Irving already enjoyed fame as a popular writer and as a diplomat working for the United States government. He cultivated the friendship of many of the most noted intellectuals in the nation, entertaining them at his estate in upstate New York. In his diplomatic travels he spent many years in Spain and wrote often on Spanish themes. For his Columbus biography, he was able to rely on a very important collection of documents published in Madrid in Irving mined the Navarrete collection thoroughly for his biography—so tho- roughly that he was later accused of plagiarism by another American writer Other authors picked up the cry thereafter.
Irving did not care to dignify the charges by replying to them, and supposedly never read the articles. Above all Irving was a popularizer, not a historian. He planned to tell a familiar story in a lite- rary and entertaining way, not to produce anything new In all, full editions and abridgements were published between and , supplanting Robertson and everyone else as the definitive work on Columbus Navarrete compiled his document collection in part to combat inaccuracies about Spain in the works of Robertson and other European historians.
He objected strongly to the portra- yal of Columbus as a misunderstood genius who had been scorned in Spain, given minimal help for the historic voyage of , and betrayed thereafter by the crown. Charles Goodrich expanded the edition of his popular history to incorporate detail from Irving, whom he gratefully acknowledged The general vision of Columbus the unble- mished hero continued to hold sway In the earlier edition it covered pp.
Columbus in United States Historiography: Biography as Projection He possessed a teeming imagination, an ardent courage, a glowing zeal, and all those energetic impulses of the soul which lead to high achievement; and, with these noble qualities, he combined judgment the most grave and solid, prudence and patience the most steady and unoffending, piety the most devout, and what chiefly ensured his success, the most untiring perseverance ever manifested by man In strikingly similar terms, G.
Every misfortune that befell him, especially his disgrace for administrative incompetence, was either ignored or blamed on others, never on Columbus. The warfare and exploitation that devastated the natives of the Caribbean escaped notice altogether.
The influence of such textbook adulation can hardly be overestimated. One very popular book written by S. Goodrich in was re-printed numerous times. Some authors in the mid-nineteenth century chose to give the edifying story of Columbus their own particular slant.
Appleton and Company, New York, ; earlier copyrights and Butler, Philadelphia, At least a few school texts and popular books shifted from the exclusively European focus of their precursors, beginning their American histories with the peoples who had arrived millennia before the Europeans, whom Columbus called Indians. However brief their treatment of the Indians was, at least it marked an important shift from the single-minded Euro-cen- trism of Robertson and his followers One author stood nearly alone in the mid-nineteenth century, using the evidence from Navarrete and a sensitive reading of Irving and others to ques- tion the standard portrayal of Columbus.
As the fourth centenary of the historic voyage approached, other authors were willing to take a less laudatory view of Columbus. Alden publis- hed a breezy, irreverent biography in , aimed at a literate, adult audien- ce with a sense of humor.
Other authors simply cashed in on the fourth centenary by publishing trash of one sort or another. Some was in the stan- dard adulatory mode of past American writing about Columbus. One detractor named Aaron Goodrich indulged in a systematic debunking of the heroic myth of Columbus. In the process he attempted to degrade the accomplishments of all of southern Europe, particularly Catholic Europe, although he admired cer- tain individuals such as Ferdinand of Aragon and Amerigo Vespucci His venomous portrayal reflected a certain segment of American popular opi- nion, but the book was filled with inaccuracies, misreading of evidence, and wild claims that make other popular writers seem like models of scholarly moderation.
Undoubtedly the most important was the massive collection of documents published by the Italian government and known as the Raccolta Colombiana The Navarrete collection in Spain was also more widely known by then, and the American scholar Henry Harrisse published a well- documented biography of Columbus in French in , as well as working with the Italian government on other Columbus scholarship Serious writers in the United States therefore had access to a much broader range of docu- mentation at the turn of the twentieth century than they had when living wrote, especially if they read Italian, Spanish, and French.
Appleton and Company, New York, Commissione Colombina, ed. Nonetheless, their portrayals of Columbus continued to follow in the footsteps of living, merely toning down his overblown prose. This massive work followed Harrisse, to whom it is dedica- ted, and explored the life and character of Columbus with exemplary tho- roughness. Thacher printed numerous documents in transcription and translation, and commented on a range of scholarly controversies surroun- ding Columbus and his exploits Much more important as a work of American scholarship was the work of Justin Winsor, published in In the early decades of the twentieth century, many popular books were also willing to temper their admiration of Columbus with a discussion of his failings Benjamin Andrews, History of the United States, 6 vols.
Doran Company, New York, Columbus in United States Historiography: Biography as Projection variety of foreign books critical of Columbus was also available in the United States Yet a large segment of the American public was unwilling to admit the slightest flaw in its heroes, and the reaction against Winsor and other less scholarly critics was swift and long-lasting. Several books vigorously defen- ded Columbus against Winsor specifically Others simply ignored the cri- tics and wrote modern glosses on living, or tried their hand at epic poetry and drama based on a laudatory view of the Admiral Some sup- porters of Columbus tended to be anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic.
They were willing to forgive Columbus for his Catholicism, because they could use his life to illustrate Spanish perfidy.
Some detractors of Columbus also tended to be anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic. There was even a movement to canonize Columbus, which foundered on various obstacles, including his irregular union with Beatriz de Arana. Winsor, in his forceful and honest scholarly analysis, stood nearly alone above the petty and unedifying qua- rrels of his compatriots. School textbooks tended to bypass scholarly controversies altogether, aiming to instill the virtues of good citizenship, and defining American heroes with that purpose in mind.
Clarke, New York, And many continued to acknowledge their debt to Washington Irving, published nearly a century before, for their generally laudatory descriptions of Columbus With the late s a new approach gained ground in the teaching of United States history, rooted in the political movement known as Progressivism.
Rejecting the traditional approach centered on individuals and human character, historians in the Progressive Movement emphasized the social and economic context of history, relegating individuals to the back- ground.
Columbus and other explorers became minor actors in the great drama that saw the expansion of markets around the globe. Nathan Gardels. Andrej Smrekar , Stane Bernik. The Endangered Monuments of Croatia. Noel Annan. John Banville. Jump and Other Stories by Nadine Gordimer. Playing the Game by Ian Buruma. Asya by Michael Ignatieff. Michael Ignatieff. In the New Republics. Tomas Venclova , Diana Senechal.
Instruction a poem. David Cannadine. Through the Keyhole. Louis Menand. The Politics of Deconstruction. In other words,. This would start an assault by the Native Americans on the English settlements leaving very few survivors to tell about the horrific events. Altogether, Philbrick estimates. Howard Zinn uses historical writings to explain an imbalance in objectivity, perspective, and justice.
History books are written by the victors not the vanquished which makes the perspective of the story teller biased. As the story of Christopher Columbus he has been hailed as a hero especially in public schools and recognized as an historical occasion to have a day off granted by the government.
There is no justice being done when the perspective does not reveal a whole truth when the objective.
The operation was deemed unsuccessful and with nothing to show for his conquests the group split and went upon their own personal agendas, some venturing to the Grand canyon and others venturing ti the Colorado Plateau.
Although the tribes were originally respectably cooperative with the Spaniards the large amount of native deaths from European disease eventually caused tribes such as the Apache and Navajo started raiding Spanish encampments in an attempt to drive them and their diseases away from their. Guenter Lewy clearly explains how the deaths of the American Indians cannot be classified as genocide since it did not represent the U. Depending on how it is looked upon, the argument about whether the deaths of the American Indians could be considered genocide all boils down to which group of people did the killings.
To be able to grasp and understand if American Indians. To the Native Americans, the colonists are the ones who trespassed.
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