The Re-evaluation of Christopher Columbus

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As time passes and attitudes change, history is constantly being rewritten. Through the hindsight of history, glorious victories may become horrible defeats. Seemingly insignificant acts may become superior accomplishments. Revered heroes may become hated villains.

In recent years, this has been the case with the great admiral, Christopher Columbus. For years, the admiral was considered to be, by historians (working primarily from historical documents created by Europeans, with a decidedly Euro centric slant), as well as by the white, euro-American population, to be the great discoverer of the New World. Christopher Columbus changed the way man looked at his world, creating a new global perspective, and opening the floodgates of European world domination. In the United States, his legacy lives on in countless cities, streets, and natural phenomena bearing the admiral's name (including our seat of national government: the District of Columbia).

However, as the time grew closer to the Quintcentenary of Columbus's great voyage across the Atlantic, and plans were made by the great historical and educational institutions of the world he affected and helped to create to commemorate the occasion, another "new world" had evolved...a world with a much more global and inclusive perception what is historically valid; a world that condemned Christopher Columbus (as well as those who followed him) for the atrocities committed against the native peoples of the lands he discovered (or "encountered", depending on your perspective), his limitless Machiavellian lust for money and power, and most importantly, his ignorance of the fact that the lands he discovered and claimed for the Spanish Crown were, in fact, already "owned" by someone el...

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...6-56. (retrieved as CIRS file ROYAL03.ART).

Sokolov, Raymond. "Stop Knocking Columbus". Newsweek, special issue Fall/Winter 1991, pg. 82. (retrieved as CIRS file SOKOLOV2.ART).

Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy. New York:Plume, 1990.

Schroeder, Richard C. Should We Scuttle the Admiral of the Ocean Sea?". The Times of the Americas. May 29, 1991, pg.20. (retrieved as CIRS file SCHROED1.ART).

Sokolov, Raymond. "Stop Knocking Columbus". Newsweek, special issue Fall/Winter 1991, pg. 82. (retrieved as CIRS file SOKOLOV2.ART).

Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy. New York:Plume, 1990.

Schroeder, Richard C. Should We Scuttle the Admiral of the Ocean Sea?". The Times of the Americas. May 29, 1991, pg.20. (retrieved as CIRS file SCHROED1.ART).

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