Christopher Columbus

As part of our history textbook project, it would be interesting to see how Columbus is treated in the history books of different countries. When I was a child, be was a great explorer, a man comparable to Captain Cook or Darwin. His name had such prestige that Italy and Spain fought over which country should get credit for his enterprise. Mussolini declared that he was Italian and that was that. My own mentor, Salvador de Madariaga, devoted the first of his trilogy of historical biographies to him (the others were devoted to Cortes and Bolivar). Madariaga claims Columbus was a Spanish Jew, but I plead ignorance. To nail the Spanish flag to the mast, Franco renamed October 12 the day of Hispanidad.

The image of the great explorer was shattered in 1992, when Spain staged a big celebration of the fifth centennial of the discovery of America. The Black Legend, according to which Spain is the great villain of European and American history, was revived by anti-Spanish Latin Americans, and the name of Columbus was loudly reviled. The Spanish celebration flopped. The day was named the D’a de la Raza (Day of the Race) in much of Latin America. the "race" being for example in Mexico the Mexican "race". This year, the celebration of Columbus the Italian Day was celebrated in the US without fuss--just speeches about Italian contributions to the US. Not so in Latin America. In Venezuela Hugo Chavez declared that the day would not be celebrated because Columbus was.... Can anyone tell us how the day was marked in Cuba?

I happened to turn on the TV when the History Channel was presenting a biography of Columbus. It was almost a cartoon, depicted all involved as being crazy about money. Columbus squeezed all he could out of the enterprise, even resorting to keeping double books and cheating his sailors out of their share of the rewards. One of he final scenes showed the Spaniards killing innocent Indians. I groaned to myself that here was the Black Legend at work again, painting everything Spanish in the darkest of colors. But no. The biography was part of the "Great Entrepreneurs" series. We were told that Columbus is studied in Business Schools as a great entrepreneur. Can anyone tell us if this is so? Is this the way Columbus is depicted in Business Schools, or is it just a parody? The variations on the Columbus theme are numerous.