Educators: The real story about Columbus is complex
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In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. But what he did after that was a bit less tasteful, say area teachers and professors.
“He committed egregious acts of genocide against the people of Haiti, and enslaved the Native American people,” said Fort Cherry High School history teacher Tanner Jesso on Columbus Day.
He said when a historical figure becomes celebrated by a federal holiday, facts are sometimes contradicted.
“Like any other person in history, he is a complex person,” he said. “Too often, figures in history tend to be glorified.”
He said while Columbus did some good things, all sides of the story should be told through history.
“I think it’s an injustice to history to not know the whole truth,” he said.
California University of Pennsylvania history professor Dr. Laura Tuennerman said she tries to teach about Columbus within his historical context – why he took the actions he took and thought the way he thought.
She said one of the biggest outcomes of his voyage, bringing new diseases to the Americas, was something he could never have foreseen.
“There was no way he could have understood those biological implications,” she said. “He started a major age of exploration, which had lasting consequences.”
She said while beginning the age of exploration is noteworthy, expanding the holiday to recognize all of those involved would be beneficial.
Her colleague, Dr. Clarissa Confer, teaches her students that “discovery” is a misnomer.
“The native civilation had been here for thousands of years and had a very complex society,” she said. “They were not looking to be ‘discovered’ or saved in any fashion.”
She said she uses the phrase “collision of cultures.”
“He had a choice of behavior, and he chose to behave in a very violent manner,” she said.
She said he was made famous because of the Columbian Exchange, the transfer of plants, animals, people and disease between Europe and the Americas.
She said he brought many things, including smallpox, honeybees and horses. She said the irony is that things many consider to be uniquely American, such as the iconic image of a cowboy on a horse, are not American at all.
“There were no cows and there were no horses before Europeans came,” she said. “We can never know what it was like here before Columbus.”