Perhaps no historical figure has been as lavishly celebrated and as roundly denounced as Christopher Columbus. In the years following the American Revolution, he was elevated into a powerful symbol of American nationalism, cast as an inspired renegade from the Old World of Europe whose discovery of America set the stage for the emergence of political freedom in the new United States. That chorus of praise continued well into the twentieth century, as historians proclaimed him not only an apostle of liberty but also a rugged individualist, an icon of American ingenuity and business enterprise.

During the latter half of the twentieth century, however, there emerged a starkly different estimate of Columbus: the man who led the way in despoiling the Americas and enslaving its native peoples. Is it not Eurocentric, some scholars argue, to celebrate Columbus as the "discoverer" of a world long inhabited by Native Americans? Furthermore, research has now made clearer the demographic disaster that followed upon Europeans' arrival in the Americas. Columbus launched a process of invasion and occupation that, over the following century and a half, reduced the native population by perhaps 90 percent through slavery, exploitation, war, and the scourge of Eurasian diseases. In the opinion of one modern Indian leader—a view echoed by some historians—"Columbus makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent."

Other scholars insist that the only fair way to judge historical figures is by measuring them against the standards of their own times. Their verdict on Columbus is that he was a great mariner but not a great man. As a brilliant navigator, he staked his life on his ideas about the size of the world and boldly sailed west to reach Asia. But in other respects, they argue, Columbus was a creature of his culture—a man typical of early modern Europe's pragmatic and unscrupulous explorers and merchants. Consumed by the desire to wring profits from his voyages, Columbus hoped to find gold in the West Indies, and he dealt harshly with any island peoples who refused to assist him in that pursuit. Some he sent to Spain as slaves; others he distributed among his followers as laborers and concubines. Sadly, such inhumane treatment was not singular but all too common among his fellow mariners and traders. Only a few of their contemporaries possessed the greatness to transcend the prejudices of their age by insisting that the quest for wealth could not justify violating human rights. Columbus, for all his other gifts, was not among them.

1			The first two links below offer opposing arguments in the contemporary debate about how we should perceive Christopher Columbus. The third document is a letter from Columbus to his Spanish patrons. Is there any evidence in this document to support either side of this controversy? What evidence, if any, contradicts each position? How would you characterize the man who wrote this document? What evidence led you to this conclusion? http://www.indians.org/welker/byecolum.htm http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/10-02/10-14-02/a06op032.htm http://www.usm.maine.edu/~maps/columbus/translation.html