Why do we teach our kids that Christopher Columbus was such a great person?

Question

Why? This man was a tyrrant! He helped damn near eliminate a whole group of people! And how can you get credit for discovering something that's already inhabited?

Answer 1

What has been happening over a period of years or decades is apologist revisionist textbooks have taken a distorted view of history in a vain attempt to impose Twentieth Century ideals upon events of the Fifteenth. The problem with this is that standards and beliefs four hundred years ago were quite a bit different than today, so customs were different, attitudes were different, society was different. What Christopher Columbus did was part of his era, not 1985. You cannot impose ideals and customs of the 1980s or the 1990s upon the 1400s or 1500s and expect to make any valid conclusions. Those in the year 2000 who say Columbus was a tyrant were not living in 1490 and have no right to make that sort of value judgment. They have taken Columbus out of context and plopped him down in the beginning of the Twenty-first Century. At one time slavery in the Southern states was an accepted part of the culture, so were the witch trials at Salem. Today these events are viewed with disdain, but at the time they were normal and proper. Even George Washington has been attacked by the so-called "politically correct" revisionists.

By the way, there is a theory that the New World was "discovered by Chinese traders in 1423, nearly 70 years before Columbus. When he arrived, it was a "discovery" for the Europeans, even though others may have discovered it previously.

So the problem you are encountering is that of revisionist historians with an agenda who are writing textbooks, and imposing todays morals and standards on a bygone era. It is just not a valid association, it distorts the historical perspective and destroys any hope of understanding events of the past in terms of the norms of the time.

Answer 2

Jennell 79 has a good point. Young kids are not ready to hear the finer and dirtier points of history. Nor are they able to understand that people are not black and white but most are shades of grey. What I mean by that is most do not fall under the heading of Good and Evil like God and the devil do. But they are capable of both and many do both whether they do small bad things or really big bad things like Hitler for example.

It's not until we reach college are we able to understand this and even then most people really don't understand how people can bring such horror to other people. Why should we teach our grade school kids this? High school? Why not, maybe not all of it, but a bit more. Especially the holocaust.

Which brings up another point. They don't teach the holocaust in school anymore from what I understand and he is what I would consider a tyrant who did eliminate a race , or at least try to eliminate a nation of people.

Beside Columbus I think is credited for discovering the Americans to the European countries attention, after all, no one over there knew about it now did they. So in fact he sorta did DISCOVER it for them.

Answer 3

Your question goes to the heart of the difficulty with teaching history: How can something as complex as history be broken down into simple, teachable terms? It's impossible to find truly unbiased history texts: by its very nature, any telling of history will be skewed by the one relating it.

The best suggestion I can make is that history, including Christopher Columbus, should be taught for what it is: complex and ripe for interpretation. Try Googling "Christopher Columbus debate" and you'll see how varied opinions are about him.

As to why are schoolchildren taught that Columbus "discovered" America, I don't have an answer for that. All I have are more questions.

Answer 4

Read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, that will show how great he is. This is what should be taught in school. To the person who said he didn't start scalping people and was such a great man here's what he said upon arriving in the Indies he said, " With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." 2 years later 250,000 Indians were dead.

Answer 5

or u can watch the show 'history with mr. whul' or something like that.

it says how all the stuff we teach about colubus comes from a mostly fictional book written by someone in th 17or 1800s. the book was called the life and times of christopher columbus.
-EDIT-

o yeah, and the book made up the lie about him proving the earth was round. Aristotle proved the earth was round 2000 years before columbus was born.

Answer 6

My history instructor in college said that in regular school we are taught he was great because the powers that be consider school age children (being anyone younger than college age I guess) is too young to deal with and understand the controversy related to most histroy, not just what has to do with Columbus. As for the details you don't find out until college (just how horrible he is) he didn't have an answer for that, but suggested it was also related to the "too young" standard.

Answer 7

He was a brave man who was the first to put his money where his mouth was and truly believe the earth wasn't flat. He was an adventurer who helped to find a new world.

He didn't land and start scalping people or giving them small pox blankets the week after. He just found it first. Sheesh.

Answer 8

I thought Columbas sailed west because he thought he would reach India. He called the people Indians. He was looking for the spices of India. People thought the world was flat with sea monsters and he would sail right off into nothing. I don't think he was looking for gold. India didn't have gold. he didn't expect to bump into another continent. It was the early English people that were looking for gold and were never seen again.

Answer 9

well he did good things and bad things. u cant say he was a bad person, but he maybe wasnt the best. we just kinda get the mindset that he "found" the americas because the native americans werent "civilized." and since we are still the united states that originated from his discovery, we say that he started it all.

Answer 10

I was never taut that he was a great person, but if you must ask... I think people want to recognize him for bringing more riches to Europe and some other stuff