Blaming Columbus does him an injustice
The great explorer, the Old World hero who discovered the New World? Or a man guilty of conquest, genocide and enslavement?
How should we think about Christopher Columbus?
Columbus effectively doubled the size of the known world and provided humankind with a new opportunity to develop and expand the concept of liberty, ultimately leading to the creation of the United States of America.
In contrast, conquest, colonization and slavery all existed long before he did.
Of course, no one can overlook 400 years of slavery or the ruination of tribal peoples in America, but it is unfair to blame Columbus for an institution that has always existed.
Slavery existed in Roman times, it existed in biblical times; it probably existed in prehistoric times, and perhaps even among our pre-human ancestors in Africa. Whether we like it or not, we are all descended from slaveholders.
Before the dawn of history, Africans were already enslaving each other. The Romans also took slaves from the areas south of the Sahara. Over a period of a thousand years, Muslims in North Africa captured something like 10 million Black Africans.
When Europeans arrived looking for cheap labor for their plantations in the New World, they were able to utilize these existing slave networks.
In the centuries that followed Columbus, British colonists in North America expanded ideals of self-government that would eventually doom slavery. Thus, even while slavery was expanding and while native societies and their civilizations were being destroyed, the concept of freedom was germinating in this New World that Columbus had discovered. Within three centuries, this seed of liberty had led to Thomas Jefferson’s “self-evident” claim that all men are created equal.
Over time, the idea that all people should have an equal voice in choosing their government grew ever stronger. Slavery would eventually prove incompatible with this belief in equality. During the American Revolution, slavery was effectively prohibited in the Northwest Territory, and the new U.S. Constitution outlawed the importation of slaves after 1808.
Seen in this historical context, the voyages of Christopher Columbus mark the beginning of the end of slavery. By 1860, a society had developed in the northern part of the United States that was willing to sacrifice the lives of over 600,000 white men in order to end Negro slavery in America.
In time, concepts of freedom, selfgovernment, justice and equality also produced a court system in the United
States that would begin to redress the grievances not just of Blacks, but also of tribal peoples.
Columbus enslaved people and took the first steps toward colonization, but it is not difficult to imagine that the people of the Western Hemisphere — if they had developed firearms, cannons and ships first — would have exterminated the European peoples, enslaved the Africans and colonized the world.
The institution of slavery, which was born in Africa, finally came to an end in the new society that had developed in North America following the voyages of Columbus.
He opened the door to the world’s future, ultimately a future in which slavery could be ended and equality would be the law of the land. Despite his serious flaws, we celebrate Columbus not only as a great explorer, but also as the man whose discovery put the world on the path to freedom. The history of America includes great wrongs, but it has also resulted in great advances in the human condition.
We do an injustice to Columbus when we blame him for the ills of the world in which he lived and the history which he inherited.
Following a 40-year career as a German translator, Randall Condra has been active as a watercolor artist. His paintings have been shown in various cities in Ohio and in exhibitions as far away as Boston.