Christopher ‘Sinner’ Columbus

EDITOR: Sean Wang

 

Quotations:

Whatever Columbus’s skill as a pilot, he was extremely inept in his handling of men. His pretensions were great, and he could share no power with a subordinate; he quarreled with his captains, and his crew were several times on the point of mutiny. (Columbus Intro, Par.9)

Hitherto the Spanish sovereigns had kept their faith with Columbus. They had supported him with generous services, and had understood and made allowances for the extraordinary difficulties of his position. (Markham 202)

Native American Indians have endured the historical ironies over lost and found discoveries, the rights of treasures, and continental encounters, for more than twenty generations. The tribes, however, are not the only cultures to resist the discoveries of Columbus. (Vizenor 521-522)

Likewise, the slave system Columbus introduced to this hemisphere was ultimately overthrown, but not the calculus that weights human lives in terms of private profit — of the “gain to be got.” (Bigelow, Bill, and Bob Peterson 11)

When easy wealth in the form of gold proved not readily available in the Caribbean, Colón resumed his slave-trading occupation by loading the holds of his ships with Indian human cargo headed for the slave market in Seville. (Tinker and Freeland 26)

 

 

 

Works Cited:

Bigelow, Bill, and Bob Peterson. Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years. Milwaukee, Wisc: Rethinking Schools, 1998. Print.

Christopher, Columbus. The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus. London: Penguin, 2004. Print.

R, Markham C. Life of Christopher Columbus. Place of publication not identified: Hardpress Ltd, 2013. Print.

Tinker, G. E. & Freeland, M. “Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline.” Wicazo Sa Review, vol. 23 no. 1, 2008, pp. 25-50. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/wic.2008.0002

Vizenor, Gerald. “Christopher Columbus: Lost Havens in the Ruins of Representation.” American Indian Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 4, 1992, pp. 521–532. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1185297.