Like Da Gama, on his second voyage Columbus introduced shocking practices, including cutting off Natives’ hands if they did not pay his quarterly gold tax. Textbooks call Columbus and those who came after him “explorers,” not “conquerors,” even though the Spanish used the more honest “conquistadores.” “New World” is of course Eurocentric less biased terms are “Western Hemisphere” or “the Americas.” Did Europeans (and Africans) “settle” or “colonize” the Americas? Some students will note that people obviously already lived in India - lots of them! It turns out, lots of people also lived on Haiti, where Columbus marooned his 40 crew members, but somehow they became invisible, which now prompts us to say “discover.” Columbus “discovers” America, but authors never say Vasco Da Gama “discovered” India, not even in quotation marks. This detail is important, because it challenges the “superior European / inferior primitive” meme in our culture that otherwise starts here, with Columbus.Įducators can prod students to examine the words textbooks use. In Columbus’s words, the local leader “sent all his people from the town, with many large canoes to unload the ship.” Columbus limped back home on two ships, leaving 40 men behind. Some call the voyage to the Caribbean “storm-tossed,” when they had great weather, but not one mentions that his flagship, Santa Maria, hit rocks off Haiti. Instead, they leave out almost everything important while putting in all kinds of details that never happened. His basic story is uncomplicated: he sought to make a fortune by sailing west, perhaps by exploiting natives in hitherto unknown lands, perhaps by trading with “the Indies.” Unfortunately, textbooks shy away from such candor. Embarrassing Questions about “Standardized” Tests.Loewen’s Work on “Standardized” Testing Used by Others.Using Research Information to Help a Sundown Town Overcome Its Past.
#COLUMBUS DAY 2021 MEME HOW TO#
How to Research and Teach About Sundown Towns.Alphabetical Map of Sundown Towns by State.Using the Sundown Towns Database Menu Toggle.Civil Rights Movement to Modern Times: c.Teaching Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.
I understand the importance of setting aside a day for Italian Americans to be proud of themselves and their heritage, but perhaps we should find another role model.
I frequently get angry people taking jabs at me because I refuse to honor the man, as there were many other European explorers that didn’t say things like: ” I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased.” We need to actually have a discussion about what Columbus Day actually means, because I don’t really see anything other than an excuse to have a day off from work. As many of you know, today was Columbus Day – a holiday set aside to honor the legend of Christopher Columbus – the man that “discovered America.” I say “LEGEND” as many have wised up to the way the Victorians romanticized the man, his actual motives, his actual deeds, and more importantly, the fact he is honored for things he never did.
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