1/21/2024 0 Comments Christopher columbus history![]() ![]() MALE SPEAKER: Maybe next year he might show up. ![]() JOHN BLACKSTONE: The welcoming party was so unfriendly that Columbus just waved from way out beyond the breakwater and kept on sailing. SAM DIENER: This motley collection of canoes and kayaks and sailboats with signs and banners, and folks crisscrossing the bay ready to greet any ship that came in with the Columbus actor. He was on shore handing out pamphlets and he remembers other protesters bobbing out into the bay in boats. PETER: One of those protesters was a man named Sam Diener. They were part of a coalition led in part by the American Indian movement, and they held signs with slogans like, “End 500 years of racism!” and “No to slavery and genocide.” They were there to stop Columbus from landing. There was a crowd of around 4,000 protesters lining the waterfront. JOHN BLACKSTONE: Joseph Cervetto was all dressed up and ready to wade ashore triumphantly as part of the festivities in San Francisco yesterday.īRIAN: But when Cervetto’s boat got close to shore on the big day, his crew noticed a problem. Columbus would arrive not by plane, train, or automobile, but by boat, just like in olden times. And for the 500th anniversary, the coordinating committee had something special planned. Each year a reenactor represented the great navigator himself, complete with sword and gold cross. PETER: And of course, there was also Christopher Columbus. Italian American girls competed to be crowned Queen Isabella. There was a parade with floats and marching bands and local politicians mugging for the crowd. Columbus Day was a big deal for the city’s Italian American community. Columbus Day.ĭAN RATHER: Was he a genius, a tyrant, or both? As John Blackstone reports, the argument is gaining momentum today.īRIAN: Ground zero for that argument was San Francisco. He found–īRIAN: This is a CBS News report from October 12, 1992. I’m Brian Balogh, and I’m here with Ed Ayers.ĭAN RATHER: 500 years ago today, Christopher Columbus landed on a Caribbean island thinking he was off the coast of Asia. PETER: Major funding for BackStory is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Virginia, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and an anonymous donor.ĮD: From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is BackStory with the American Backstory hosts.īRIAN: Welcome to the show. We didn’t give it for him to shed blood and kill all those people.ĮD: Today on BackStory, Christopher Columbus’s long and twisted journey through history. STUDENT AS QUEEN ISABELLA: We gave him money for spices and gold. In some high school history classrooms this fall, in fact, he’s even being put on trial for mass murder. ROLENA ADORNO: So what emerges is this sole heroic figure who has to work against the interests of others.ĮD: These days, Columbus has been taken down more than a few notches. But in the early decades of US history, a bestselling biography helped elevate Columbus above the rest. For the first 300 years, he was only one in a sea of European explorers. And ever since, people have been struggling to define just what that event meant. It was 521 years ago this week that Christopher Columbus came ashore in the Bahamas. When and why did we begin to revere the Italian explorer? Who has seized on his legacy, and who has contested it? So on this episode of BackStory, Peter, Ed, and Brian explore the controversial Columbian legacy, diving into current debates, and looking back on how earlier generations have understood America’s purported discoverer. Should we venerate a man who symbolizes European colonization, and who inaugurated the decimation of native populations that would continue for centuries? And from an early age, schoolchildren learn about the voyages of the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa María, and the man who “discovered” the American continent. But many Americans have also questioned Columbus’s legacy. Columbus Day is here again - bringing both celebrations and denunciations of the man whose name the holiday bears. And it’s not just the holiday: Christopher Columbus’s name has been worked into numerous cities across the United States, the names of ships and universities - even a space shuttle.
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