Barleben #4

Bigelow, Bill. “Once upon a genocide: Christopher Columbus in children’s literature.” Social  Justice, vol. 19, no. 2, 1992, p.106+. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=colu44332&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA13850074&it=r&\ asid=5168850e99bb58af1acf27f1fd1d1fe3. Accessed 4 Oct. 2017.

Observations and Excerpts:

Bigelow asserts that the children’s literature focused on Columbus views him as a hero and that is wrong. He says: “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. If he needed guides or translators, he kidnapped them.”  In terms of taking natives back to Spain the literature makes Columbus sound like a tour guide when in fact contemporary accounts speak of “the remaining Indians ‘rushed in all directions like lunatics’” to get away from him as he captured them and threw them onto his ships where most would die before reaching Spain.  “Yes, in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue — but he did much more than that” Bigelow believes that educators must include the truth about the villainy of Columbus because if they do not the children reading the classic literature stories will be more susceptible to becoming racist and undemocratic.

Abstract: This article shows that the way Columbus is presented to children through stories of his life and travels ignores all of the bad that Christopher Columbus did.