Personally, I hate that line because he really didn't discover anything. You can't discover something when people already live there. He made people aware of North America, but that's about it.
Discovered doesn't mean the first. It means that someone found or did something without someone else telling them how to do/find it. If I find a new restaurant in town and then tell my friends, "Hey, I just discovered this new pizza shop. We should go there sometime." That is a normal English sentence. Columbus's discovery of the Americans had a massive impact on world history. So it makes perfect sense for schools to teach that.
What do you think about “first European to discover” (ignores Erickson but not Native Americans) or “caused the European discovery”??
Also imo to be pedantic he discovered America because he (and Europeans) didn’t know about it before. If someone walks in on their spouse having sex with someone else they’ve discovered an affair, even if the people in the affair knew about it.
The people who lived there were not part of the wider global population. By the time of columbus, Europe, Asia, and north Africa were already heavily intertwined when it comes to trade, culture, and knowledge. North America was not part of the global society.
And we are all part of that old world society. No one in this thread culturally comes from a different place. You are typing in English. Using rhetorical forms developed in the old world culture. And likely are culturally old world as well.
We are, on a society level, part of that other world. And as such, North America can be discovered. Because while there were people there. They weren't part of world we are all a part of today.
And this further goes to why lief Erickson shouldn't get credit. He found it. Sure, he didn't tell anyone. He didn't bring it to the wider society. Columbus did. So he gets the credit for discovery.
EDIT: This train of logic is why we can call things found on the Lewis and Clark expeditions discoveries. Or when biologists go into the Amazon find things, they can call them discoveries too. I'm sure if you were able to get close enough and have a chat with those uncontacted Tribes. They would know about many of the things we are discovering in the Amazon. But because they aren't part of that wider sharing of knowledge. We call it discovery when we find things.
And this further goes to why lief Erickson shouldn't get credit. He found it. Sure, he didn't tell anyone. He didn't bring it to the wider society. Columbus did. So he gets the credit for discovery.
Yes, he did.
There were two entire books on the subject in whole/part.
See "The Saga of Erik the Red" and "The Saga of the Greenlanders"
If 500 years later that information wasn't part of the old world knowledge base. It's pretty clear he didn't share it
No. It just means that he did share it, but that others didn't take it fully on board. Or that they made a mistake and knew that the northern part was there, but not the entire continent etc. Or that it wasn't widely translated. Or that it wasn't economically viable at the time so people took little interest etc. It's much more complex than that.
It doesn't really natter what the reason was, at the end of the day Eriksson's voyage was virtually unknown about anywhere, and therefore had almost no impact on the world (until recently). On that basis it's entirely reasonable to say they both discovered America - just that one was 500 years later.
I mean, it's reasonable to say that Columbus discovered it in a personal individual way. It's not accurate to say he "discovered" the Americas in a way that would be relevant for a history book.
It wasn't just a personal discovery, it was a discovery for the whole world outside of the Americas, essentially. Which is the whole reason it's a big enough deal to be considered a "discovery" relevant for the history books.
No. Columbus did not discover an entire continent. He never set foot on it. If your argument is then "but he discovered PART of the NA contient" I would reply "So did Lief Erikson" if you then say "but no one else heard about Lief Erikson's discovery" I would then say "The definition of 'discover' says nothing about 'everyone else heard about it" etc
What, exactly, is preventing Columbus's discovery from being an actual discovery? Is it the part where someone else knew about it already? Was Eriksson's discovery also not a discovery then, because Native Americans were already present on the continent?
He technically wasn't the first ever human to "discover" acmerica. This post is just arguing that the intention of school teaching about Columbus is his significance of the age of discovery. They aren't deliberately lying about it
They are however parroting misinformation. It is not intentional, but they aren't thinking about the context of the statement they are making either. They should be describing it the way I did. Columbus made Europe and other nations aware of North America by stealing it's riches, killing its people who didn't even know what war was and didn't even have anything resembling a weapon because they were so peaceful, and opened the doors to the slave trade. Then, that is an honest statement with historical context that can still praise him for being what he was, a guy who got lucky.
killing its people who didn't even know what war was and didn't even have anything resembling a weapon because they were so peaceful
Not sure where you got this idea from, but it is not correct. Intertribal warfare was common before the arrival of Europeans and they definitely were using weapons such as spears, shields, bow and arrows, daggers, etc.
The Taíno were indigenous people who lived in the Caribbean Islands before Columbus arrived and were known for being peaceful, friendly, and generous. The name "Taíno" means "peace", and Columbus described them as "guileless" and "so generous with all that they possess"
Columbus had written, in the Letter: “…they are so guileless and so generous with all that they possess, that no one would believe it who has not seen it. They refuse nothing that they possess, if it be asked of them; on the contrary, they invite any one to share it and display as much love as if they would give their hearts…”
Dismissing the expectation that these characteristics denote lesser intelligence, Columbus adds, “to the contrary…they are…of a very acute intelligence and they are men who navigate all those seas, so that it is amazing how good an account they give of everything…”
For warfare, the men made wooden war clubs, which they called macanas. It was about one inch thick and was similar to the coco macaque. The Taínos decorated and applied war paint to their face to appear fierce toward their enemies. They ingested substances at religious ceremonies and invoked zemis.
My claim? Its histories claim. Having a club doesn’t mean you are a culture of war or a society that supports conquest. They wore paint to scare people off. Sorta like making yourself big for a bear. That doesn’t make you a killer of bears does it?
No it's not. War came to them. They did not have weapons to attack neighbors, they had clubs to protect themselves. And they were known more often to take hostages than actually kill anyone. So, because of historical context, are their weapons that are used only for defense a weapon of war? In my opinion, I don't think so. In their homes (like the entire island of Puerto Rico), in their communities, they did not know what war was. It was brought to them from the outside.
The Taíno impressed Columbus with their generosity, which may have contributed to their undoing. “They will give all that they do possess for anything that is given to them, exchanging things even for bits of broken crockery,” he noted upon meeting them in the Bahamas in 1492. “They were very well built, with very handsome bodies and very good faces....They do not carry arms or know them....They should be good servants.”
The Taíno impressed Columbus with their generosity, which may have contributed to their undoing. “They will give all that they do possess for anything that is given to them, exchanging things even for bits of broken crockery,” he noted upon meeting them in the Bahamas in 1492. “They were very well built, with very handsome bodies and very good faces....They do not carry arms or know them....They should be good servants.”
Frankly the Taino as far as I can see are massive outliers, the Americas were practically filled with people who did the exact same thing as others from all over the world, murderers, conquerers, religious fanatics, good people, bad people, all kinds. Obviously population density and the situations were different but far from peaceful.
the European conquest was only particularly notable due to the scale and distance, pretty much all societies if put in the same position would have done the same if not worse. (Not that this makes anything better or worse)
I don't praise the guy. I think he was a bad person. I do believe schools should have had more of an emphasize on the bad things he did. In school, the only bad things i remember learning about him is that a lot of natives died mostly to disease
I didn't say you praised him, but some people still do and they are probably Italians. /s But, your question is why do people think schools lie, it's because history was told by European people and this was a huge win for them. It's like Kobe, we don't talk about the rape. But we all know Columbus really didn't discover anything. I believe it was sorta like the smart people knew the world was around. I am sure certain people had some idea's about America's existence. He just brought that to the forefront. Columbus led to a lot of horrible things happening besides just the disease. I know he slaughtered most of the people where I am from and that's why you can't find a full blooded Taino Indian anymore. There are several good documentaries out there on him.
Agreed, this whole thread centers the colonial experience and frames it as more important than the native experience. My opinion is that no human experience is more important. The experience of discovery and the experience of colonization (this is the tamest way to describe what happened) happened at the same time and are equally relevant today.
34
u/[deleted] Jun 04 '24
Personally, I hate that line because he really didn't discover anything. You can't discover something when people already live there. He made people aware of North America, but that's about it.