As Todorov said in Conquest of America, "Columbus's courage is admirable (and has been admired time over); Vasco da Gama and Magellan may have undertaken more difficult voyages, but they knew where they were going. For all his assurance, Columbus could not be certain that the Abyss--and therefore his fall into it--did not lie on the other side of the ocean; or again, that this westward voyage was not the descent of a long downward slope (since we are at the earth's summit), which it would afterwards be impossible to reascend; in short, that his return was at all likely" (Todorov 5-8).
Columbus' journeys were acts of courage not acts of destruction. If it weren't for Columbus, we probably wouldn't have settled in the Americas as soon as we did, however I do think that the general events were inevitable. To summarize, Columbus is not to blame and the events were most likely inevitable.
Dhea, i too would like to think the events were inevitable. After all, as Todorov pointed out, the modernization of the nations in Europe (Spain in particular) is what led to the conquest. Therefore, conquest seems to be a unilateral endpoint of modernization. However, I think Columbus' acts were of violence and not "courage". It isnt courage that dehumanizes a group of people, turns them into objects, and ultimately leads to the death of a people. It is not courage that bleeds ignorance to the level that two cultures do not fully understand each other. It is not courage when one group dominates another. The practice of diplomacy is always an option, even when it isnt the norm. To me it is more "courageous" to be abel to lay down your arms, grasp a mutual understanding, and talk through or negotiate an issue. Therefore, the death toll and overall societal infliction imposed by Columbus was not inevitable, even if discovery was.
ReplyDeleteI would say that taking the actual journey was courageous - no matter what motivations he had, (and I would argue that it was religious based, pride in his country and hope for their future expansion, as well as any material gains, although that was more the realist/merchantilistic inventions of Ferdinand and Isabella – which also explains his goals as well) to risk basically everything for this voyage, it does take courage. However, the results were clearly destructive, although not necessarily as a fault of his own, more of the precedent that they set. I wouldn’t necessarily say that the events that happened in the Americas were inevitable, but they were very likely to have happened. With the European identity of superiority over those different from them pretty clearly established (going back to the Holy Roman Empire, how they dealt with those considered barbarians, as an example, among countless others), it is likely that someone, whether it was Columbus or not, would have began the cycle of destruction. Additionally, the goals of the state encouraged this to happen – trying to find gold and treasures as the primary goal meant that they would encourage the destruction of anything that got in the way.
ReplyDeleteI would go slightly in a different direction about the definition of courage – negotiation may not always be the courageous thing to do, but it is doing what is right in the situation. However, we can’t expect courage – it’s what is realistic more than anything that is what is done and I think that can be courageous as well.