Extracts from Christopher Columbus' Journal

     Reading a first-hand account of an exploration that helped start defining the shape and landscape of the world as we know it today was very interesting. Growing up, you hear a lot of stories about Columbus 'sailing the ocean blue in 1492,' but you do not really go into any depth or really understand the scope of what that meant or who he was as a person. Right away, hearing it from his own accounts, it was evident how much Columbus cared about the approval and wanting to impress the King and Queen back in Spain. In my experience, learning about Columbus had made him seem like the powerful person in the situation, which he was as leader of this expedition, but he was still reporting back to higher ups. He says, "I saw a snake, which we killed, and I have kept the skin for your Highnesses" along with telling the royalties of several other things he plans to bring back to them. I think it is worth noting how Columbus was not the ultimate power at hand, because to the people of the lands they were discovering, it may have seemed that way. 

    To the native people on some of these islands, Columbus and his men were almost seen as royalty to them because of the situation they were in. He describes them saying, "But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl." Columbus, buffing up himself, talks about giving them strings of beads and calls them nice people before saying he plans to "carry home six of them to you Highnesses, that they may learn our language." What Columbus fails to consider is whether or not these people would want to do this. Instead, he assumes his/Spain's power over these people, thinking he can do what he wants, as he wants. It is hard to understand how these native people truly saw Columbus and these people who came onto their land and due to a lack of writings from them, their representation is unfortunately not felt, historically.

-cs

Comments

  1. Mary PurcellAugust 24, 2020 at 12:42 PM

    I think you're right in the Columbus craved both approval and notoriety from his voyages; to him everything he saw could be capitalized on and profited off of. And acknowledging that Columbus still had to answer to the higher power of Spain is important considering the more controversial (to say the very least) things he did in the name of Spain.

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  2. emma nowakowskiAugust 24, 2020 at 12:43 PM

    Making note about how Christopher Columbus seemed to the indigenous people verse who he actually was is something I did not pick up when I was reading the extracts. In school he is a big deal but when reading about the detail of the explorations he seems like an ordinary person that was just willing to do a job not many people were as excited about.

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  3. UnknownAugust 24, 2020 at 12:45 PM

    It is great that you point out the fact that Christopher Columbus was the leader of the voyage but he had authority/rulers over him. Great work so far! Like the quote you used to back up your statement.

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