent all his people f r o m the t o w n , w i t h many large canoes t o unload the ship. This was done and everything was taken f r o m the decks i n a very short space o f time. So great was the haste and diligence w h i c h that king showed!" The next day Guacanagari t o l d Columbus "that he had given t o the Christians w h o were o n shore t w o very large houses, and that he w o u l d give them more i f i t were necessary, and as many canoes as they needed to load and unload the ship." Las Casas goes on to quote Columbus's o w n words: " 'They are so loyal,' says the admiral, 'and without greed f o r what is not theirs, and so above all the others was that virtuous king.'" Thus, right f r o m the start the Indians saw that the Europeans were not gods, but could suffer setbacks like any men. Right f r o m the start, the Indians knew that their o w n canoes were not so f r a i l b u t could help rescue supplies f r o m "the enormous floating fortresses." There is no evidence f r o m primary sources that the Arawaks thought the Spaniards "were gods come f r o m heaven to rule them."
4. The most detailed analysis of Haitian population in 1492 is Sherburne Cook and Woodrow Borah, Essays in Population History: Mexico and the Caribbean (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971J, vol. 1, pp. 376-410. See also Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1972), p. 45; Benjamin Keen, "Black Legend," in The Christopher Columbus Encyclopedia (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991); Las Casas, The Tears of the Indians (Stanford, Cal.: Academic Reprints, n.d.), p. 3 (written in 1656); and Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise (New York: Knopf, 1990), pp. 160-61. 5. These Native American population estimates are based on eight sources: P. M. Ashburn, The Ranks of Death (New York: Coward-McCann 1947); Cook and Borah, Essays in Population
History,
vol. I ; Crosby, The Columbian
Exchange;
Henry
F. Dobyns, Their Number
Become
Thinned
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983), p. 42; Jennings, The Invasion of America, pp. 16-30; WMam H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1976); Howard Simpson, Invisible Armies (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980); and Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987). 6. European population estimates are based on Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, and William L Lanqer, "The Black Death; Scientific Feb. 1964.
American,
3
Right f r o m the start, then, Garraty presents a false picture of European "superiority" and Indian "primitiveness." Garraty is not alone: not one text tells h o w Indians saved the wreckage of the Santa Maria. N o t one t e x t gives us the name o f Guacanagari or any other Indian Columbus ever met. N o t one gives us their view o f Columbus, either. 7
Prlmltlve/CMIIzed—A False Division Native Americans have been rebuking textbook writers for their selective use of the t e r m "civilized" f o r a long time. I n 1927, an organization called the Grand Council Fire of American Indians called school histories "unjust to the life of our people." They went o n to question, "What is civilization? Its marks are a noble religion and philosophy, original arts, stirring music, r i c h story and legend. We had these. Then we were not savages, b u t a civilized race." Some American history textbooks do recognize the diversity o f Native American cultures. These books don't label all Indian societies "primitive." Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs were "The Most Organized Early Americans," according to The American Way. Even textbooks that appreciate Native American cultures, however, still reinforce ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism means thinking o f one's own culture as better than anyone else's. Textbooks admire hierarchical Indian societies—which were more like our society today—more than they do Indian societies whose citizens were more equal. That's because their authors still think i n terms o f the primitive/civilized distinction. A History of the United States, f o r instance, says: 8
The great empires o f old America—of the Mayas, the Incas, and the Aztecs—were all i n Mexico or south. N o r t h of Mexico most o f the people lived i n wandering tribes and led a simple life. N o r t h American Indians were mainly hunters and gatherers o f w i l d f o o d . This w o n ' t do. First, it's wrong: n o r t h of Mexico most Indians were farmers. More important, ranking societies on a scale f r o m primitive ("simple" i n A History of the United States) to civilized simply doesn't w o r k . Was Nazi Germany civilized, f o r instance? Most sociologists, referring to Germany's advanced technology, w o u l d answer yes. Does that mean we prefer the "civilized" T h i r d Reich to the "primitive" Arawaks w h o met Columbus? The American Adventure implies that we do: "Unlike the simple noncivilized peoples o f the Caribbean, the Aztec were r i c h and prosperous." I n everyday conversation, o n the other hand, "civilized" means polite, refined, the opposite of savage. Using this definition, we must consider the Arawaks civilized, while Columbus and his Spaniards, as we w i l l see, like the Nazis and the bloodthirsty Aztecs, must be deemed primitive, even savage. Unlike some o f our textbooks, Columbus knew that the Indians were not primitive. On his f o u r t h voyage, o f f Bo9
The American Adventure buys the primitive-to-civilized scale and puts the Aztecs (and presumably the Nazis) on top: "Unlike the simple noncivilized peoples of the Caribbean, the Aztec were rich and prosperous, "Five hundredyears ago, Bartolome de las Casas knew better than to call the Arawaks and Caribs noncivilized. "They used their leisure in honest recreation, such as strenuous ball games, dances, and songs that recited their historic past," he wrote. "They also made very beautiful objects with their hands when they were not occupied with agricultural, fishing, or domestic chores." This illustration shows the Carib Indians at home on Saint Vincent, before Europeans destroyed their lifestyle. It was painted in 1790.
nacca Island i n the Caribbean, he encountered a Mayan trading canoe, so b i g that i t required twenty-five paddlers. I t was "freighted w i t h merchandise" and had "a palm leaf awning like that w h i c h the Venetian gondolas carry," i n the words of his son Ferdinand. "This gave complete protection against the r a i n and waves. Under this awning were the children and w o m e n and all the baggage and merchandise." This arrangement f o r maritime transport was technologically advanced enough to merit some discussion i n Columbus's journal. Some sixty years ago, writer Gregory Mason lambasted textbooks f o r treating Indians as primitives. He used Columbus's encounter w i t h this canoe as an example: "Let us keep the picture o f that maritime merchant i n our minds, f o r i t induces a more accurate conception o f preColumbian America than we can get f r o m any historical textbook i n our schools." Unfortunately, sixty years later no text mentions this incident. Worse still, despite good intentions, despite giving more space to pre-Columbian Indian cultures than they used to, textbooks still contrast primitive Indians and modern Europeans. This comparison is inaccurate. Indian societies varied before 1492 j u s t as m u c h as societies i n Eurasia and Africa. The Incas of Peru and Ecuador organized themselves into a large nation-state. (Note that under Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain had only j u s t become such a state.) The Algonquians i n N e w England were organized by towns, w h i c h i n t u r n were loosely confederated into tribes. So were most peoples i n Eastern Europe. Indians on the Great Plains were organized as family clans, as were people i n Scotland. Thus, w e cannot lump Indians together as p r i m i 10
7. After the Santa Maria wrecked, Columbus left some forty men on Haiti in a fort built from its remains. When he returned on his second voyage, he found them all dead. They had raped and plundered the Indians until the Arawaks killed them. 8. Quoted in Rupert Costo and Jeanette Henry, Textbooks and the American Indian (San Franciscof?]: Indian Historical Press, 1970), 9. Textbooks that treat Native Americans with above-average depth and understanding include America: Past and Present, Discovering American History and The American People for the twentieth century, and The American Adventure (despite its unfortunate reference to Caribbean Indians as "noncivilized"). 10. Columbus Came Late (New York: Century, 1931), pp. 197-98.
tive, Europeans as civilized, not even i n terms of f o r m o f government. "Tribe" is also a problem w o r d . When Serbs and Croats battle i n what recently was Yugoslavia, we don't call them "tribes." When Catholics and Protestants fight i n Northern Ireland, we don't call that "tribal warfare." We seem to reserve "tribe" f o r groupings among Africans and Native Americans. Some Native Americans don't m i n d "tribe," believing "nation" is an inappropriate European concept. Other Indians prefer to use "nation," because they don't like h o w our textbooks contrast "civilized" European nations and "primitive" Indian tribes.
The Words Kf© Wm BeftsPEsaine Mmm iff® Think Words like "primitive," "civilized," and "tribe" affect h o w we think and act. "Discover" is another problem word. You'll notice this book usually uses "reached" or "encountered" instead. "Discover" usually means "finding something previously u n k n o w n t o humans"—for example, Marie Curie discovered radium i n 1898. B u t textbooks use "discover" t o mean "finding something previously unk n o w n t o whites" That's j u s t h o w Columbus himself used the w o r d when he wrote i n a letter to a Spanish nobleman, " I discovered very many islands, filled with innumerable people, all of w h i c h I took possession of."
"Discovering" the Known Notice the words I italicized: h o w can one person "discover" what another already knows and owns? I n reality, Columbus did not discover a N e w World. When he ceremoniously "took possession of the land i n the name of the Catholic Sovereigns," as his son Ferdinand put it, "many Indians assembled f o watch"! America was new only to southern Europe. Other people had discovered it twelve thousand to seventy thousand years earlier. Nonetheless, textbooks to this day use "discover." "Discover" is no minor matter. I n Columbus's w i l l , he maintained his view that the West Indies were his because he had "found" them: " I presented [to Spain] the Indies I gave them, as a thing that was mine." The United States has used the same rule about Indian land. I n 1823, Chief Justice John Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court decreed that Cherokees had some rights t o their land i n Georgia because they "occupied" it. However, whites had superior rights because they "discovered" it. H o w the Cherokees managed to occupy Georgia w i t h o u t having discovered i t , he neglected to explain. A f t e r "discovering" an island and meeting a tribe of Indians new to them, the Spaniards read aloud t o them i n Spanish what came to be called "the Requirement." Here is one version: 11
I implore you to recognize the Church as a lady and i n the name of the Pope take the King as lord of this land and obey his mandates. I f p
1
sf
6 6
J
o
h
n
s
0
n
V
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M
'
,
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o
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> discussed in Robert K. Faulkner, The Jurisprudence
you do n o t do i t , I t e l l y o u that w i t h the help of God I w i l l enter powerfully against you all. I w i l l make war everywhere and every way that I can. I w i l l subject y o u to the yoke and obedience to the church and t o his majesty. I w i l l take your w o m e n and children and make them s l a v e s — The deaths and injuries that you w i l l receive f r o m here on w i l l be your o w n fault and n o t that o f his majesty nor of the gentlemen that accompany me. 12
You can imagine what happened next. The Indians, who had never heard Spanish before, had no idea what the Spaniards had j u s t said to them. The Spaniards, having satisfied their consciences b y "giving the Indians a chance" to convert to Christianity, were n o w free to do whatever they wanted w i t h the people they had j u s t "discovered" Every single textbook uses "discover" to describe what Columbus did. Interestingly, they never say that Marco Polo "discovered" China, not even i n quotation marks. Authors are struggling w i t h this issue. Some k n o w "discover" is biased language. Land of Promise uses it: " I f Columbus had not discovered the New World, others soon w o u l d have." Three sentences later, the authors t r y to take it back: "As is often pointed out, Columbus did not really 'discover' America. When he arrived on this side of the Atlantic there were perhaps 20 or more million people already here," Taking back the specific words is not enough, however: Land of Promise's whole approach is o f whites discovering primitives who didn't really k n o w where they were, rather than two groups meeting i n a mutual encounter. Thus, Land of Promise titles its first chapter "The Old World Finds The New," That's a good example o f ethnocentrism. Several years ago, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution designed their exhibits f o r the five hundredth anniversary of Columbus's arrival i n the Americas. They chose "encounter." They argued that we understand Columbus and all European explorers and settlers more clearly i f w e treat 1492 as a meeting of three cultures (Africa was soon involved), rather than a discovery by one. Textbooks should likewise abandon "discover."
Not a "[Slew World," Mot an A g e of Exploration Notice that I used "the Americas" i n the previous paragraph. I might also have w r i t t e n "western hemisphere." "New World," however, is another biased term. The bias is Eurocentrism, w h i c h means to make Europe the center of everything. Eurocentrism imposes on history a false, one-sided perspective. People had hved i n the Americas for thousands o f years. The Americas were not new to the Indians i n 1492. Europe was. A t the end o f 1492, Columbus kidnapped and took across the Atlantic half a dozen Arawaks. To them Spain was j u s t as unexpected, j u s t as interesting—and j u s t as "new"—as Haiti was to Columbus. of John
Marshall
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968),
12. The Requirement has been widely reprinted. This translation is from "500 Years of Indigenous and Popular Resistance Campaiqn/' Guatemala Committee for Peasant Unity, 1990. ' K
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Life and Liberty knows t o avoid "New World": "When Christopher Columbus led his fleet o f three ships t o the Americas i n 1492, a new chapter i n w o r l d history began." But Life And Liberty goes o n t o commit a euphemism— a t e r m milder and less accurate than the w o r d i t replaces. The next 200 years were part of a great age o f exploration. People f r o m Europe traveled t o all parts o f the world. They m e t people and explored lands their parents had n o t k n o w n existed. They also began European settlements, or colonies, i n many places, including the Americas. Here exploration is a euphemism f o r conquest. The "Age of Exploration" or "Age o f Discovery" is more accurately called the "Age o f Conquest" or "Age o f Colonialism." So w h y do textbooks use these euphemisms? "Conquest" and "colonizing," w h i c h imply violence and force, are much less appealing words than "discovery" or "settlement." Of the f i f t e e n histories I examined, only The American People avoids euphemisms i n its chapter titles b y choosing the more accurate w o r d "colonizing," and f o r a subtitle, "conquest." A l l the others use "exploration," "discovery," "expansion," or "settlement." Interestingly, the oldest treatment o f Columbus i n an American history text that I've seen, w r i t t e n i n 1830, flatly refers t o his "offensive w a r against the Indians." That is just what i t was—a war o f conquest. The Spaniards even called themselves " conquistadores? Regarding Columbus, today's authors are less accurate than some writers i n previous centuries. Amnesia seems t o have set in. When authors choose "explore," they also encourage us to identify w i t h Columbus. Perhaps they want us t o think of ourselves as part o f a grand tradition of white European explorers, a line reaching back through A d m i r a l Peary and Dr. Livingston t o Columbus and Prince Henry the Navigator. I t projects into the future w i t h the space ship Enterprise i n "Star Trek," "going boldly where n o m a n [or woman?] has gone before." I n some ways, i t is a w o n d e r f u l heroic tradition, b u t it's not simply a white European tradition. People o f all races and cultures took part, and acknowledging their efforts wouldn't make the tradition any less wonderful. Indeed, Europeans usually depended on the people they "explored." A f r i c a n pilots helped Prince Henry's ship captains learn their way down the coast of Africa. A Canadian Indian, William Erasmus, pointed out that i n the far north "explorers y o u call great m e n were helpless. They were like lost children, and i t was our people w h o t o o k care of them." When Peary discovered the N o r t h Pole, the first person there was n o t the European American Peary, nor even his A f r i c a n American assistant, Matthew Henson, but their f o u r Inuit guides, male and female, on w h o m the entire expedition relied. We have seen h o w Guacanagari helped when the Santa Maria ran aground. We w i l l see 13
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that non-Europeans were also exploring the w o r l d long before Columbus. So long as our texts hide f r o m us the role people of color have played i n exploration, f r o m 6000 B.C. t o the twentieth century, they encourage us t o look t o Europe and its extensions as the seat o f all knowledge about the w o r l d .
Indians or Native Americans? While we are examining the power o f words, what about "Indians"? Columbus may have thought he had reached the East Indies, China, and Japan, land o f spices and gold—or at least he wanted others t o believe this—so he called the people "Indians." The name stuck, even though he was o f f b y ten thousand miles. I n the last twenty years, some Indians i n the United States have rejected Columbus's term. They choose t o call themselves Native Americans. Others, including the American Indian Movement, choose t o stick w i t h Indians. Today some history texts use one, some the other. Because native people themselves are undecided, I use both. The peoples o f the West Indies were divided into t w o main groups, Arawaks and Caribs, b o t h o f w h o m spoke Arawak. The Caribs made war o n the Arawaks, sometimes taking captives as slaves, and may even have eaten them. To set themselves apart f r o m the Caribs, hoping that the Spanish w o u l d treat them as an ally rather than an enemy, Arawaks o n Haiti called themselves "tainos" w h i c h apparently meant "good." Some historians take this as their name and call them Taino Indians as a subgroup o f Arawaks. 16
Who Is the Roamer? Who Is the Settler? Columbus knew that i f he could get Europeans t o believe that Indians h a d no f i x e d settlements, then Europeans w o u l d agree that Indians h a d little claim t o their land. Therefore, when describing his experiences on Haiti after 1493, he conveniently forgot about their towns and crop fields. N o w Columbus said they roam about and "live i n hills and mountains w i t h o u t f i x e d settlements." Even today, textbook authors have trouble recognizing that Indians had settled the Americas. When they imply that Indians didn't really settle here but j u s t roamed, i t becomes easier to present the United States as a j u s t and peaceful nation of settlers, rather than usurpers. Consider Ohio i n the 1780s. U.S. citizens were crossing the Ohio River and squatting o n Indian land. A History of the United States tells h o w "the Indians raided small parties," w h i c h "soon taught the Ohio pioneers to build garrison settlements" like F o r t Frye. The textbook titles this discussion "New Englanders Settle along the Ohio," and indexes i t as "Indians and settlers i n Ohio." The idea that Indians were settlers i n Ohio seems never to have crossed the authors' or indexer's minds. The new United States fought its first war there, i n the 1790s, but the way
13. Henry Trumbull, History of the Discovery of America; of the Landing of our Forefathers at Plymouth, and of their Most Remarkable Engagements with the Indians in New England From their First Landing in 1620 Until the Final Subjugation of the Natives in 1679 (Boston: George Clark,
1830), pp. 9-11. 14. John Bums, "Canada Tries To Make Restitution to Its O w n / ' New York Times, Sept. 1, 1988; "Discoverers' Sons Arrive for Reunion," Burlington (Vt) Free Press, May 1, 1987; Susan A. Kaplan, "Introduction," in Matthew Henson, A Black Explorer at the North Pole (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). 15. Carl Sauer says that "tainos" 1966), p. 37.
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refers to a social class within the Arawaks: see his The Spanish Main (Berkeley: University of California Press,
this textbook presents settlers versus natives, the war seems as though i t was caused by the Indians. Later we'll see that Columbus forced the Arawaks to "live i n hills and mountains without fixed settlements." Similarly, i n the Ohio Valley i n 1795 the United States destroyed the cornfields o f the Delawares three times i n one year—so the Delawares had to learn t o live "without fixed settlements." I n Wisconsin and Minnesota the Sioux Indians had been farmers as well. Then a combination of military pressure f r o m the east and the introduction of the horse l e d them to give up farming, move f u r t h e r west, and become buffalo hunters. One textbook, Life and Liberty, presents an intriguing pair of illustrations. One shows the famous horse culture of the Plains Indians. The other portrays Indian farmers. Life and Liberty then asks, "Which shows Indian life before Europeans arrived and w h i c h shows Indian life after? What evidence tells you the date?" Thus, Life and Liberty helps students to understand that Europeans d i d not civilize or settle roaming Indians. No other b o o k does anything like this. I f w e look at history f r o m the Native American viewpoint, w e see that to Native eyes, Europeans were nomads. As Chief Seattle put i t i n 1855, "to us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far f r o m the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret." The same could have been said o f Columbus. Textbooks that never call Indians settlers n o w use "settlers" t o describe Columbus and the Spanish. "The island of Hispaniola, or Little Spain, was chosen f o r the first settlement," says The United States: A History of the Republic. "Eventually, the settlers established outposts on other islands." "Settlers," though, usually are families, seeking land o n w h i c h to make- permanent new homes. But no Spanish women came, nor d i d the m e n intend to stay. To subdue the Indians and take treasure f r o m them, Columbus's second expedition was an armed force. The "settlers" were soldiers and adventurers, accompanied by cannon, guns, crossbows, horses and cavalrymen, and attack dogs i n armor. The Spanish saw themselves as soldiers, not settlers: they complained bitterly w h e n asked to do the w o r k o f settling. 16
17
When Columbus's second voyage reached the West I n dies, he started island hopping, looking f o r the best place to plunder. He wasn't interested i n land. He passed right by the beautiful island o f Montserrat because "the Indian w o m e n w h o m we brought w i t h us said that i t was not inhabited," he wrote home. B u t Saint Martin "seemed to be w o r t h finding, f o r judging b y the extent of cultivation on it, i t appeared very populous." Finally, he chose Haiti because of its large Indian population and rumors that they had f o u n d gold. Columbus started a pattern o f "settling" where Indians were most numerous. Everywhere i n the Americas, Euro18
Settlers don't usually bring along armored attack dogs. Columbus brought them on his second voyage, which shows that he planned from the beginning to conquer Haiti and the other islands. Las Casas tells how "they take these dogs along with them in all their expeditions, carrying also diverse Indians in chains for them to eat."
peans pitched camp right i n the middle of native populations—Cuzco (Peru), Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), Natchez (Mississippi), Chicago.
The Plagues I f Native Americans were about as many as Europeans i n 1492, h o w could j u s t a f e w Europeans conquer and populate America? Europe's advantages i n warfare and social technology w o u l d have enabled Europeans to dominate the Americas, as they eventually dominated Asia and Africa. Europeans were never able to settle China, India, Indonesia, or most of Africa, however. Too many people already lived there. Why were the Americas different? H o w could Spain, a country o f only five million people, take over Mexico, a country of twenty-five million? Disease was the biggest single factor. F r o m Haiti to Plymouth Rock, disastrous epidemics among Native Americans made i t easier f o r Europeans to take over. I n 1617, f o r example, j u s t before the Pilgrims landed, a plague struck New England that made the Black Death i n Europe pale by comparison. Today we think this disease was the bubonic plague, although smallpox and influenza are also possibilities. British fishermen probably gave i t to them, without meaning to. Within three years this plague wiped out between 90 and 96 percent of the inhabitants of coastal New England. The Indian societies lay devastated. Europe, Asia, and A f r i c a have historically been the breeding ground f o r most human illnesses. Humans are tropical creatures that almost surely evolved i n Africa. Tropical diseases evolved along w i t h them. When people moved t o cooler climates, many diseases had trouble moving w i t h them. I f archaeologists are correct, humans m i grated to the Americas f r o m Siberia. Many germs must have met their death on that f r i g i d trek. Thus, the first settlers i n the western hemisphere arrived i n a healthier condition than any people o n earth have enjoyed before or after. N o t keeping cows, pigs, horses, or chickens kept them healthy, because many diseases are passed back and
16. The Ohio war is described by Gary Nash, Red, White, and Black (Englewood Cliffs, N J . : Prentice-Hall, 1974), p. 63, and Francis Jenninqs, Empire of Fortune (New York: Norton, 1988), p. 63. 17. Chief Seattle, "Our People Are Ebbing Away," pp. 8 0 - 8 3 of Wayne Moquin, ed., Great Documents in American Indian History (New York: Praeger, 1973J. Rudolf Kaiser discusses this speech in "Chief Seattle's Speechfesj," in Recovering the Word, edited by Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 497-536, especially p. 520. 18. Seiect Letters of Christopher Columbus, translated and edited by R. H. Major (New York: Corinth, 1961 [1847]), pp. 8 2 - 8 3 .
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f o r t h between humans and livestock. Ironically, their very health n o w proved their undoing, f o r they had built up no resistance, genetically or through exposure during childhood, to the microbes that Europeans and Africans brought w i t h t h e m . Only "the twentieth person is scarce l e f t alive," wrote British eyewitness Robert Cushman, describing a death rate u n k n o w n ' i n all previous human experience. The plague killed every single person i n the t o w n o f Patuxet, Massachusetts. Because nearby Indian tribes were also much reduced i n population, they allowed the Pilgrims to settle right i n Patuxet and use its cornfields—after all, no one else was using them. The Pilgrims renamed i t Plymouth. 19
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the Indians i n the Amazon basin. Miners and loggers have reached the Yanomamo people of northern Brazil and southern Venezuela, bringing European diseases. One-fourth o f their t o t a l population died i n j u s t one year, 1989. Instead o f telling us about the plagues, most o f our histories create a mythic past. They omit h o w twentyfive million people i n Mexico were reduced to fewer than two m i l l i o n a century later, and h o w perhaps fourteen million i n the United States were cut d o w n t o just two hundred thousand. Instead, they tell h o w our brave European ancestors conquered a virgin wilderness. I n deed, American Adventures titles its chapter about the first British settlers i n N o r t h America "Opening the Wilderness." 21
Learning Was a Two-Way Street
This Aztec art shows an Indian dying from smallpox.
Thus, the plague made history—but not our history books! The oldest American history i n m y library, J. W. Barber's Interesting Events in the History of the United States, published i n 1829, t o l d the t r u t h about the plague of 1617: "Whole towns were depopulated. The living were not able to bury the dead; and their bodies were f o u n d lying above ground, many years after. The Massachusetts Indians are said to have been reduced f r o m 30,000 to 300 fighting men." What do we learn of these plagues i n today's books? Almost nothing: only three o f our f i f t e e n texts even mention Indian disease as a factor at Plymouth or anywhere i n N e w England. The rest prefer to attribute the Pilgrims' success t o their character—they had "just the right combination o f hopes and fears, optimism and pessimism, selfconfidence and humility to be successful settlers," i n the words of Boorstin and Kelley. Another case o f amnesia i n our contemporary histories—we used to k n o w all about it, but n o w we've forgotten. Like the Pilgrims, the Spanish were also aided by epidemics. When Cortez marched into Tenochtitlan i n triumph, dead Aztecs were everywhere. A smallpox epidemic had laid l o w the defenders o f the city. "We could n o t w a l k without treading on the bodies and heads of dead Indians," wrote a historian w i t h Cortez. These plagues are the most important event i n the entire history of the Americas, because they allowed Europeans to settle. The epidemics continue to this very day among
Having created a wilderness, authors go on t o create a frontier between "civilization" and "the wilderness." N o such frontier existed. I n reality, Europeans dominated one area, Indians another, w i t h contested land between them. Some Indians lived w i t h Europeans, beginning w i t h some Arawak w o m e n on Haiti w h o married Spaniards. Some Europeans lived w i t h Indians, o f t e n marrying into tribes and sometimes becoming leaders. European and Indian societies b o t h acculturated—each learned f r o m the other. Columbus started the process. Beginning w i t h his first voyage, he brought back ideas and products f r o m the Arawaks. A later section w i l l tell h o w these American exports affected A f r i c a and Eurasia. Unfortunately, this is not the story our textbooks tell. We have seen h o w authors marginalize Indians f r o m the start, leaving out their role i n the Columbus story. Then they underestimate Indian populations and f a i l to mention how Europeans moved directly into Indian cities and t o w n sites. Logically, then, they cannot give much attention t o h o w Indian cultures influenced "white" culture.
The second thing texts leave out is exploration before Columbus. Textbooks do admit that Columbus didn't start f r o m scratch. Every textbook account of the European explorat i o n of the Americas begins w i t h Prince Henry the Navigator, of Portugal, between 1415 and 1460. Henry is seen as discovering Madeira and the Azores. Authors seem unaware that long ago, people f r o m Phoenicia ( n o w Lebanon and Israel) and Egypt sailed at least as far as Madeira and the Azores and traded w i t h the aboriginal inhabitants o f the Canary Islands. The textbooks credit Bartolomeu Dias f o r first rounding the Cape o f Good Hope at the southern tip o f A f r i c a i n 1488, even though the Africans and Phoenicians had sailed all the way around A f r i c a t w o thousand years earlier.
19. William H. McNeill, lecture at the University of Vermont, Oct. 18, 1988; Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, pp. 34-37; Peter Farb, Man's Rise to Civilization (New York: Avon, 1968), pp. 42-43; HubbertM. Schnurrenberger, Diseases Transmitted from Animals to Man (Springfield, III.: Charles C. Thomas, 1975). See also Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 31. Andeans do have llamas; but the Andes may be too high and cold to promote disease among llamas or people. 20. Simpson gives a readable account of this plague in Invisible Armies. Cushman is quoted in Charles M. Segal and David C. Stineback, Puritans, Indians, and Manifest Destiny (New York: Putnam's, 1977), pp. 54-55. See also Neal Salisbury, "Red Puritans: The Traying Indians' of Massachusetts Bay and John Eliot," in Race Relations in British North America, 1607-1783, edited by Bruce A. Glasrud and Alan M. Smith (Chicago: NelsonHall), 1982), p. 44. However, Dobyns believes this plague swept up the Atlantic coast all the way from Florida. See Their Number Become Thinned, Disease may have played only a secondary role in depopulating Haiti, Smallpox, usually the big killer, did not appear on the island until after 1516. By then, according to Benjamin Keen, "thanks to the sinister Indian slave trade and labor policies initiated by Columbus, only some 12,000 remained" ("Black Legend," in The Christopher Columbus Encyclopedia). 21. James Brooke, "For an Amazon Indian Tribe, Civilization Brings Mostly Disease and Death," New York Times, D e c 24, 1989.
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cultural d i f f u s i o n to Henry at the dawn of European w o r l d domination, they pass i t over. This is another case of texts being Eurocentric. Authors see European culture as more advanced than any other, so they leave out the f a c t that Europe got many o f its ideas f r o m other cultures. 23
The First Explorers Were Indians
This ancient Egyptian ship provided a model for Thor Heyerdahl, who sailed a replica across the Atlantic in the 1970s. He tells the fascinating story in The Ra Expeditions (Garden City, NJ.: Doubkday, 1971). (HeyerdahVs Early Man and the Ocean [New York: Vintage, 1980] discusses the debate between those who believe people crossed the seas long ago and those who don't.)
Omitting the accomph'shments o f these Afro-Phoenicians is ironic. Prince Henry knew about them—indeed, i t was his knowledge o f their feats that inspired h i m to i m i tate them. Textbooks don't t e l l us this. I t doesn't f i t w i t h their overall storyline. They want to report h o w "we" (white Europeans) taught "them" (the rest of the world) how to do things. Readers are l e f t t o wonder how, without "our" help, Eskimos ever reached Greenland, Polynesians ever reached Madagascar, or Afro-Phoenicians ever reached the Canaries! 22
Textbooks View Modern Technology as a European Development By treating ocean travel as the invention of Europeans, American history texts encourage us to think that nobody sailed the oceans before the Portuguese. "The Portuguese designed a new k i n d o f sailing jship—the 'caravel,'" A History of the United States tells us. The textbooks also show Henry inventing navigation f o r the first time. They imply that before Europe there was nothing, at least nothing w o r t h knowing. I n fact, Henry wasNmostly collecting ideas f r o m ancient Egypt, Phoenicia, China, and India—ideas, moreover, that had been developed f u r t h e r i n Arabia and N o r t h Africa. These ideas included charts o f the stars and names of the constellations, learned f r o m Arab cultures. Navigation instruments like the astrolabe came f r o m the Middle East. The compass was Chinese. Arabic numerals, making math easier, came to Europe f r o m Arabs but began i n India. Cultures don't usually develop all by themselves. Rather, cultural development is usually caused by the diffusion o f ideas. Contact w i t h other cultures often triggers a cultural flowering. We learn i n elementary school that Persian civilization flowered long ago, due to its location on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the fact that its territory was crisscrossed b y overland trade routes. Thus, the Persians benefited f r o m contact w i t h other societies. But when texts have a golden opportunity to apply this same idea o f
Textbooks do tell us about the first explorers. Native Americans got here on foot, textbooks say. During the most recent Ice Age, between about 26,000 B.P. (Before the Present) and 12,000 B.P., SO much water was frozen i n glaciers that the worldwide sealevel dropped. People were able to w a l k across the Bering Strait f r o m Siberia to Alaska, But this isn't the f u l l story. Although archaeologists study people o f long ago, even they aren't sure just h o w or w h e n the Americas were populated.
Archaeology Is Not Dead One way archaeologists learn about the past is b y studying how people today differ f r o m or resemble each other. Most Native Americans, f r o m Argentina to Canada, share similar blood types—therefore, some archaeologists believe, most of the millions of people i n the Americas i n 1492 descended f r o m one small band. Such a small group might have crossed the Bering Strait o n foot. They might also have come by boat across the strait or on a longer voyage across the Pacific. They may even have been shipwrecked. Other archaeologists think that several groups of people migrated across the strait, perhaps at very different times. Some archaeologists believe that the first people arrived about 12,000 years B.P. Other archaeologists keep finding man-made objects i n the Americas that they think date back to 30,000 B.P., perhaps even 70,000 B.P. N O land route connected Alaska to Siberia then. Thus, archaeology provides more questions than answers. That's what makes archaeology such an interesting field of study—archaeologists don't k n o w all the answers. Unfortunately, history texts are more comfortable w i t h answers than w i t h uncertainties. Their treatments o f the first 12,000 to 70,000 years of human history i n the Americas suffer as a result. Archaeology is alive w i t h controv e r s y Most textbooks ignore the issues and simply pick a date, usually about 12,000 B.P. Thus, texts present archaeology as a dead discipline. One book, The American Adventure, is different. I t begins b y admitting uncertainty: "This page may be out o f date by the time i t is read." I t continues by presenting competing claims that humans have been i n the Americas for 12,000, 21,000, or 40,000 years. As a result, although The American Adventure is the oldest of the books I have reviewed, its pre-Columbian pages have not gone out o f date. 24
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22. Constance Irwin, Fair Gods and Stone Faces (New York: St. Martin's, 1963J, pp. 193-211,217, 241; Cyrus Gordon, Before Columbus (New York: Crown, 1971), pp. 119-25; Geoffrey Ashe, et al., The Quest for America (London: Pall Mall, 1971), pp. 78-79. 23. One textbook, American Adventure, points out "the magnetic compass had come from China," and "from the Arabs came an instrument called the astrolabe." The American People mentions that the "lateen-rigged caravel [was] adapted from a Moorish ship design." Otherwise, all these histories present the Portuguese achievements as entirely new inventions simply thought up by Europeans. 24. For a lively account of the issues, see Sharon Begley, "The First Americans," pp. 14-20 of When Worlds Collide, Newsweek Fall 1991.
special Issue, F
25. Although refusing to give up the usual "know-it-all" textbook tone, one other text, A History of the Republic, does tell of uncertainty in archaeology.
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Some Indians Did N o t W a l k t o America Whether 70,000 years ago or 12,000, the first expedition of Asians to America was not the only one. Native Americans have repeatedly crossed the Bering Strait i n kayaks and other boats. A group called the Athabascans arrived perhaps 10,000 to 2500 B.P. They settled i n northern Canada (the Cree Indians) and New Mexico (the Navajos). Inuits or Eskimos arrived by kayaks beginning perhaps 9000 to 2000 B,P. They never stopped coming and have kept i n touch w i t h relatives i n Siberia ever since. N o t one American history text suggests that Indians might have come b y boat, not even that they might have been shipwrecked. Ocean navigation doesn't fit i n w i t h their storyline—that Indians were primitive. Walking is more primitive than boat building and navigation. Thus, even though they got here first, Indians aren't pictured as explorers i n our textbooks.
Explorers from Africa, Asia, and Europe Probably Beat Columbus t o America N o b o o k sets Columbus i n the context o f pre-Columbian explorers. Instead, they maintain that the Americas remained isolated before Columbus. As American History puts it, "for thousands of years these t r i b a l societies knew nothing o f the rest of the w o r l d . They were as isolated from their original homeland i n Asia and f r o m Europe and A f r i c a as i f they were on the moon." Repeated arrivals don't f i t i n w i t h this storyline. We shall see that American histories want t o glorify Columbus. Omitting his predecessors makes Columbus's feat l o o k a l l the more impressive by comparison. This is exactly the Columbus story that textbooks want to tell. Nonetheless, long before Christopher Columbus reached America, explorers f r o m Africa, Asia, and Europe almost surely reached our shores. I n a way, his famous
1492 expedition was the last i n a series o f voyages to and f r o m the Americas. Figure 1 gives a chronological fist o f explorers w h o may have reached the Americas before Columbus, w i t h comments on h o w good the evidence is f o r each one, as o f 1992. New evidence i n the f u t u r e may confirm or disprove some of these possibilities, as archaeologists and historians compare American cultures and cultures i n A f r i c a , Europe, and Asia. Keeping up w i t h this evidence is a lot of w o r k . Sheer laziness may help t o explain w h y textbooks leave out explorers to the Americas before Columbus. You can't teach what y o u don't know. To tell about earlier explorers, authors w o u l d first have to learn about them. This takes work. Authors w o u l d have t o read the works cited i n the preceding footnote. It's easier to imitate existing textbooks and j u s t retell the o l d familiar Columbus story. 26
Textbooks Downplay the Vikings Most history texts do mention the Norse. These daring sailors reached America i n a series of voyages across the North Atlantic, first setting up communities on the Faeroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. The Norse colony on Greenland lasted five hundred years, as long as the European settlement of the Americas f r o m 1492 u n t i l now. F r o m Greenland a series of expeditions, some planned, some accidental, reached various parts of N o r t h America, including B a f f i n Land, Labrador, Newfoundland, and possibly New England. Textbooks mirumize the Viking expeditions. Land of Promise writes, "they merely touched the shore briefly, and sailed away." I n about 1005, however, Thorfinn and Gudrid Karlsefni led a party o f 65,165, or 265 homesteaders (the old Norse sagas vary), w i t h livestock and supplies, to settle Vineland. They lasted t w o years. Conflict w i t h Native Americans caused them t o give up. This trip was not an isolated incident: Norse were still exporting w o o d
26. How good is the evidence for these predecessors of Columbus? These sources can help you make up your own mind. John L Sorenson and Martin H. Raish have compiled an enormous bibliography, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas across the Oceans (Provo, Utah: Research Press, 1990), with pro and con listings on each topic For Indonesia: Stephen C. Jett, 'The Development and Distribution of the Blowgun," Annals of the Association of American Geographers (Davis, Calif.: University of California, Dec. 1970). Similar manufacture of paper: Paul Tolstoy, "Paper Route," Natural History, June 1991, pp. 6-14; and Feats and Wisdom of the Ancients (Alexandria, Virg.: Time-Life, 1990), p. 122. See also Carroll Riley, et al., Man across the Sea (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), especially the article by Stephen Jett, as well as Sorenson and Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact #H255, M l 0 9 , and S57. For Japanese: Betty J . Meggers, "Did Japanese Fishermen Really Reach Ecuador 5000 Years Ago?" Early Man 2 (1980), pp. 15-19, and "Contacts from Asia," pp. 2 3 9 - 5 9 of Geoffrey Ashe, et al., The Quest for America. See also Feats and Wisdom of the Ancients, p. 124. For Crees, Navajos, and Inuits: William Fitzhugh, "Crossroads of Continents: Review and Prospect," in Fitzhugh and V. Chaussonet, eds., Proceedings of the Crossroads Symposium (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, forthcoming). See also Ian Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1974), pp. 218-19. For Chinese: Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-Djen, Trans-Pacific Echoes and Resonances (Singapore: World Scientific, 1985). See also Feats and Wisdom
of the Ancients,
p. 121; Twenty
Cases Suggestive
of Reincarnation,
pp. 2 1 8 - 1 9 ; Constance Irwin, Fair Gods and Stone Faces, pp. 249-51 ;
and Sorenson and Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact #L228, 231, 2 3 8 - 4 1 , et al. For Afro-Phoenicians: Alexander von Wuthenau, The Art of Terracotta Pottery in Pre-Columbian Central and South America (New York: Crown, 1970) and Unexpected Faces in Ancient America (New York: Crown, 1975). See also Ivan von Sertima, They Came before Columbus (New York: Random House, 1976); Thor Heyerdahl, "The Bearded Gods Speak," in The Quest for America, pp. 199-238; Feats and Wisdom of the Ancients, p. 123; Irwin, Fair Gods and Stone Faces, pp. 6 7 - 7 1 , 8 9 - 9 6 , 122-45, 176-86; and Sorenson and Raish # J 1 3 - 1 7 , G71, et al. Kenneth Feder attacks von Sertima's evidence in Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries (Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfleld, 1990), pp. 75-77. For Celts: Barry Fell, America BC (New York: Quadrangle, 1976), and Saga America (New York: Times Books, 1980). For Irish: The Quest for America, pp. 24-48. For Norse; Erik Wahlgren, The Vikings and America (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1986). For West Africans: Samuel Marble, Before Columbus (Cranbury, N J . : Barnes, 1980), pp. 22-25. See also They Came before Columbus; Arthur E. Morgan, Nowhere Was Somewhere (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1946), p. 198; Michael Anderson Bradley, Dawn Voyage (Toronto: Summer Hill Press, 1987); and Sorenson and Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact, #H344. For Portuguese: Before
Cofumbus,
p. 25. See also They Came before
Columbus;
Nowhere
Was Somewhere,
p. 197; The Quest
for
America;
David Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, 1481-1620 (New York: Knopf, 1974), pp. 4 1 - 4 3 , 85-86; and H. Y. Oldham, " A PreColumbian Discovery of America," GeographicalJournal 3 (1895), pp. 221-33. For Basques: Jack Forbes, Black Africans and Native Americans (Oxford: Basil Black well, 1988), p. 20. For Bristol fishers: Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, 1481-1620, pp. 5-105. Also see A. A. Ruddock, "John Day of Bristol," Geographical Journal 132(1966), pp. 2 2 5 - 3 3 ; Robert Blow, Abroad in America (New York: Continuum, 1990), p. 17; G. R. Crone, The Discovery of America (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1960), pp. 157-58; and Carl Sauer, Sixteenth-Century North America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 6. 10
figure 1 Explorers of America before Columbus Year
From
To
Quality of Evidence
70,000? -12,000? B.C.
Siberia
Alaska
High: the survivors peopled the Americas.
6000? - 1 5 0 0 ? B.C.
Indonesia
5000? B . C .
Japan
Ecuador
Moderate: similar pottery, fishing styles.
10,000? -600? b.c.
Siberia
Canada, New Mexico
High: Navajos and Crees resemble each other in culture but differ from other Indians.
9000? b . c . to present
Siberia
Alaska
High: continuing contact by Inuits across Bering Sea.
1000
B.C.
China
Central America
Low: Chinese legend; cultural similarities.
1000 -300
B.C.
Afro-Phoenicia
Central America
A.D.
Moderate: Negroid and Caucasoid likenesses in sculpture and ceramics, Arab history, etc.
New England, perhaps elsewhere
Low: similarities in stone structures and what may be writing.
South America (or other direction)
Moderate: similarities In bfowguns, paper-making, etc.
500
b.c.
Phoenicians, Celts
600
A.D.
Ireland, via Iceland
Newfoundland? West Indies?
Low: legends of Saint Brendan, written c. 850 a . d , confirmed by Norse sagas.
1000 -1350
Greenland, Iceland
Labrador, Baffin Land, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, possibly Cape Cod and further south
High: oral sagas, confirmed by archaeology on Newfoundland.
1311? -1460?
W. Africa
Haiti, Panama, possibly Brazil
Moderate: Portuguese sources in West Africa, Columbus on Haiti, Balboa in Panama.
c. 1460
Portugal
Newfoundland? Brazil?
Low: inference from cryptic Portuguese sources.
13757-1491
Basque Spain
Newfoundland coast
Low: cryptic historical sources.
1481-91
Bristol, England
Newfoundland coast
Low: cryptic historical sources
1492
Spain
Caribbean, including Haiti
High: historical sources
i
f r o m Labrador t o Greenland 350 years later. Some archaeologists and historians believe that the Norse got as f a r d o w n the coast as N o r t h Carolina. Columbus surely learned of Greenland and probably N o r t h America i f he visited Iceland i n 1477, as he claimed he d i d . 27
Who Should Be Included? Why? "So what?" might nonetheless be one response t o the V i kings. While textbooks like Land of Promise misrepresent the Vikings' experiences, it's probably fair to say that their voyages didn't make much difference to the fate of the w o r l d . The Norse didn't merge w i t h or influence Indian cultures. Their knowledge of America, while not lost i n Europe, had little impact there. So should texts leave them out? Is impact o n the present the only reason f o r including an event or fact? Of course n o t — i f i t were, our history texts w o u l d shrink t o twenty pages! We include the Norse voyages not f o r their geopolitical significance but because including them gives a more complete picture o f the past. Moreover, comparing the Norse voyages to Columbus's second voyage w o u l d help students understand the changes that t o o k place i n Europe between 1000 and 1493. As w e shall see, Columbus's second voyage was ten times larger than the Norse attempts at settling. This new European ability to mobilize caused Columbus's voyages to take o n their awesome significance. Besides all that, the Norse make f o r a w o n d e r f u l story o f seafaring skill, illustrating human possibility.
Eurocentrism Affects What Textbooks Include and Exclude Most textbooks totally omit other explorers before Columbus other than the Norse. Although seafarers f r o m A f r i c a and Asia probably made i t to the Americas, they never make i t into the history books.
The Afro-Phoenicians The most famous are the possible voyages b y A f r o Phoenicians, probably launched f r o m Morocco, b u t ultimately f r o m Egypt. They may have ended up o n the Atlantic coast o f Mexico i n about 750 B.C. Along the eastern
This basalt head, nine feet tall, is in southeastern Mexico and dates to 750 R C . Some archaeologists think the face looks like a naturalistic portrait of an African. Other archaeologists believe that the mouth lines resemble expressions Mayan children still make. Still others think tlw statues are of "fat babies" or Indian kings.
coast o f Mexico stand colossal r o c k heads that date to around 750 B.C. A n archaeologist w h o helped uncover them called them "amazingly Negroid." Anthropologist Ivan Van Sertima cannot imagine h o w Native Americans sculpted these faces without firsthand knowledge of the people they were representing. "The features are not only NegroA f r i c a n i n type but individual i n their facial particulars." Indians also created w h a t seem to be Negro and Caucasian faces i n small ceramic figures like that shown below. Van Sertima and others have f o u n d other evidence f o r the presence of Africans and Caucasians i n the Americas. For instance, looms and other cultural elements are very similar on b o t h sides of the Atlantic. Identical strains of cotton probably required human intervention to cross the Atlantic. Skeletons dated w e l l before 1492 have been identified as probably Negro. Information f r o m A f r i c a n history tells about extensive ocean navigation by Africans and Phoenicians around 750 B.C.
This photo of a ceramic head appears in Alexander von Wuthenau's book, Un- ; expected Faces in Ancient America ([New York:Crown,1975],p.U8).HeidentiJ fies it as a %eautiful distinguished Semitic head from Veracruz," because its features look Caucasian, even Semitic, like people from Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. Pre-Columbian American Indi- i ans had no beards, only a few facial j hairs which they plucked. •
'
>'. f| \{ , , •• . ' ]',- | •• . , V t V, ! '
The methods unleashed by Columbus are, i n fact, the larger part o f his significance f o r later history. A f t e r all, they worked. The island was so thoroughly pacified that Spanish convicts, given a second chance on Haiti, could "go anywhere, take any woman or girl, take anything, and have the Indians carry h i m on their backs as i f they were mules." Citizens of other countries wanted the same ease. I n 1499, w h e n Columbus finally f o u n d significant amounts of gold o n Haiti, Spain became the envy of Europe. A f t e r 1500, Portugal, France, Holland, and Britain began to compete w i t h Spain i n conquering the Americas. These other nations were at least as brutal as Spain. The Spanish at least made use of Indian labor. As Columbus wrote, "the Indians ofHispaniola were and are its very wealth, because they are the ones w h o t i l l the land, provide the bread and other victuals f o r the Christians, dig the mines f o r gold, and do all the w o r k w h i c h men and beasts usually do." Some Spanish men even married Indian women. The British, however, didn't behave like that. They simply forced the Indians out of the way. Indians sometimes f l e d to Spanish lands (Florida, Mexico) to get better treatment! 59
f
and Africa Columbus's findings caused almost as m u c h change i n Europe as i n the Americas. The first change was medical: syphilis began to plague Spain and Italy shortly after the return of ships f r o m Columbus's second voyage. The French, when they caught i t , called syphilis the "Spanish disease." Then the Germans called i t the "French disease," and so on. Related diseases existed i n A f r i c a and perhaps Europe, b u t syphilis probably came f r o m America. N o t all the medical news was grim, however. More than t w o hundred drugs come f r o m American plants whose pharmacological uses were first discovered b y Indians.
'
The Role of Columbus Columbus introduced t w o processes of race relations that transformed the modern world: first, the taking o f land, wealth, and labor f r o m indigenous peoples, leading to their extermination; and second, the transatlantic slave trade. As Sale poetically sums up, Columbus's "second voyage marks the first extended encounter of European and I n dian societies, the clash o f cultures that was to echo d o w n through five centuries." The seeds of that five-century conflict were sown i n H a i t i between 1493 and 1500. These are not mere details that our texts omit—they are basic information, crucial to understanding American and w o r l d history. Here is one direct implication f o r United States history. Captain John Smith used Columbus as a role model i n proposing a get-tough policy f o r the Virginia Indians i n 1624:
The Americas Shook Europe Religiously More far-reaching was the religious impact o f the Americas. I n 1492, Europe was under the grip o f the Catholic Church. A s The Larousse Encyclopedia of Modern History puts i t , before America, "Europe was virtually incapable of self-criticism." Although the Indian lands enriched the most Catholic monarchy i n Europe, they also shook Europe's religious uniformity. H o w were these n e w peoples to be explained? B y no stretch of the imagination were
57
56. Letter by Columbus quoted in Williams, Documents of West Indian History, vol. I: 1492-1655, Sanders, Lost Tribes and Promised of Paradise,
Lands:
The Origins
57.
Conquest
58.
Quoted in Sanders, Lost Tribes and Promised
of American
Racism
pp. 36-37. Las Casas quoted in Ronald
(Boston: Little-Brown, 1978), p. 131.
p. 129. Lands,
p.
290.
59. Koning, Columbus, His Enterprise, p. 86, paraphrasing Ferdinand Columbus.
25
they i n the Bible. Moreover, unlike the Muslims, who might be w r i t t e n o f f as "damned infidels," Native Americans had not rejected Christianity; rather, they had never encountered it. Were they therefore doomed to hell? Some people tried t o claim Indians were "the lost tribes of Israel," but that didn't work. Indians simply didn't fit w i t h i n orthodox Christianity's explanation o f the moral universe. The animals, too, posed a religious challenge. According to the Bible, at the dawn o f creation, all animals lived i n the Garden of Eden. Later, t w o of each entered Noah's ark and ended up on Mount Ararat. The Garden o f Eden and Mount Ararat were both i n the Middle East, so where could these new American animals have come f r o m ? Perhaps the Bible didn't k n o w everything, some suggested. Such questioning shook orthodox Catholic thinking and contributed to the Protestant Reformation, w h i c h began w i t h Luther's ninety-five theses i n 1517, twenty-five years after Columbus first landed. The new plants, animals, and peoples also prompted new developments i n science.
As a symbol of the new United States, Americans used the eagle clutching thirteen arrows, which they knew to be the symbol of the Iroquois league. The Iroquois Confederacy united six Indian nations under one leadership, and thereby provided one model for our own national government. The Iroquois noted that although one arrow is easily broken, no one can break six (or thirteen) at once, This is the Great Shield of the United States.
been reduced to exactly one photo caption i n Discovering American History. The other fourteen books are silent. Perhaps the authors see liberty, like navigation, as the exclusive development of Western culture. 63
60
Ideas of Liberty and Equality Examples of American Indian societies transformed European political thinking, too. Societies like the Arawaks— without monarchs, without m u c h hierarchy—stunned Europeans. The first major new w o r k i n political philosophy was Thomas More's Utopia. More w r o t e i t i n 1516, based on early reports about the Incas' society i n Peru. Other European political thinkers influenced by American Indian ideas include Rousseau, Montaigne, and Montesquieu, whose theories led to democracy, and later on, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, whose theories led to communism. When British colonists reached America, the lack o f governmental force i n Indian societies impressed them. " A l l their government is b y Counsel o f the Sages," said Benjamin Franklin. "There is no Force; there are no Prisons, no officers to compel Obedience, or inflict Punishment." Women also held more status and power i n most Native American societies than was the case i n European societies of the time. A f r i c a n American slaves fled to I n dian societies whenever they could. For a hundred years after the Revolutionary War, Americans credited Indians as a source o f our democratic institutions. Revolutionaryera cartoonists used Indians to represent the colonies. When Americans took actions to protest unjust authority, like the Boston Tea Party, they chose to dress as Indians. 61
62
Of course, Dutch traditions of religious freedom played an important role i n Plymouth as w e l l as New York. So did British common l a w and the Magna Carta. Our democracy stems f r o m several sources. Unfortunately, of the fifteen American history texts I have surveyed, the possible influence of Native Americans on our f o r m o f government has
Europeans Become Racist To Justify Their Actions The Americas contributed to European thinking i n still other ways. The mere knowledge of their existence changed European consciousness: suddenly, America became Europe's "opposite," i n ways that even A f r i c a had not. Before 1492 there was no "Europe"; people were Tuscans, or French, or something else. N o w Europeans began to see similarities among themselves, at least i n contrast to Native Americans. There was also no such thing as a "white" person before 1492. Only w i t h the transatlantic slave trade—first o f Indians, then of Africans—did Europeans come to see "white" as a race and race as an i m portant human characteristic. Columbus's o w n writings show this emerging racism. When he was trying t o convince Queen Isabella o f the wonders of the Americas, the Indians were "well built" and "of quick intelligence." "They have very good customs," he wrote, "and the king maintains a very marvelous state, o f a style so orderly that i t is a pleasure to see it, and they have good memories and they w i s h to see everything and ask what i t is and f o r what i t is used." Later, when Columbus was justifying his wars and enslavement of them, the Indians were "cruel" and "stupid," "a people warlike and numerous, whose customs and religion are very different f r o m ours." Why d i d he change? When people do bad things to other people, they usually rationalize their actions. They change their thinking to j u s t i f y what they have done. Regarding American Indians, Columbus started this process, but he was hardly the last to rationalize mistreating them. I n his 1845 book, Views and Reviews in American Literature,
60. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, pp. 11 - 1 2 . See also Angus Calder, Revolutionary Empire (New York: Dutton, 1981), pp 13-14- Marcel Dunan, ed., The Larousse Encyclopedia of Modern History (New York: Crescent, 1987), p. 40; Crone, Discovery of America, p 184. ' 61. Morgan, Nowhere
Was Somewhere;
William Brandon, New Worlds for Old (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1986).
62. Jose Barreiro, e d - . I n d i a n Roots of American Democracy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University American Indian Program, 1988), pp. 4 0 - 4 3 ' Virqel Vogel This Country Was Ours (New York: Harper and Row, 1972J, pp. 2 5 7 - 5 9 ; James Axtell, "The Indian in American History, the Colonial Period, in 77?e Impact of Indian History on the Teaching of United States History (Chicago: Newberry Library, 1984), p. 23; Bruce E Johansen ^ ° ^ ^ ^ S ^ . ^ Heped Shape Democracy {Harvard, Mass.: Harvard Common Press, 1982); and Bernard Sheehan' The ideology of the Revolution and the American Indian," in The American Indian and the American Revolution, edited by Francis Jenninqs (Chicago: Newberry Library 1983), pp. 12-23. Not all Indian societies were egalitarian: the Natchez in Mississippi and the Aztecs in Mexico displayed rigid hierarchies. According to Sauer (Spanish Main), the Arawaks did as well, but other sources disagree. F
n
d
H
w
j
P
e
r
i
c
a
n
l
n
d
i
a
n
t
63. Before 1492, China, Turkey, and North Africa had more religious freedom than Europe. Marco Polo reported that of all the fabulous thinqs he saw during his twenty-seven-year trip to "Cathay," none amazed him more than its freedom of worship: Jews, Christians Muslims and Buddhists worshipped freely and participated in civil society without handicap. Turks and Moors also allowed freer worship than did European rulers. Jews, who flourished in Spain under the tolerant Moors, were driven out by the Christian Spanish when they regained control in J 492
26
History, and Fiction, William Gilmore Simms wrote, "our blinding prejudices . . . have been fostered as necessary to j u s t i f y the reckless and unsparing hand w i t h w h i c h w e have smitten [the Indians] i n their habitations and expelled them f r o m their country." A n example o f this increasing prejudice comes f r o m George Washington. Like Columbus, he held positive views of Indians early i n his life. Later, after unleashing the Ohio War of 1790, he denounced them as "having nothing human except the shape." 6 4
N e w Foods and Wealth from America Transformed Europe and the World The impact of the Americas was n o t only on people's minds. A f r i c a n and Eurasian stomachs were also affected. Today, almost half of all major crops grown throughout the w o r l d come f r o m the Americas. Adding corn to A f r i c a n diets caused the population to grow, w h i c h helped f u e l the A f r i c a n slave trade to the Americas. Adding potatoes to European diets helped cause the population t o grow there as well, w h i c h helped f u e l the European emigration to the Americas. The new crops also played a key role i n causing the northern European countries—Britain, Germany, and finally Russia—to become Europe's dominant powers. This transformed the power base o f Europe, moving i t away f r o m the Mediterranean. Exploiting the Americas transformed Europe. First the Indian treasure enriched Spain, leading to the Spanish "Golden Age" of the 1500s. Ferdinand Columbus ends his biography of his father w i t h these words: "From those provinces and kingdoms there come to Spain every year many ships laden w i t h gold, silver, brazilwood, cochineal, sugar, pearls, and precious stones, and many other things of great value, on account of w h i c h Spain and her princes today are i n a flourishing condition." Next, through trade w i t h Spain and through piracy, other European nations prospered. Some authors h o l d that these riches led to the rise of capitalism and eventually t o the industrial revolution. American gold and silver fueled an inflation that eroded the wealth of all the non-European countries i n the w o r l d . This undermined Islamic powers and helped Europe to dominate the earth. A f r i c a suffered too. The trans-Saharan trade collapsed, because the Americas supplied more gold and silver than the Gold Coast ever could. As a result, A f r i c a n traders switched to exporting slaves. 65
66
Textbooks Don't Tell Us about A n y of This These consequences, triggered by Columbus's first t w o voyages, transformed history. Astoundingly, only one textbook I surveyed, The American People, described these geopolitical implications o f Columbus's encounter w i t h the Americas. I had expected to find at least a bland "contributions" theme—how m u c h Indians had given t o our m o d e m
Products from the Americas transformed Eurasia and Africa. They included corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, beans, gold, silver, syphilis, and examples of liberty and equality. Most textbooks don't mention any of this.
w o r l d . I thought texts w o u l d at least mention food. A f t e r all, what could be threatening about giving Indians credit f o r corn, peanuts, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and beans? Our regional cuisines—from New England pork and beans to New Orleans gumbo to Texas chili—often combine Indian as w e l l as European and A f r i c a n elements. But only four o f fifteen texts discuss Indian foods. One of these, America Past and Present is notable because i t provides a terrific summary entitled "Ecological Revolution." One other b o o k mentions corn i n half a sentence. The other ten offer nothing.
Textbooks Make Columbus Seem More Tr a§ic Although texts can't find r o o m f o r the impact of Columbus's voyages o n Europe, they do tell what happened to Columbus. Unfortunately, most of what they say simply isn't true! Having Columbus come t o a tragic end, sick, poor, and ignorant o f his great accomplishment, seems t o make f o r a better story. "Columbus's discoveries were not immediately appreciated by the Spanish government," according to The American Adventure. "He died i n neglect i n 1506." The facts are j u s t the opposite: "Columbus was honorably received b y the king and queen, who caused h i m to sit i n their presence, a token o f great love and honor," reported Peter Martyr, the leading historian i n Spain at the time. Ferdinand and Isabella immediately appreciated "Columbus's discoveries"—which is w h y they immediately outfitted h i m f o r a m u c h larger second voyage. " I n three subsequent voyages to America, from 1493 to 1504, the Great A d m i r a l failed to uncover the riches of the Indies," according to The American Pageant, "though
64. Simms is quoted in Lee Clark Mitchell, Witnesses to a Vanishing America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 255. See also Virgel Vogel, This Country
Was Ours,
p.
286.
65. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, p. 124 and ch. 5; William Langer, "American Foods and Europe's Population Growth, 1750-1850," Journal of Social History 8 (Winter 1975), pp. 51 - 6 6 ; Jack Weatherford, Indian Givers (New York: Fawcett, 1988), pp. 6 5 - 7 1 . 66.
Weatherford, Indian
Givers.
27
finding enough golden trinkets and gold dust to excite greed." B u t i n reality, i n 1499 Columbus made a major gold strike on Haiti. He and his successors then forced hundreds of thousands of Indians to mine i t f o r them. " I t never occurred to Columbus that he had stumbled upon a large land mass completely u n k n o w n i n Europe," says America, Past and Present. Actually, Columbus reached South America on his t h i r d voyage and knew i t t o be a continent, as his o w n j o u r n a l reveals. As he cruised the coast of Venezuela, he passed the Orinoco River. " I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent, w h i c h was hitherto unknown," he wrote. " I am greatly supported i n this view by reason of this great river and by this sea w h i c h is fresh." He k n e w no mere island could sustain such a large f l o w of water.
On Columbus's third voyage, he deliberately sailedfarther south because Caribbean island Indians bid him a continent lay south of them. On his fourth voyage, he looked for a strait through Panama to the ocean that natives had told him lay on the other side.
Christopher Columbus died "poor, lonely, and brokenhearted," i n the words of Triumph of the American Nation. Actually, he died a rich m a n i n Valladolid, Spain, w i t h relatives and friends at his side. His heirs received large inheritances and spent much of the next three centuries suing Spain over just h o w much they w o u l d get.
Why D® ¥®jftb®®!ts Lie? To ask w h y texts tell inaccurate history is to ask what the purpose o f American history courses and textbooks is. A first answer might be simply this: So students k n o w the history o f their country. B u t that answer cannot explain w h y textbooks leave out what Columbus d^id w i t h _ the Americas, but include silly little details of his life that aren't even true. A better reason might be that authors are happy being Eurocentric. A l l but one or t w o of the more than forty-five authors of these texts are whites whose families came originally f r o m Europe. We noted that many Italian Americans, like Joe DiMaggio, identify strongly w i t h Columbus. To a lesser degree, so do other European Americans. Maybe the Columbus story that authors tell helps them to feel good about Columbus and consequently about them-
28
11
Tfiis is Columbus's coat of arms, which Ferdinand and Isabella conferred upon him in 1493. It depicts the royal symbols of the lion oflAon and the castle of Castile, tangible proof of the high honors Columbus received from Spain. The other symbols represent sailing and tiie islands he reached.
'I,
If C-'f 'if
f
" '
selves. Moreover, our society is more like that of Spain i n 1492 than that o f Haiti. Therefore, i t may be easier f o r authors to identify w i t h Spaniards than w i t h Arawaks. Fear is another reason f o r leaving out details that might reflect badly o n Columbus or, somehow, on the United States. Publishers want to sell books to the committees o f teachers, parents, and schoolboard members that choose texts. Publishers are afraid that i f their book offends someone, s/he might argue against i t at textbook adoption time. Telling the t r u t h about Columbus might offend teachers or parents w h o learned the old myths. Italian Americans might get angry. So might the Knights o f Columbus. It's safer to repeat what everyone else says, even though everyone else is wrong. Another reason is laziness. Writing a history o f the United States is a big j o b , w h i c h requires knowing something about archaeology and Indian history, w o r l d history (especially o f Europe and Africa), all the different periods (colonial, Civil War, Great Depression, and so on), women's history, the history of science and technology, and many other topics. Textbooks are supposed t o be tertiary (third-level) works. Authors should base them o n secondary sources—books and articles about each topic and time period, w r i t t e n by historians who evaluate the primary sources and combine them to tell a story. U n f o r t u nately, textbooks seem mostly based on each other. Many authors take a short cut: they simply model their books after other texts already on the market. Facts about Columbus—and everything else—get lost as authors get f u r ther and further f r o m the primary sources and even f r o m 'the secondary sources. One of the books I reviewed, The American
Adventure,
An example of a primary source is the journal of Columbus's first voyage. It now exists only as shown here, in the handwritten summary by Bartolome de las Casas.
is mostly composed of maps, illustrations, and extracts f r o m primary sources (such as diaries and laws), woven together b y narrative passages. Its section about Columbus includes several maps, the usual portrait, t w o pages o f extracts f r o m his journal, a letter, and excerpts f r o m other sources. Even so, Adventure is caught up i n the Columbus myth: the primary sources have been edited to omit anything bad about Columbus, so they present his acts even more favorably than Columbus himself did! Sometimes the authors listed on a book's cover didn't even write it! Or sometimes they wrote only the first edition, twenty or more years ago. Nevertheless, new editions come out year after year, written by unnamed assistants buried deep i n tiny offices of giant publishing houses. You may be surprised to learn that historians don't t h i n k m u c h of other historians who write textbooks. "A successf u l textbook," wrote Thomas Bailey, author o f The American Pageant, "would actually hurt me w i t h some o f m y peers." No m a j o r professional history j o u r n a l reviews high school textbooks, and f e w professional historians read them, so errors can go uncorrected f o r decades. 67
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Textbooks Give Us "Feel-Good" History
Thinking Well of Columbus Supposedly Promotes "Good Citizenship" Textbook authors are trying to sell a simple-minded f o r m of patriotism. They believe this nationalism creates good citizens. Remember that The American Way is w r i t t e n so its readers w i l l "welcome the opportunity to j o i n as active citizens." H o w does Columbus f i t in? Our texts treat Columbus as an origin myth: as B i l l Bigelow sums up, he was good and so are "we." A l l the books discussed here want us to identify w i t h Christopher Columbus—the Columbus that the State o f Maine had i n mind when i t made Columbus Day a holiday i n 1913. Maine's purpose was "to impress on the minds o f the y o u t h the important lessons of character and good citizenship to be learned f r o m the fives of American leaders and heroes," the legislature said, so students could contemplate "their o w n duties and obligations to the community, state, and n a t i o n . " I n 1989 President George Bush stated his belief i n this nationalist Columbus as hero and role model. Here is the lesson he wanted young people to learn f r o m Columbus: "Christopher Columbus n o t only opened the door to a New World, b u t also set an example f o r us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and f a i t h . " Authors selling this picture o f Columbus add little details to help us identify w i t h Columbus. They tell of his rejections before he finally got the money f o r his voyages. They show us h o w he thanked God when he reached land. And they invite us to feel sad f o r him, dying "poor, lonely, and broken-hearted," never knowing what he had accomplished. Textbook authors w h o are pushing this Columbus have no interest i n mentioning anything bad about him, so they leave out what he d i d w i t h the Americas once he reached them—even though that's half o f the story, and perhaps the more important half. 69
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Authors also lie o n purpose. We k n o w because they tell us their intention i n writing their textbooks. The teachers' edition of The American Way states: " I t is the goal of this book that its readers w i l l understand America, be proud of its strengths, be pleased i n its determination to improve, and welcome the opportunity to j o i n as active citizens." That's very interesting. This textbook's author wants us t o be p r o u d of, and pleased with, America. I t follows that she isn't very likely t o pay reasonable attention to any bad things i n U.S. history. f A History of the Republic tells students: "You w i l l become familiar w i t h the common experiences that bring Americans together as w e l l as the diverse experiences that make American life rich and varied." Notice that .A History doesn't mention events that have brought Americans into conflict w i t h each other. Like The American Way, i t emphasizes only positive "experiences." A similar nationalist spirit runs through a l l o f the fifteen leading American history texts that I examined. Even their titles are "rah-rah." Phrases like The American Pageant, The American Way, Land of Promise, and Triumph of the American Nation are not neutral. Rather, they inspire patriotism before the book is even opened. So do their covers, w h i c h sport eagles, the Statue o f Liberty, and o f course the flag. Y o u can tell something about these books f r o m their covers. These covers and titles are very different f r o m other school books. Chemistry books, f o r instance, are usually j u s t called Chemistry or Principles of Chemistry, n o t Triumph of the Moleculel
Thinking Well of Columbus Supposedly Holds t h e United States Together Make no mistake: some people feel that teaching the t r u t h about Columbus is un-American. Their slogan seems to be, a great country "deserves" a great founder. I f Columbus wasn't so great, they get defensive: somehow our country might not be so great. A hundred years ago, negative facts about Columbus surfaced when the United States was celebrating the f o u r hundredth anniversary of Columbus's first voyage. Chauncey Depew, president of the New York Central Rail Road, blasted the critics as unpatriotic: " I f there is anything w h i c h I detest more than another, i t is that spirit o f critical historical inquiry w h i c h doubts everything; that modern spirit w h i c h destroys all the illusions and all the heroes w h i c h have been the inspiration of patriotism " Recently columnist Jeffrey Hart went
67. In "The Ghost Behind the Classroom Door" (Today's Education [April 1978], pp. 41-45), "Scriptor Pseudonymous" gives a behind-thescenes account by someone who actually writes textbooks but never gets credit for them. 68. Thomas A. Bailey, The American Pageant Revisited (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1982J, p. 180. 69. Quoted in Bessie L Pierce, Public Opinion and the Teaching of History in the United States (New York: Knopf, 1926J, pp. 6 1 - 2 . 70. Official statement June 8, 1989, quoted in Five Hundred, magazine of the Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission (Oct 1989), p. 9.
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even further: "To denigrate Columbus is to denigrate what is w o r t h y i n human history and i n us a l l . " Louis Rukeyser, the stockmarket analyst, claims that people w h o criticize Columbus "are endangering this nation's ability to compete and flourish i n the 21st century." H o w i n the w o r l d could telling the t r u t h about Columbus do that? I t is divisive, Rukeyser argues. He even calls i t "paranoid." This is a scary line of thought. I t says that i n order f o r Americans to bond together as a strong nation, we must be lied to. Perhaps the most outrageous lie about Christopher Columbus was told b y Roland Libonati w h e n he introduced the b i l l that made Columbus Day a national holiday i n 1963: "We owe to this great emancipator and nobleman of the seas a signal national debt of gratitude." "Emancipator" means someone who frees slaves. Historians have called Abraham Lincoln "the great emancipator." Here Congressman Libonati applied the t e r m t o the person w h o started the Atlantic slave trade! 71
72
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The Columbus Day A p p r o a c h t o American History This is the Columbus Day approach to history: present h i m as a hero and role model, no matter what he did. Textbooks and American history courses that f o l l o w this approach don't limit their lies to Christopher Columbus. I f authors f e e l they must omit anything unpleasant about Columbus, how do y o u think they w i l l present George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, or Helen Keller? Surely they w i l l a l l get the heroic treatment. Our best teachers encourage thinking by getting students to go beyond their textbooks. But teachers are sometimes tempted to present our leaders as heroes and role models. Teachers can also feel that they have to maintain their status as teachers, givers of answers. Then when they get h i t b y a question that challenges Columbus's or America's goodness, some teachers can feel threatened. It's easy f o r a teacher to feel his or her j o b is to teach the textbook, not question i t . A t least that way, they won't get i n trouble w i t h parents, the principal, or the board o f education. Eventually, the whole country gets the heroic treatment! As Triumph of the American Nation puts i t : Students "also discover h o w a set of common beliefs has united the American people—young and old, men and women, immigrants and minorities—for more than 200 years. Together these values and ideas f o r m the basis of the American heritage." No problem! Or at least, no real problems— just 200 (or 500) years of uninterrupted harmony and progress. Other countries teach history this way, too. B u t when they do, we don't like it. The U.S.S.R,, f o r instance, taught only the good stuff about Lenin and Stalin, and we scoffed at their textbooks. N o w we must learn to read our o w n more critically.
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"Century o f Progress" Related to this feel-good nationalism is the storyline o f progress. Saturating our American history textbooks is the theme of the United States as the land of progress; i t shows up everywhere. Here is an example i n Hie American Pageants account o f the Plains Indian Wars: "A clash was inevitable between an acquisitive civilization and a static culture, f o r the march o f progress crushed under its feet the hunting grounds and hence the f o o d supply of the red man." Like other textbooks, Pageant links progress t o the primitive-to-civilized scale: "Never before i n human experience, probably, had so huge an area been reduced so rapidly to a semblance of civilization." Many textbooks end by automatically assuming that progress w i l l continue. "What w i l l t o m o r r o w bring?" asks American Adventures. "Problems he ahead, certainly. B u t so do opportunities." "The American people have reason to move into the f u t u r e w i t h confidence," according to Triumph of the American Nation. Since America is progressive, this line o f thinking implies, we contribute to progress simply by being American. The theme o f progress affects the way textbooks treat Columbus. I f we take f o r granted that the United States is the most progressive society imaginable, then the man who "made i t all possible" must be a hero, no matter what he did! I f progress was the result, w h o cares about the deaths of a f e w Indians? (Actually, as we have seen, three million on H a i t i alone, and perhaps seventy million i n all the Americas.)
The Columbian Exchange Is a Dangerous Process However, we cannot count o n unending progress. I n 1493 Columbus started a vast process we n o w call the Columbian exchange. Crops, animals, ideas, and diseases began to cross the oceans regularly. Today, the United States exports rice, an Asian crop; Argentina exports beef, a Eurasian animal. Szechuan cooking i n China is spicy because of hot peppers domesticated by American Indians. Italian f o o d depends upon the tomato, also f r o m America. Rabbits f r o m Europe overran Australia. Syphilis f r o m America overran Eurasia. I t is too late to lament all this—besides, some of i t , like Szechuan food, is wonderful! B u t the process is also dangerous. Research i n the last twenty-five years suggests that i n the long run, progress may not have been the result of Columbus's journeys. Consider Haiti, n o w called Hispaniola. Columbus and the Spanish transformed the island biologically: they introduced diseases, plants, and livestock. The pigs, hunting dogs, cows, and horses multiplied endlessly, causing tremendous environmental damage. B y 1550 the "thousands upon thousands of pigs" i n the Americas had all descended f r o m eight that Columbus brought
71. Depew quoted in John Yewell, 'The Day, the Pledge, the Myth," in Confronting Discovering Columbus," National Review (Oct 15, 1990), pp. 56-57.
Columbus, edited by John Ye well, et al. Jeffrey Hart,
72. Louis Rukeyser, "Hold on to the Dream," The Reporter Dispatch (July 7, 1991). e
n n g s
D e c , a r i n
To f l A °P " 18, 1963, pp. 6—7.
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9 October 12 To Be a Legal Holiday (Columbus Day)," House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, December J
over i n 1493. I n 1518 a Spanish settler wrote t o a f r i e n d i n Spain, "although these islands had been, since God made the earth, prosperous and f u l l of people lacking nothing they needed; y e t . . . they were laid waste, inhabited only by w i l d animals and birds." Later, sugarcane plantations replaced gardening i n the name o f quick profit. More recently, population pressure caused Haitians to f a r m the hillsides, w h i c h destroyed the topsoil. Today, the island is i n far worse condition than when Columbus saw i t . Thus, w e cannot use unending progress to rationalize misdeeds by Columbus or by ourselves. We need to investigate the impact o f Columbus t o learn h o w he changed the w o r l d f o r the worse as w e l l as the better. I f we only study the good aspects, then we condemn ourselves to be environmentally stupid. Textbooks prompt us to accept w i t h out reflection our technology, because they simply assume unending progress. Las Casas said of Haiti, " i t was the first to be destroyed and made into a desert." We must learn f r o m Haiti's example. Then we can achieve a proper respect f o r our power to do harm as w e l l as good o n the earth. 74
Was God on Columbus's Side? Our culture assumes not only that progress is on our side (and Columbus's), but also that God is o n Columbus's side (and ours). Columbus thought so, too. Of the destruction of Haiti, his son wrote, "the Lord wished to punish the Indians, and so visited them w i t h such shortage of f o o d and such a variety of plagues that he reduced their number by t w o thirds, that i t might be made clear that such wonderful conquests proceeded f r o m His supreme hand." The way our textbooks present Columbus fits right i n to this assumption. Several textbooks provide this detail, quoted here f r o m Triumph of the American Nation: "On the morning of October 12, 1492, Cdlumbus and his crews went ashore and thanked God f o r leading them safely ^
- •
"T'
Here is an illustration ofThorfinn and Gudrid Karlsefni giving thanks to God for landing safely on Vineland. No textbook shows anything like this picture, which might imply that God was on tJie side of the Norse when they crossed the Atlantic. And. no text ever implies God might be on the side of tfie Indians.
across the sea." D i d God really lead Columbus across the Atlantic? Most textbooks include a picture like this one, "Columbus Landing i n the Bahamas." I n a way, these illustrations and their captions imply that God was indeed on Columbus's side. Every November, when w e give thanks to God f o r our nation's blessings, we imply that God is still on our side. Perhaps we almost equate progress and God. Surely, it's hard to imagine that God is on one side, progress on the other. During the entire nineteenth century i t was hard f o r Americans to believe that God and progress weren't both on our side.
Our Textbooks' Columbus Story Comes from the 1800s Between 1811 and 1890, the United States fought more than fifty wars against the Indians, gradually taking over all of their land except small reservations. I n the last ten
1
w
IUHMT V
m
i
I
l
mm Most textbooks include a picture like "Columbus Landing in the Bahamas." It is the first of eight huge paintings that dominate the rotunda in our nation's Capitol. John Vanderlyn painted it in 1847. Columbus seems to be thanking God, while others kneel or carry crosses. Illustrations like this show Columbus as a hero and invite us to identify with him.
It was a century of Columbus adoration. This "cigar store" Columbus statue in the folk art collection of the Shelburne Museum probably dates from the early 1800s. It shows Columbus as hero. Washington Irving's 1828 uncritical biography of Columbus went through many editions during the rest of the century. The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago closed the century with an extravaganza that cost as much as the Panama Canal. This glorification of Columbus occurred, not surprisingly, during a century in which the U.S. expanded westward, exploited the Indians, and proclaimed Manifest Destiny.
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years of the century, the U.S. went beyond its shores t o take over Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. The national point o f view i n the 1800s is n o w called "colonialist" or "imperialist." I n such a century i t was natural f o r many Americans t o make a hero out of Christopher Columbus. Columbus was also an imperialist, conquering Indian tribes i n the name of Spain. "Pierce the Rocky Mountains and hew the highest crag into a statue o f Columbus," cried Senator Thomas Hart Benton, linking our westward movement w i t h Columbus's. As usual, we didn't want t o t h i n k badly of ourselves, so we didn't see ourselves as invading Indian homelands, conquering Indian tribes, and packing them o f f to concentration camps. Instead, w e said that our culture represented progress, science, and a higher f o r m of religion. Similarly, we lied to ourselves about Columbus. You k n o w n o w that many o f the Columbus details that textbooks include never happened, such as his dying impoverished. Others did happen, such as the lookout crying "tierra," but are n o t especially important. True or false, these details became part of the Columbus story i n the 1800s, the century of Columbus worship. Today's textbook authors still repeat the nineteenth-century lies about him.
Lilsf ©flograpfiys Hmw History Changes, ©©pending on When ara@f l l i f © I t Is Written
Columbus is a characteristic o f white colonial history, not American history. We certainly can't expect Native Americans to j o i n i n . As George P. Horse Capture wrote, "no sensible Indian person can celebrate the arrival of Columbus." Our textbooks don't j u s t teach about h i m , though, they celebrate him. Thus, they alienate nonwhites. No wonder people of color i n this country are demanding new textbooks: right f r o m the start, our history books are biased. 76
Colonialism Is Ending—Our Colonialist History of Columbus Should End, Too I n the words o f historian Michael Wallace, the Columbus m y t h "allows us to accept the contemporary division of the w o r l d into developed and underdeveloped spheres as natural and given, rather than a historical product issuing f r o m a process that began w i t h Columbus's first voyage." Maybe cheerful Columbus stories suited the nineteenth century, the era of colonialism—but they don't f i t today's postcolonial era. H o w are the texts "colonialist"? We have seen h o w they encourage us to root f o r Christopher Columbus b y including nice, humanizing details. Only three of the books express any horror at his treatment of Indians. A l l o f them express exhilaration at the "discovery" of the "new" w o r l d . Most include thrilling landing scenes, b u t no book illustrates his mistreatment of Indians.
When I was i n high school, I believed y o u memorized history the way y o u memorized the times tables. A f t e r all, Columbus did discover America i n 1492, didn't he? Doesn't 2 X 2 = 4? Historians k n o w that history isn't like arithmetic. To be sure, there is a bedrock o f fact i n history. What happened i n 1492 did happen—but that's not history. History is what we say happened. What we say about 1492 changes as we change. Historiography is the study of w h y and h o w history changes.
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Our History of Columbus Has Been Colonialist
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I n all the Americas, admiration f o r Christopher Columbus is most concentrated i n the United States, w h i c h honors Columbus w i t h more place names than any other figure i n American history save George Washington. Why do we honor h i m so much? I n order to answer that, w e must consider who "we" are. Columbus is no hero i n Mexico, even though Mexico is m u c h more Spanish i n culture than the United States. Why not? Because Mexico is also m u c h more Indian than the United States. Mexicans see Columbus as white and colonialist, w h i c h is w h y they don't celebrate him. We see h i m that way too, w h i c h is w h y we do celebrate him—and also w h y we leave out all the bad parts. Thus, cherishing
WSt*
75
o s b y
For two hundred years after Columbus's voyages, historians didn't bury the Spanish misdeeds, Theodore de Bry's illustrations of Spanish cruelty became famous all over Europe a century after the events he portrayed. Here is the passage from Las Casas on which De Bry based this woodcut: "The Governor of the Island with 60 horses and 300 foot soldiers called to him about 300 of the leaders of the Indians— Having by craft got them together in a straw Cottage, he caused them to be burnt alive together with the house.... As for Anacaona the Queen, ...he caused her to hang herself." De Bry never saw Haiti. His illustration, though fanciful, is nevertheless faithful to Las Gasas's text. Today, not one textbook includes a single illustration by de Bry of Spanish-Indian interaction. Instead, textbooks include head-and-shoulder portraits of Columbus, which have no historical value.
It' £ l r ' R ' '' 9 P ' and Ecology/' typescript (1990), citing Las Casas. John and Jeanette Varner, Dogs of the Conquest 19-20. Spanish letter quoted in Sale, Conquest of Paradise, p. 165. f r
75.
d
W
Sale, Conquest
D e r n o
of Paradise,
r a
h
c s
pp.
p. 5.
76. "An American Indian Perspective," in Seeds of Change, edited by Herman J . Viola and Carolyn Margolis (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), pp. 186-207.
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w i t h Columbus's enterprise. I t makes Columbus the underdog, riding a mule, shabby of cloak. I t puts us o n his side. Lastly, i t occupies considerable space, so students can feel they have learned something about him, even though they haven't. The incident o n the right d i d happen. I t was written d o w n b y Las Casas, w h o apparently learned i t f r o m Arawaks o n Cuba. Unlike the mule story, the cacique's story teaches important historical facts—that the Spanish sought gold, that they killed Indians, that Indians fled and resisted. (Indeed, after f u t i l e attempts at armed resistance on Cuba, this cacique then fled "into the brambles." Weeks later, when the Spanish finally captured him, they burned h i m alive.) N o history book includes the cacique's story. I f they did, i t might make the Indians the underdogs and help us to identify w i t h their side. These passages offer one more example o f h o w our texts include and even invent unimportant details that humanize Columbus and cause us t o identify w i t h h i m . Meanwhile, they omit any story that might undermine the moral or technical superiority o f Europeans. Excluding the passage o n the right, including the passage o n the left, excluding the true, including the false, amounts t o colonialist history. This is the Columbus story that has dominated American history texts d o w n to now. The nations all around the globe that were "discovered," conquered, and colonized b y European powers are n o w independent, at least politically. We no longer dictate to them as master t o native, so perhaps we should stop thinking o f ourselves as superior, morally and technically. A new, more accurate history of Columbus w i l l be a big help i n doing so.
Here are t w o stories w r i t t e n about Columbus and his reaching the Americas. The contrast between them shows us h o w our histories are still colonialist. The story o n the l e f t encourages us to identify w i t h Columbus. The one o n the right presents an Arawak view. I t is part o f a longer account, w r i t t e n shortly after the event, o f an Arawak cacique (leader) w h o had fled f r o m H a i t i t o Cuba.
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A m a n riding a mule moved slowly d o w n a dusty road i n Spain. He wore an old and shabby cloak over his shoulders. Though his face seemed young, his r e d hair was already turning white. I t was early i n the year 1492 and Christopher Columbus was leaving Spain. Twice the Spanish king and queen had refused his request f o r ships. He h a d wasted five years of his life trying to get their approval. Now he was going t o France. Perhaps the French king w o u l d give h i m the ships he needed. Columbus heard a clattering sound. He turned and looked up the road. A horse and rider came racing t o w a r d him. The rider handed h i m a message, and Columbus turned his mule around. The message was f r o m the Spanish king and queen, ordering h i m t o return. Columbus w o u l d get his ships.
Learning that Spaniards were coming, one day [the cacique] gathered a l l his people together t o remind them o f the persecutions w h i c h the Spanish h a d i n flicted on the people of Hispaniola: "Do y o u k n o w w h y they persecute us?" They replied: "They do i t because they are cruel and bad." " I w i l l tell y o u w h y they do i t , " the cacique stated, "and i t is this—because they have a l o r d w h o m they love very much, and I w i l l show h i m t o you." He held u p a small basket made f r o m palms f u l l o f gold, and he said, "Here is their lord, w h o m they serve and adore To have this lord, they make us suffer, f o r h i m they persecute us, f o r j u m they have killed our parents, brothers, a l l our people Let us not hide this l o r d f r o m the Christians i n any place, f o r even i f w e should hide i t i n our intestines, they w o u l d get i t out o f us; therefore let us t h r o w i t i n this river, under the water, and they w i l l not k n o w where i t is." Whereupon they threw the gold into the river.
Objections to Teaching Q3a© Truth afeewf Columbus I have spoken to hundreds of students, teachers, and historians about Christopher Columbus. A s a result, I have collected several objections to m y suggestion that we should teach the t r u t h about him. Let me share them w i t h you and t r y t o answer them.
They're Only Children" Some people feel that w e should not load so much t r u t h onto students, at least not before they're eighteen or so. "Let children enjoy childhood," they say. They may be right. Some fifth-graders or even twelfth-graders w h o read this book or see the illustration o f Indians committing suicide might have nightmares about it. But lying to children is a slippery slope—once you've started sliding d o w n it, h o w and when do y o u stop? Who decides what to teach i n an American history course whose authors have somehow agreed n o t t o teach the truth? Why should children believe what they learn i n school, i f it's f u l l o f distortions and lies?
No doubt y o u have already guessed that the fragment on the l e f t comes f r o m an American history textbook (American Adventures). I t never really happened. I t is merely one of the many legends that cling to the admiral like barnacles. Why d i d American Adventures print it? Well, the incident is melodramatic. I t creates a m i l d air o f suspense, although we k n o w everything w i l l t u r n out w e l l i n the end. Certainly, i t encourages the reader t o identify 77
77.
Sale, Conquest
of Paradise,
78. See Williams, Documents
pp. 92, 238, 344; Madariaga, Christopher
of West Indian
History,
Columbus,
170-72.
vol. 1, pp. 17, 9 2 - 9 3 .
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"Feel-Bad History" Another attack on the k i n d o f history i n this booklet is that it's too negative, just as textbooks are too positive. This is a valid criticism. I n order to compensate f o r the textbooks, I have emphasized what they leave out. Teaching history more even-handedly does n o t leave us a history without heroes, however. Our heroes become more complex: i n some ways Columbus should not be a role model. Perhaps Las Casas should. Thus, "feel-bad" history is not the cure f o r "feel-good" history. I don't mean t o preach that Columbus was "bad." His conquest of Haiti can be seen as an amazing feat o f courage and imagination. He was the f i r s t o f many brave empire builders. But i t can also be understood as a bloody atrocity. He l e f t us a legacy o f racism and slavery that endures to some extent even today. Both views of Columbus are legitimate. Indeed, his i m portance i n history owes precisely t o his being both a heroic navigator and a distinguished plunderer. I f he were only the former, he w o u l d merely rival Leif Erikson. Columbus shows us b o t h meanings o f the w o r d "exploit"— a remarkable deed and also a taking advantage of. Textbooks should present b o t h sides. They should no more j u s t i f y his total "lightness" by w h a t they include and exclude than condemn h i m to total "wrongness."
"It's N o t Fair To Judge Columbus b y Standards from Our Time" Some people claim that Columbus was j u s t a creature o f his time. They criticize me f o r applying today's standards to yesterday's events. I n 1493 the w o r l d had not decided that slavery was wrong, f o r instance. Some Indian nations enslaved other Indians. Africans enslaved other Africans. Europeans enslaved other Europeans. Why attack Columbus f o r doing what everyone else did? Again, this criticism has some validity. I offer three replies. First, i f we are to use Columbus as a role model, surely we should at least mention things he d i d that we w o u l d not n o w encourage people to imitate. Surely, we should not hide these facts behind euphemisms like "not good at politics or business," Second, the slavery that Columbus began was far worse than previous slavery. This wasn't because Columbus was f a r worse than previous slavers. Rather, Europeans had more power, compared to the Indians they enslaved. Slavery i n Europe had been among Europeans. Usually i t happened to captives after a "just war." The same was true f o r slavery among Indians i n the Americas. Children of slaves were considered free. A f t e r Columbus, however, slavery led to racism: n o w all Indians, and soon all black Africans, were by definition considered inferior, hence suitable as slaves—as were their children, grandchildren, and so on. Third, some people at the time opposed the slavery, land grabbing, and forced labor that Columbus started on Haiti.
Of course, the Arawaks resisted. Many Spaniards also objected. Priests o n H a i t i preached against abusing the Indians. Listen to this Christmas Day sermon i n 1511 b y Antonio de Montesinos: I n order t o make your sins against the Indians k n o w n t o you, I have come into this pulpit T e l l me, b y w h a t right or justice do you keep these Indians i n such a cruel and horrible servitude? O n what authority have y o u waged a detestable war against these people w h o dwelt quietly and peaceably on their o w n land? We have seen h o w Queen Isabella sometimes opposed slavery. So d i d a m a j o r i t y o f the advisers to the court.
Most Histories Omit Las Casas, the First Historian of the Americas Bartolome de las Casas was the most famous European champion o f Indian rights. I f we can't criticize Columbus because he is "our hero," then w e can't appreciate Las Casas. That's too bad, because he might be a different k i n d of role model. He started out as a plantation owner, but he switched sides, f r e e d his Indians, and became a priest. Las Casas became the first great historian of the Americas. He hved past ninety and spent more years i n the Caribbean than any other European o f the time w h o wrote about i t . He was a fine historian; and he relied on primary sources and helped to preserve them. He used evidence and reasoning to argue w i t h other historians. He was also a man of action, w h o t r i e d to put his ideas of justice f o r Indians into operation on w o r k i n g plantations. When Columbus and other Spanish and Italian writers began to argue that Indians were inferior, Las Casas pointed out that Indians were thinking beings, just like anyone else: " A l l the peoples of the w o r l d are men, and there is only one definition of each and every man, and that is that he is rational." When other historians tried to overlook or defend the Indian slave trade, begun by Columbus, Las Casas said starkly: "What we committed i n the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind, and this trade as one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them." He helped cause Spain, unlike France or Britain, to enact laws against Indian slavery. Although those laws came too late t o help the Arawaks, and although they were often broken, they d i d help some Indians survive. Centuries after his death, Las Casas was still influencing history: Simon Bolivar used his writings to j u s t i f y the revolutions between 1810 and 1830 that freed Latin America f r o m Spanish domination. 79
80
As a sociologist, i f I f o u n d another sociologist w h o had been so important, y o u can bet I ' d include him. Yet ten o f fifteen history books don't mention Las Casas, and not one quotes him. Las Casas was f o l l o w e d b y other men and women w h o argued f o r fair treatment of Native Ameri-
79. Note that when he wrote, peoples and "men" were synonyms. Las Casas was not trying to argue that people are all of one sex or that women cannot reason! 80. Las Casas quoted in J. H. Elliott, The Old World and the New (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 48; Las Casas, History of the Indies, p. 289; John Wilford, The Mysterious History of Columbus (New York: Knopf, 1991), p. 40. Las Casas is justly criticized for suggesting African slaves to be brought in to replace Indian slaves. However, he recanted this proposal and concluded "that black slavery was as unjust as Indian slavery" (History of the indies, p. 257).
34
cans—Eoger Williams and Helen Hunt Jackson are j u s t t w o examples. Most textbooks underemphasize Williams's idealism t o w a r d Indians: nine o f them leave out Jackson entirely. They almost have to: since they downplay or omit anything w r o n g the United States ever did, they have little or no reason to include the fascinating stories o f Americans w h o challenged us t o do right.
The Result off All This .Is Boring When they leave out Las Casas, textbooks omit an interesting idealist w i t h w h o m we all might identify. When they leave out the Arawaks, they offend Native Americans. When they leave out the possibility of A f r i c a n and Phoenician predecessors t o Columbus, they o f f e n d A f r i c a n Americans. When they are Eurocentric, w h e n they glamorize explorers like d e S o t o j u s t because they were white, textbooks o f f e n d all people o f color. A n d when they present a pious heroic portrait of Columbus, leaving out the "bad parts," they bore everyone. That's j u s t what has happened. American history has become offensive and boring. History seems to be a l o t o f facts t o memorize, rather than issues to get involved i n . Some w o n d e r f u l teachers deviate f r o m their textbooks and interest students i n some o f the issues. On the average, however, across the United States, students consistently rank history their least favorite subject, I f some of the information about Columbus i n this poster and book was new to you, see whether i t is also new to your parent(s) or other adult friends. A r e they interested? Do they w i s h they had learned the t r u t h about Columbus when they were i n school? Or are they upset that y o u are learning "only the bad parts" now? Some o f the fifteen textbooks I reviewed were clearly better than others. I t might be interesting f o r y o u to check out the treatment of Columbus i n your American history textbook. H o w does i t compare to the fifteen books discussed i n this poster and book? Does your book t r y to get students to identify w i t h Columbus? Or is i t less biased? Does i t include the Arawak viewpoint? It's also interesting to compare t w o different textbooks—perhaps those used i n high school and middle school, or i n "advanced placement" and "slow" classes. Finally, i f your text l e f t the Indian viewpoint out of the Columbus story, y o u may want to think about what else i t leaves out as y o u read the rest of it. The very next people i t presents probably are Ponce de Leon and Hernando de Soto. De Leon "discovered" Florida i n 1513, supposedly while searching f o r a fountain of youth. Actually, he was seeking more Indians to send as slaves to Haiti's gold mines, b u t no text mentions that. De Soto's only geopolitical significance was exposing the Indians to smallpox, causing an epidemic that left their populations m u c h reduced even b y the time L a Salle floated d o w n the Mississippi 140 years later. Among our fifteen textbooks only 81
Life and Liberty mentions this plague, and Life and Liberty gives i t j u s t five words. So, w a t c h out! Texts won't give y o u the whole truth.
Further Reading, a Video, and mm Invitation to a Dialogue This brings us to a f i n a l question: Have this book and poster given y o u the t r u t h about Columbus? Is there more than one t r u t h about Columbus? Just as y o u cannot believe history texts w i t h o u t doing more research, y o u also need to check out the information i n this book and poster. Here are ten important sources f o r further research, listed chronologically. 82
T h e J o u r n a l of C h r i s t o p h e r C o l u m b u s (as summarized, paraphrased, and quoted byBartolome de las Casas): There are many editions. A n inexpensive translation by Cecil Jane (New York: Bonanza Books, 1989) includes a letter b y Columbus w r i t t e n while homeward bound. Of course, this book treats only the 1492-93 voyage. Bartoleme de las Casas, Short A c c o u n t o f the Destruction of the Indies, translated b y Nigel G r i f f i n (New York: Penguin Classics, 1999): The Harper and Row three-volume edition is n o w out o f print; but this abridged version is a good place to start. Las Casas also w r o t e several other books about the Spanish and the I n dies. H o w a r d Zinn, A People's H i s t o r y of the U n i t e d States: 1 4 9 2 - P r e s e n t (New York: Harper Perrenial, 2003), Chapter One: Zinn intended his textbook to be different f r o m other texts. Beginning w i t h his treatment of Columbus, i t is! A l f r e d W. Crosby, T h e C o l u m b i a n Voyages, the C o l u m b i a n E x c h a n g e , a n d T h e i r H i s t o r i a n s (Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1987): This booklet tells h o w the w o r l d changed as a result o f Columbus's first t w o voyages. William McNeill, T h e Age of G u n p o w d e r E m p i r e s , 1450-1800 (Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1989): This booklet tells h o w and w h y Europe was able to subdue the Americas and the rest of the world. M i l t o n Meltzer, C o l u m b u s a n d the World a r o u n d H i m (New York: Franklin Watts, 1990): Although written f o r j u n i o r and senior high school students, this book is not "dumbed down"; i t gives more than the usual heroic treatment of Columbus. Lorenzo Camusso, T h e Voyages of Columbus, 1492-1504 (New York: Dorset Press, 1991): Loaded w i t h illustrations, yet inexpensive, this book is a good resource. N e w s w e e k special issue, W h e n Worlds Collide (Fall 1991): This magazine offers readable, compact treatments of many issues, f r o m archaeology, t o Columbus's background, to the sweeping worldwide changes caused by
81. Joan M. Shaughnessy and Thomas M. Haladyna summarize "Research on Student Attitudes toward Social Studies/' from 1949 to the 1980s, in Social Education 49 (Nov. 1985), pp. 692-95. They conclude, "most students in the United States, at all grade levels, found social studies to be one of the least interesting, most irrelevant subjects in the school curriculum." See also Mark Schug, et al., "Why Kids Don't Like Social Studies," Social Education 48 (May 1984), pp. 382-87. 82, Also you can check the sources in the footnotes throughout this book. Do they say what I say they say? What else do they teach about Columbus?
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Indian crops and wealth. I f you can, see the exhibit i t is based on, Seeds of Change, i n the Smithsonian Museum o f Natural History on the M a l l i n Washington, D.C., or the exhibit catalog, Seeds of Change, edited by Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian I n stitution Press, 1991). B i l l Bigelow and Bob Peterson, R e t h i n k i n g Columbus: The N e x t 500 Years (Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools Ltd., 1998): Teachers and students w i l l b o t h enjoy these punchy articles. Some are primary sources f r o m Columbus's time; others go all the way d o w n to our time, including current issues facing Native Americans.
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T h e C o l u m b u s Controversy, video (New York: American School Publishers, 1991). This 23-minute presentation includes B i l l Bigelow teaching about Columbus. Issues o f t r u t h and falsity i n history come alive as students discuss them. The video also talks w i t h William McNeill and Native American historian John Mohawk about Columbus's i m pact. Finally, i f f r o m ' y o u r research y o u conclude that something w r i t t e n here is w r o n g or rriisleading, I invite y o u t o convince me I ' m wrong. Please w r i t e me, care of T h e New P r e s s , 38 G r e e n e St., N e w York, N Y 10013. Please e-mail me at:
[email protected].
INDEX
Christianity, 5, 26 Churchill, Ward, 24 Columbian exchange, 26, 27, 30 Columbus, Bartholomew, 3 Columbus, Christopher appearance, 17 background, 1, 17 death of, 1, 28 destination, intended, 17, 20 God and, 31 importance, 34 journals, 3 motives, 21 myths about, 1, 29-31 slave trader, 23-25, 30, 34 treatment of Indians, 22-24, 26 see also voyages Columbus Day, 12, 30 Columbus, Ferdinand, 4, 5, 23, 25, 27, 31 Cook, Sherburne, 3 Cordoba, Pedro de, 24 corn, 8, 27 Corsica, 17 Costo, Rupert, 4 cotton, 12 Crees, 10 Crone, G. R., 10,14, 26 Crosby, Alfred W., Jr., 3, 8, 16, 26, 27, 32, 35 Cuba, 24, 32, 33 Cuneo, Michele de, 22 Cushman, Robert, 8 Cuzco, Peru, 7
acculturation, 8 Africa, 4-5, 8, 10-11, 24-27, 34 see also Egypt, West Africans, etc. African Americans, 6, 13, 26 Afro-Phoenicians, 9, 11,13 Algonquians, 4 Amazon, 8, 22 American Indian Movement, 6 Arab cultures, 9 Arawaks, 4, 5 Columbus and, 5, 7, 22-24, 27 culture of, 3-4, 6, 26 population, 3, 24 view of Europeans, 3, 22, 33 Ashburn, P. M., 3 Ashe, Geoffrey, 10 Asia, 7 see also China, etc. astrolabe, 9 Athabascans, 10 Australia, 15, 30 Axtell, James, 26 Azores, 8, 14, 17 Aztecs, 4, 26 Baffin Island, 10, 11-13 Bahamas, 17, 25, 31 Bailey, Thomas A., 29 Barreiro, Jose, 26 Basques, 11, 15 Begley, Sharon, 9 Beltran, Gonzalo Aguirre, 14 Beothuks, 24 Bering Strait, 9-10 Bermuda, 24 Bigelow, Bill, 20, 21, 29, 36 blacks see African Americans Blow, Robert, 10 Borah, Woodrow, 3 Brandon, William, 26 Brazil, 8, 11, 14 Bristol, England, 10-11, 14 British, 7-8, 14-15, 22, 24-26 see also England Brooke, James, 8 Bry, Theodore de, 23-24, 32 Burns, John, 6 Bush, George, 12, 29
*
Calder, Angus, 26 Calloway, Colin, 2 Camusso, Lorenzo, 17 Canada, 2, 6, 9-11, 15 Canary Islands, 9, 16, 22, 24 Cape Verde Islands, 14, 24 Caribs, 4, 6 Casas, Bartolome de las, 3, 7, 20, 23-25, 28, 31, 33 Catholicism, 5, 23, 25-26, 29 Catlin, George, 2 Celts, 10, 11 Central America, 11, 14 Charleston, SC, 24 Chaussonet, V., 10 Cherokees, 5 Chicago, 7 China, 5, 9, 11, 14-16, 26, 30
Da Gama, Vasco, 13 De Soto, Hernando, 13, 35 Delaware Indians, 7 Depew, Chauncey, 29 Dias, Bartolomeu, 8 diffusion, cultural, 9 DiMaggio, Joe, 12, 28 disease, 2, 7-8, 24, 25 Dobyns, Henry F,, 3, 8 dogs, 7, 23 Duff, James, 12 Dunan, Marcel, 26 ecology, 31 Ecuador, 4, 10-11 Egypt, 8,12, 15 Elliott, J. H., 34 encomienda, 23 Engels, Friedrich, 26 England, 3 Erasmus, William, 6 Eskimos, 9-10 ethnocentrism, 4 Eurocentrism, 5,12 Europe, 7 and world domination, 15 changes in, 12,15 population, 3 Faulkner, Robert K., 5 Feder, Kenneth, 10 Fell, Barry, 10 Ferdinand, King, 1, 4 Fitzhugh, William, 10 flat earth, 17, 20, 21 Florida, 8, 24, 25, 35
foods, 27, 30 Forbes, Jack, 10, 12,14 Franklin, Benjamin, 26 French, 22, 25-26 Genoa, Italy, 1, 17 genocide, 24 Georgia, 5 Germany, 4, 25 Glasrud, Bruce A., 8 gold, 1, 7, 14, 16-17, 22-24, 27-28, 33 Gordon, Cyrus, 9 Great Shield of the United States, 26 Greenland, 9, 11-12 Guacanagari, 3-4, 6 Haiti, 2-3, 4, 5-7, 8, 11,14, 16, 22-26, 28, 30, 32 population of, 3 Haladyna, Thomas M., 35 Hart, Jeffrey, 29-30 Henry the Navigator, 6, 8-9 Henry, Jeanette, 4 Henson, Matthew, 6 Heyerdahl, Thor, 9 Hispaniola see Haiti historiography, 32 HoUand, 25, 26 Horse Capture, George P., 32 horses, 7 Iceland, 11, 12, 14,15,17, 21, 22 Incas, 4, 26 India, 6, 9,13 Indians see Native Americans Indies, East, 6 Indonesia, 10-11 Inuits, 10 Ireland, 5,11,14,16 Irish, 10, 13-14 Iroquois, 26 Irwin, Constance, 9, 10 Isabella, Queen, 1, 4 Islam, Islamic societies, 16 Israel, 8, 12, 26 Italian-Americans, 12, 28 Jackson, Helen Hunt, 35 Jackson, John G., 14 Japan, 6, 11, 20 Jennings, Francis, 2-3, 7, 26 Jennings, Jesse D., 3 Jett, Stephen, 10 Johansen, Bruce, 26 Jungle Brothers, 13 Kaplan, Susan, 6 Karlsefni, Thorflnn and Gudrid, 10, 14, 31 Keen, Benjamin, 3, 8, 23 Kehoe, Alice B., 14 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1 Klass, Philip, 22 Koning, Hans, 16, 24, 25 Krupat, Arnold, 7 Labrador, 11-12, 24 Langer, William L., 3, 27 Lebanon, 8, 12 liberty, 26 Libonati, Roland, 16, 30 37
Library of Congress, 5 Lincoln, Abraham, 30 livestock, 8 Llywelyn, Morgan, 12 Lybyer, A. H., 16 Madagascar, 9 Madariaga, Salvador de, 16, 20, 33 Madeira, 8, 17 Malta, 16 Mandans, 2 Marble, Samuel, 10,13 Marco Polo, 5 Margolis, Carolyn, 32, 35 Marshall, John, 5 Marx, Karl, 26 Mason, Gregory, 4 Mayas, 4 McKusick, Marshall, 12 McNeill, William, 3, 8,15, 35 Meggers, Betty, 10 Mexico, 2-4, 7, 8, 12,14, 24, 25, 32 Meyer, Melissa, 2 Minnesota, 7 Mitchell, Lee Clark, 27 Montaigne, Michel, 26 Montesinos, Antonio de, 34 Montesquieu, Charles Louis, 26 Mooney, James, 2 Moquin, Wayne, 7 More, Thomas, 26 Morgan, Arthur, 10, 26 Morocco, 12 Muslims, 16, 26 Nash, Gary, 1, 7 Natchez Indians, 7, 26 Native Americans, 1-2, 6-8, 26 omission of, 2 population, 2-3, 24-25, 31 suicides, 24 see also Arawaks, etc., and foods, disease, liberty Navajos, 10-11 Needham, J., 1,10 Newfoundland, 10, 11, 14 Nina, 1 Norlander-Martinez, Maria, 24 Norse, 10-12, 15, 31, 36 North Africa, 9, 26 see also Afro-Phoenicians, Egypt North Carolina, 12 Northern Ireland, 5 Ohio, 6, 27 Oldham, H. Y., 10 Olmec head, 12 Paiewonsky, Michael, 23 Panama, 11, 14, 28, 31
38
Peary, Admiral, 6 Pierce, Bessie L., 29 Pilgrims, 7-8, 22, 24 Pinta, 1 "primitive" applied to Native Americans, 3-5, 8, 30 Plymouth, Mass., 6-8, 26 Portugal, 8,10, 11,15,16,17, 23, 25 potatoes, 27 pre-Columbian, 1 Protestant Reformation, 15, 26
South America, 10 South Dakota, 2 Spain, 1, 4, 5, 7,11, 15-17, 22-24, 26-29, 32-33, 34 population, 3 Spencer, Robert F., 3 St. Brendan, 14 Stevenson, Ian, 10 Stineback, David C, 8 sugar cane, 25, 31 Swann, Brian, 7 syphilis, 25, 30
Quinn, David, 10,14
Tainos, 6 Tenochtitlan, 3, 7-8 textbooks, 17 Columbus's motives in, 21 controversy and, 2 errors and omissions in, 1, 16, 17, 20, 21, 25, 27-30, 32-33, 35 flat earth in, 21 lying, 16, 28 Thornton, Russell, 2-3 Tolstoy, Paul, 10 "tribe," 5 Trumbull, Henry, 6 Turkey, 16,21
racism, 26, 33 rise, in Europe and the United States, 26 Raish, Martin, 10, 14 "Requirement," 5 Riley, Carroll, 10,14 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 26 Ruddock, A. A., 10 Rukeyser, Louis, 30 Russell, J. B., 21 Sale, Kirkpatrick, 3,16, 20,22, 24, 25, 32-33 Salisbury, Neal, 8 Sanders, Ronald, 25 Santa Maria, 1, 3, 6 Sardinia, 20 Sauer, Carl, 6, 10, 20, 26 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., 13 Schnurrenberger, Hubbert M., 8 Schug, Mark, 35 Scotland, 4 Seattle, Chief, 7 Segal, Charles M., 8 Sertima, Ivan van, 10, 12-14 Shaughnessy, Joan M., 35 Sheehan, Bernard, 26 Siberia, 9-11 silver, 14, 27 Simms, William Gilmore, 27 Simpson, Howard, 3, 8 Sioux Indians, 7 slavery African, 24-27, 34-35 European, 34 Indian, 24-26, 34 slave revolts, 25 smallpox, 2, 7-8,16, 24, 35 Smith, Alan M., 8 Smith, John, 25 Smithsonian Institution, 5 Sorenson, John, 10,14 South Africa, 8
U.S.S.R., 30 United States, 1-9, 26-27, 29-32, 35 Varner, Jeanette J., 24 Varner, John Grier, 24 Venezuela, 8, 28 Viola, Herman J., 32, 36 Virginia, 25 Vogel, Virgel, 26 voyage I , 20 voyage II, 14, 22-23, 25 voyage III, 28 voyage IV, 4, 28 Wahlgren, Erik, 10, 12, 38 Wallace, Michael, 32 War of the Worlds, 22 Washington, George, 27 Weatherford, Jack, 27 West Africans, 10-11, 14, 16 "wilderness," 8 Wilford, John, 34 Williams, Eric, 1, 23-24, 25, 33 Williams, Roger, 35 Wisconsin, 7 Wuthenau, Alexander von, 10,12 Yanomamos, 8 Yewell, John, 30 Yugoslavia, 5
Illustration Credits for Booklet and Poster Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint illustrations: Catlin (page 2), Tenochtitlan (page 3)—Smithsonian Institution; Olmec head (page 12)—Lee Boltin; Semitic head (page 12)— Alexander von Wuthenau; de Soto (page 14)—Mississippi State History Museum; T-shirt (page 17), Rotunda painting (page 31), Norse praying (page 32)—Library of Congress; Three ships (page 18)—Robert Sachs; Globe (page 19)-—American Geographical Society Collection, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Library; Dogs attack Indians (page 23), Indians commit suicide (page 24), Burning hut (page 33)—New York Public library; Wake (page 25)—Castelao; Slave coffle (page 25)—Mansell Collection; Map (page 28)—Department of Geography, University of Vermont; Coat of arms (page 28)—Museo Navale di Pegli, Genoa; Statue (page 32)—Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vt. (photograph by Ken Burris); Spaniard with pikes (poster)—© National Geographic Society (painting by Arthur Shilstone); Tenochtitlan (poster)—Ignacio Marguina.
J A M E S W. L O E W E N is the bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and Lies Across America, b o t h f r o m The N e w Press, among many other books and articles. He is a regular contributor t o the History Channel's History magazine. Loewen is professor emeritus o f sociology at the University of Vermont and lives i n Washington, D.C.
