- Due to an error in his calculations, Columbus believed the span of ocean between the Canary Islands and Japan to be only about 2,300 miles -- less than one-fifth the actual span between them, and a distance proven to be navigable with the ships of the time. Luckily for him and his crews, that is the approximate distance to the islands he dubbed the West Indies.
. - The maps created in the early 1500s as a result of his voyages indicate that cartographers in southern Europe knew little or nothing of the Norsemen's journeys from Iceland and Greenland to Vinland (now the Canadian maritime provinces and coastal New England) almost 500 years earlier. In fact, some maps don't even include any significant land masses west of the British Isles, indicating a dismissal or perhaps even outright ignorance of their existence.
. - Despite encountering native peoples who neither looked like the inhabitants of India, nor spoke their language, Columbus so adamantly persisted in calling them Indians that the moniker has stuck even into the modern era. (The preferred terms now, of course, are Native American, Amerindian, or First Nations, depending on who you ask.)
. - In his 1493 letter to the royal treasurer of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Columbus talks effusively about the friendly (and mostly naked) natives*, who didn't mind the Europeans claiming their lands, trading trinkets for valuable commodities like precious metals and cotton, renaming all the islands in honor of the Spanish court and Christian saints, or building whole settlements to house the men and the goods they were stockpiling for transport back to Spain. They were even helpful enough to point out which island might have cannibals on it**.
. - Columbus and his crew introduced Catholicism to the islands. When relayed back to Pope Alexander VI, this fact led him to grant dominion of the New World to the Spanish in perpetuity. This did not go over very well with the other Catholic nations of Europe, as you might imagine.
. - There are many portraits of Columbus, but few look particularly similar. All that can be gleaned from them, along with contemporary written descriptions, is that he was a fair-haired man with a long nose and pale skin who sunburned easily.
The true nature of history is contained within the word itself. It is a story, always changing depending on who is telling it, how much information they have, personal biases, societal values, and a thousand other factors. From a modern perspective, Columbus may seem like a plundering conquerer of relatively peaceful peoples, but in his lifetime, he was celebrated as a bold explorer who brought new wealth to his homeland and the light of salvation to a continent of heathens. Whatever his true motivations may have been, one thing is almost certain: Our country would not be what it is today without him.
--Robin
* The original name of the people on Hispaniola is unknown. Modern scholars refer to them as "Arawak" or "Taino", though both terms appear to have been adopted by the tribes after the Spanish settlement.
** The purported cannibals were the Caribs inhabiting what is now Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles. Columbus believed them to be "the people of the Great Khan" (i.e. Mongolian warriors). While they did engage in some ritual consumption of human flesh follwing victories in battle, it was by no means their regular diet.
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