The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for October 10th, 2011 06:38 AM
| toldailytopic: Columbus: good guy or bad guy? |
Depends on how you judge Imperialism, and the cultural impact his explorations had on the Bahamas and the Americas.
In the context of emerging western imperialism and economic competition between European kingdoms seeking wealth through the establishment of trade routes and colonies, Columbus' far-fetched proposal to reach the East Indies by sailing westward received the support of the Spanish crown, which saw in it a promise, however remote, of gaining the upper hand over rival powers in the contest for the lucrative spice trade with Asia. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, Columbus landed in the Bahamas archipelago, at a locale he named San Salvador. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming them for the Spanish Empire.
Columbus' voyages led to the first lasting European contact with America, inaugurating a period of European exploration and colonization of foreign lands that lasted for several centuries. They had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of the spreading of the Christian religion, and he was a candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 1866.
Among non-Native Americans Christopher Columbus is traditionally considered the discoverer of America. Columbus was preceded by the various cultures and civilizations of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, as well as the Western world's Vikings at L'Anse aux Meadows. He is regarded more accurately as the person who brought the Americas into the forefront of Western attention. "Columbus's claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."
Recent views of Columbus, particularly those of Native Americans, have tended to be critical. This is because the native Taino of Hispaniola, where Columbus began a rudimentary tribute system for gold and cotton, disappeared so rapidly after contact with the Spanish, due to overwork and especially, after 1519, when the first pandemic struck Hispaniola, due to European diseases. Some estimates indicate case fatality rates of 80–90% in Native American populations during smallpox epidemics. The native Taino people of the island were systematically enslaved via the encomienda system. The pre-Columbian population is estimated to have been perhaps 250,000–300,000. According to the historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes by 1548, 56 years after Columbus landed, less than five hundred Taino were left on the island. So we have cultural impact on steroids.
To the Americas, the explorations of Columbus brought an influx of Western Imperialism, disease, and Christianity. It would sound like he was a bad guy until you realize that this was destined to happen anyway as civilization spread outward from Europe.
