The graduating class of my sixth grade year received a special gift from our teacher.
It was a book of brightly colored paper held together with a faux-leather binding.
We were instructed to capture the grand wisdom that only twelve year olds could impart as we headed into the unknown future of middle school.
I remember a great deal about that book.
I remember the feel of the navy blue soft “pleather” cover encasing the pink, yellow and green sheets of paper; I remember that we folded each sheet once it had been written upon so that reading the words was like peeling back treasure.
And I remember the gold-plated zipper that sealed the contents and protected this fount of wisdom from the elements.
But I do not remember a single entry in my graduation yearbook except for a short poem penned by a now long-forgotten classmate:
'Columbus discovered America in 1492, and I discovered a good friend when I discovered you.'
I lost my book decades ago, in one of a multitude of moves across the world, but those words have stayed with me.
What does it mean to say “Columbus discovered America in 1492”?
It suggests, for one, that it is possible to “discover” a continent of anywhere between one million to 18 million people that was continuously inhabited for 12 thousand years before Columbus.
It suggests also that others had not
discovered America
before 1492, although researchers conclude the Vikings established a toehold in Greenland 500 years before Columbus; and, while hotly contested, some scholars maintain Africans, Portuguese and even the Chinese visited our shores well before Columbus. Most importantly, it suggests this act of discovery was Columbus’ seminal achievement – it was, in short, his legacy. But was it?
I am currently immersed in research on Columbus as I prepare to write a book, and I keep coming back to this question of legacy.
Columbus seemed to believe his legacy would be his so-called discovery.
In a plaintive letter to his benefactors protesting his mistreatment at the hands of the crown’s agents, Columbus rather self-righteously noted:
'For seven years was I at your royal court, where everyone to whom the enterprise was mentioned, treated it as ridiculous; but now there is not a man, down to the very tailors, who does not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer . . .' *
What I have come to understand is that even while the notion of “discovery” is highly contested, its impact on the people, history and law of the Americas is incontrovertible.
We now have some idea of the impact Columbus had on the environment and people of this land, but comparatively little has been written on how the principle of discovery informed the laws of the New World.
Columbus’ voyage of discovery was first and foremost a trade expedition, a business matter funded by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel.
It was a private transaction with a very public objective.
To achieve its aim, contracts had to be signed between the parties.
The terms of those contracts would ultimately form the basis of law in the Americas.
Almost immediately after Columbus’ death, and for almost forty years thereafter, his descendants engaged in a nasty legal dispute with the monarchy.
The
Pleitos Colombinos – literally “the Columbus Lawsuits” – ultimately revolved around a single question:
What exactly did Columbus discover?
... 1942 (70 years ago today), the 450th anniversary of the day that Christopher Columbus set foot on land in North America, in a speech entitled "Americans of Italian Origin," delivered at a Carnegie Hall Columbus Day celebration, and broadcast live, Francis Biddle, then the Attorney General of the United States, announced that "Italian aliens will no longer be classed as alien enemies." (credit for 1945 photo of Biddle) He said that 600,000 such persons were in U.S. factories, helping the Allies in World War II efforts, including "the revolt against Italian fascism" led by Mussolini. As for Japanese and others still subject to regulation for having been broadly brushed "alien enemies," Biddle added:
