Christopher Columbus Annotated Bibliographies

Phillips, William D., and Carla Rahn Phillips. “The Worlds of Christopher Columbus.” Google Books, Cambridge University Press, 1993, <books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8jhtmzLlX70C&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=the%2Bworlds%2Bof%2Bchristopher%2Bcolumbus&ots=C1IqYGWy8T&sig=lK6iYVZi1mJuGGrxJxNQgJ4L5do#v=onepage&q=the%20worlds%20of%20christopher%20columbus&f=false.>

Note: “Columbus assumed heroic proportions in the record of world history, partly because of his accomplishments and partly because of the magnitude of the processes he unleashed.” Page 3

Abstract: The world has always viewed Christopher Columbus as hero not only for what he did, but also because of the way in which he was able to complete his tasks and turn them into accomplishments.

Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. “Columbus-Hero of Villain?” History Today; London, 5 May 1992; Page 4. Print.

Note: “It is commonly said that the traditional Columbus myth-which awards him personal credit for anything good that ever came out of America since 1492 – originated in the War of Independence, when the founding fathers, in search of an American hero, pitched on the Genoese weaver as the improbable progenitor of all-American virtues.”

Abstract: The fact that true heroes of our country, the founding fathers, counted Christopher Columbus as a hero, he must be as well. Also where our contemporary idea came from.

Nader, Helen. Christopher Columbus: The Hero and the Historians. 01 Apr. 1989. EBSCOhost, proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED310974&site=ehost-live.

Note: “Instinctively, as ordinary citizens, we recognize him as a hero: his name is known to all schoolchildren in America, and the year 1492 is virtually the only date that most American adults can accurately recall.”

Abstract: This goes and further shows how it is instilled in us at a young age that we all consider Christopher Columbus a hero. That we all look up to him as the man who discovered the America’s.

Larner, John P. “North American Hero? Christopher Columbus 1702-2002.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 137, no. 1, Mar. 1993, pp. 46–63. JSTOR [JSTOR], www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/986944.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A601cd513543458d90185ad78559678c6.

Note: “One has to ask how hero-status is gained and retained in America. The only general answer I have found is that offered by Dixon Wector, in his book on the American Hero to which I have already referred. According to Wector, one needs first of all the season or mission requiring the hero. Together with that the personality and deeds of the hero have to be consonant with certain virtues timelessly admired by United States citizens.” Page 62

Abstract: This quote goes into further detail of how exactly we as a society in American decide who and who is not a hero. Mainly stating it’s what they accomplished, tied in with their personality and deeds in which we as America’s find heroic.

William J., Chambliss. “STATE-ORGANIZED CRIME” –the American Society of Criminology, 1988 Presidential Address.” Criminology, vol. 27, no. 2, May 1989, pp. 183-208. <http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?men_tab=srchresults&handle=hein.journals/crim27&id=194&size=2&collection=journals&terms=Columbus|Christopher Columbus&termtype=phrase&set_as_cursor=>.

Note: “When Christopher Columbus came to the Americas in search of wealth and spices in 1492, he sailed under the flag of Spain although he himself was from Genoa. […] Between Spain and Portugal, a vast new world was conquered and quickly colonized. The wealth of silver and gold was beyond their wildest dreams. A large, poorly armed native American population made the creation of slave labor force for mining and transporting the precious metals an easy task for the better armed Spanish and Portuguese settlers willing to sacrifice human life for wealth. Buttressed by the unflagging belief that they were not only enriching their motherland and themselves but also converting the heathens to Christianity, Spanish and Portuguese colonists seized the opportunity to denude the newly found lands of their wealth and their people.”

Abstract: That maybe Christopher Columbus’ personal goals were to find new lands, there may have been an alternative motive by Spain to find new sources of wealth and resources, at the cost of slave labor, but under the “justifying” practice of converting “heathens” into Christians. Which today would be labeled under Piracy. That it was okay then, and through time and it’s standard, but now, clearly is not.

Phillips, William D., and Carla Rahn Phillips. “The Worlds of Christopher Columbus.” Google Books, Cambridge University Press, 1993, <books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8jhtmzLlX70C&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=the%2Bworlds%2Bof%2Bchristopher%2Bcolumbus&ots=C1IqYGWy8T&sig=lK6iYVZi1mJuGGrxJxNQgJ4L5do#v=onepage&q=the%20worlds%20of%20christopher%20columbus&f=false.>

Note: “Columbus unashamedly waged war against the native inhabitants of the Caribbean and enslaved hundreds of them, hoping to profit from a transatlantic slave trade. He angered the Spanish crown by waging war and taking slaves in direct contravention of a royal order, although under appropriate circumstances warfare against the Indians or their enslavement could have been justified by European law and precedent. Nonetheless, the depiction of Columbus as the first slave trader in the New World hardly enhances his reputation.” Page 6.

Abstract: This shows that Columbus is viewed as the first slave trader. He waged war and also killed hundreds of the inhabitants of the Caribbean. It also says that he openly disobeyed the Spanish Crown by enslaving these inhabitants.

Bigelow, Bill, et al. Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years. Resources for Teaching about the Impact of the Arrival of Columbus in the Americas. 2Nd Edition. 01 Jan. 1998. EBSCOhost, proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED426021&site=ehost-live.

Note: “For Columbus, land was real estate, and it didn’t matter what other people were already living there; if he “discovered” it, he took it. If he needed guides or translators, he kidnapped them. If his men wanted women, he captured sex slaves. If the indigenous people resisted, he countered with vicious attack dogs, hanging, and mutilations.”

Abstract: Christopher Columbus in this depiction is certainly more of a conquer more than a discover. Kidnapping individuals, using them as sex slaves and even going as far as mutilating, hanging and feeding them to attack dogs.

Sweet, Leonard I. “Christopher Columbus and the Millennial Vision of the New World.” The Catholic Historical Review, vol. 72, no. 3, 1986, pp. 369–382. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25022335.

Note: “Unfortunately, those scholars most interested in millennialism have largely ignored Columbus, and those scholars most interested in Columbus have skipped over his millennialism.”

Abstract: This article talks about how millennials have changed how history is perceived and specifically about Columbus as a major historical figure.

Fernandez-Armesto, F. “Columbus–Hero or Villain?.” History Today, vol. 42, no. 5, May 1992, p. 4. EBSCOhost, proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9205183670&site=ehost-live.

Note: “The usual complaints against servants of the Castilian crown in the period are made: he acted arbitrarily in the administration of justice; he exceeded his powers in enforcing his authority; he usurped royal rights by denying appeal to condemned rebels; he alienated crown property without authorisation; he deprived privileged colonists of offices or perquisites; he favoured his own family or friends; he lined his pockets at public expense. In the course of what seems to have been a general campaign against Genoese employees of the crown in the late 1490s, he was ‘blamed as a foreigner’ and accused of ‘plotting to give the island of Hispaniola to the Genoese’.”

Abstract: This article begins the long list of crimes Columbus committed. It argues both sides, but the arguments for villain are stronger with more evidence.

Bigelow, Bill. “Once upon a Genocide: Christopher Columbus in Children’s Literature.” Social Justice, vol. 19, no. 2 (48), 1992, pp. 106–121. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29766680.

Note: “Yet behind this tale of courage, adventure, and “discovery” is the grue? some reality. For Columbus, land was real estate and it didn’t matter to him that other people were already living there; if he “discovered” it, he took it.”

Abstract: Over the top, maybe, but this article covers Columbus and all he did on the topic of genocide.

“Christopher Columbus The First Voyage.” The Mariners Museum , ageofex.marinersmuseum.org/index.php?type=explorersection&id=29.

Note: “that no settler be allowed to go and gather gold unless with a permit from the governor or mayor of the town in which he lives, to be given only upon his promising under oath to return to the place of his residence and faithfully report all the gold which he may have gathered”

Abstract: Columbus needed people to settle in his new found land but he didn’t want people to take what he considered to be “his” he wanted all the gold and wealth for himself. Even though the very thing he doesn’t want people to do to him he is doing to the people who actually settled there first

Larner, John P. “North American Hero? Christopher Columbus 1702-2002.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 137, no. 1, 1993, pp. 46–63. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/986944.

Note: “The first was that America had originally been discovered and conquered by King Arthur in the fifth century. It had been colonized by the Welsh Prince Madoc in the twelfth. It had probably been visited by an English friar called Nicholas of Lynn in the fourteenth.4 Columbus, it was true, had discovered some islands in the Caribbean in 1492. But the mainland had been reached in 1497, a year before Columbus first saw it, by either John, or John and Sebastian, or Sebastian, Cabot, in the service of King Henry VII.”

Abstract: This online journal contains a lot of information from both sides. It talks about how he wasn’t the first to discover the United States, and it also talks about how he did.

Columbus, Christopher [1451-1506] and Clements Robert Markham. “The Journal of Christopher Columbus (during His First Voyage, 1492-93) and Documents Relating the Voyages of John Cabot and Gaspar Corte Real.” [Hakluyt Society], 01 Jan. 1893. Hakluyt Society 86. <https://books.google.com/books?id=2mvK60VAdCcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=christopher+columbus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3mZ3xrsXWAhXI8YMKHVWDBLcQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=christopher%20columbus&f=false>.

Note: “They should be good servants and intelligent, for I observed that they quickly took in what was said to them, and I believe that they would easily be made Christians, as it appeared to me that they had no religion. I, our Lord being pleased, will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses, that they may learn to speak.” “The above is the word of the admiral.” – Page 38.

Abstract: Christopher Columbus’ journals translated by Sir Clements Robert Markham with supporting documents and images. Also showing that they saw them as lesser human beings, and that it would make the lord happy to take six of them for his highness. Again, showing Christianity as a shield to make themselves feel better of devious deeds.

Howard Schuman, Barry Schwartz, Hannah D’Arcy. “Elite Revisionists and Popular Beliefs: Christopher Columbus, Hero or Villain?” Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 January 2005, pp. 2–29. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfi001

Note: “Instead, Columbus’s destruction of native peoples and culture was said to call for condemnation. Then, as Indian and scholarly critiques came together, reinforced by the anti colonial sentiments that had developed in the wake of World War II, major organizations with a much wider reach began to express guilt over what Columbus represented.”

Abstract: This article acknowledges the side of Columbus being a hero and how we celebrated his discovery for hundreds of years, but it also gets into the side of how American Indians view him as a villain.

Sanders, Alexandra. “Christopher Columbus: Hero or Villain?.” New Haven Register (CT), 09 Oct. 2012. EBSCOhost, proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nfh&AN=2W62469317205&site=ehost-live.

Note: “Goduti said that now the pendulum has shifted when looking at Columbus and celebrating his holiday, largely because revisionist history focuses on the deeds of Columbus. Goduti said that starting in the early 1970s and partially in response to the Vietnam War, there was momentum in the country for protest and the way people looked at leaders changed; the status quo was challenged more. While America’s discovery has always been associated with Columbus, many are dismissing that because discovery implies that no inhabitants were there.”

Abstract: This shows what beliefs started changing. The article even has quotes from people who protested saying why they protested.

Kasum, Eric. “Columbus Day? True Legacy: Cruelty and Slavery.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 Oct. 2010, www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kasum/columbus-day-a-bad-idea_b_742708.html.

Statement: “Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. “They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no,” he said. The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners.”…“He forced these peaceful natives work in his gold mines until they died of exhaustion. If an “Indian” worker did not deliver his full quota of gold dust by Columbus’ deadline, soldiers would cut off the man’s hands and tie them around his neck to send a message. Slavery was so intolerable for these sweet, gentle island people that at one point, 100 of them committed mass suicide. Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians, but Columbus solved this problem. He simply refused to baptize the native people of Hispaniola.”

Summary: Columbus talks about how kind and caring these people are when he first arrives which makes it seem as if he is going to help the people out and be fair to them but that is not the case. He takes advantage of their kindness and uses it for him to gain control and get rich. He punishes the natives if they don’t do enough for him and drives many to kill themselves. He claims he’s a religious man but he is killing people for not getting him enough gold.

“Christopher Columbus The First Voyage.” The Mariners Museum , ageofex.marinersmuseum.org/index.php?type=explorersection&id=29.

Summary: Columbus needed people to settle in his new found land but he didn’t want people to take what he considered to be “his” he wanted all the gold and wealth for himself. Even though the very thing he doesn’t want people to do to him he is doing to the people who actually settled there first.

Statement: “that no settler be allowed to go and gather gold unless with a permit from the governor or mayor of the town in which he lives, to be given only upon his promising under oath to return to the place of his residence and faithfully report all the gold which he may have gathered”

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