Christopher Columbus (1440-1506)

by W. L. Alden

As the astrolabe has been mentioned several times in the course of this narrative, it may be well to describe it, especially as it is now obsolete. It was an instrument of considerable size, made of some convenient material—usually either metal or wood, or both—and fitted with various contrivances for the purpose of observing the heavenly bodies. When a navigator took an observation with the astrolabe he immediately went below and “worked it up” with the help of a slate and pencil, and in accordance with the rules of arithmetic and algebra. The result was a series of figures which greatly surprised him, and which he interpreted according to the humor in which he happened to find himself. A skilful navigator who could guess his latitude with comparative accuracy generally found that an observation taken with the astrolabe would give him a result not differing more than eighty or ninety degrees from the latitude in which he had previously imagined his ship to be, and if he was an ingenious man he could often find some way of reconciling his observation with his guesses. Thus the astrolabe gave him employment and exercised his imagination, and was a great blessing to the lonesome and careworn mariner.

It is our solemn duty, as Americans, to take a warm interest in Christopher Columbus, for the reason that he had the good taste and judgment to discover our beloved country. Efforts have frequently been made to deprive him of that honor. It has been urged that he was not the first man who crossed the Atlantic, that he never saw the continent of North America, and that he was not the original discoverer of South America. Most of this is undoubtedly true. It is now generally conceded the Norwegians landed on the coast of New England about six hundred years before Columbus was born; that Americus Vespuccius was the first European to discover the South American continent; that Sebastian Cabot rediscovered North America after the Norwegians had forgotten all about it; and that Columbus never saw any part of what is now the United States of America. For all that, Columbus is properly entitled to be called the discoverer of the New World, including the New England, Middle, Gulf, Western, and Pacific States. Who invented steamboats? And who invented the magnetic telegraph? Every patriotic American echo will answer, “Fulton and Morse.” There were nevertheless at least four distinct men who moved vessels by machinery driven by steam before Fulton built his steamboat, and nearly twice that number of men had sent messages over a wire by means of electricity before Morse invented the telegraph. The trouble with the steamboats invented by the pre-Fultonians, and the telegraphs invented by the predecessors of Morse, was that their inventions did not stay invented. Their steamboats and telegraphs were forgotten almost as soon as they were devised; but Fulton and Morse invented their steamboats and telegraphs so thoroughly that they have stayed invented ever since.

Now, the Norwegians discovered America in such an unsatisfactory way that the discovery came to nothing. They did not keep it discovered. They came and looked at New England, and, deciding that they had no use for it, went home and forgot all about it. Columbus, who knew nothing of the forgotten voyage of the Norwegians, discovered the West India islands and the route across the Atlantic in such a workmanlike and efficient way that his discoveries became permanent. He was the first man to show people the way to San Domingo and Cuba, and after he had done this it was an easy thing for other explorers to discover the mainland of North and South America. He thus discovered the United States as truly as Fulton discovered the way to drive the City of Rome from New York to Liverpool, or Morse discovered the method of sending telegrams over the Atlantic cable.

We need not be in the least disturbed by the learned men who periodically demonstrate that Leif Ericson, as they familiarly call him, was the true discoverer of our country. We need never change “Hail Columbia” into “Hail Ericsonia,” and there is not the least danger Columbia College will ever be known as Leifia University. We can cheerfully admit that Leif Ericson—or, to give him what was probably his full name, Eliphalet B. Ericson—and his Norwegians landed somewhere in New England, and we can even forgive the prompt way in which they forgot all about it, by assuming that they landed on Sunday or on a fast-day, and were so disheartened that they never wanted to hear the subject spoken of again. We can grant all this, and still cherish the memory of Columbus as the true and only successful discoverer of America.

Most biographers have written of Columbus in much the same way that a modern campaign biographer writes the life of the Presidential candidate from whom he hopes to receives an office. They forget that he was never nominated by any regular party convention, and that it is therefore wrong to assume, without any sufficient evidence, that he was the greatest and best man that ever lived. He was undoubtedly a bold sailor, but he lived in an age when bold sailors were produced in quantities commensurate with the demands of exploration, and we cannot say that he was any bolder or better sailor than the Cabots or his own brother Bartholomew. He was certainly no braver soldier than Ojeda, and his conquests were trifling in comparison with those of Cortez and Pizarro.

As a civil ruler he was a conspicuous failure. It is true that the colonists over whom he was placed were, many of them, turbulent scoundrels; but the unanimity with which they condemned his administration, and the uniformity with which every commissioner appointed to investigate his conduct as a ruler condemned him, compel us to believe that he was not an able governor either of Spanish colonists or contiguous Indians. He was not habitually cruel, as was Pizarro, but he insisted upon enslaving the Indians for his own profit, though Queen Isabella had forbidden him to enslave them or to treat them harshly.

He could be magnanimous at times, but he would not undertake a voyage of discovery except upon terms which would ensure him money and rank, and he did not hesitate to claim for himself the reward which was offered, during his first voyage, to the man who should first see the land, and which was fairly earned by one of his sailors.

As an explorer, he failed to find a path to India, and he died under the delusion that Pekin was somewhere in Costa Rica. His first voyage across the broad Atlantic seems to us a wonderful achievement, but in either difficulty or danger it cannot be compared with Stanley’s march across the African continent. We must concede to Columbus a certain amount of boldness and perseverance, but we cannot shut our eyes to the faults of his conduct and character.

And yet Columbus was a true hero. Whatever flaws there may have been in the man, he was of a finer clay than his fellows, for he could dream dreams that their dull imaginations could not conceive. He belonged to the same land which gave birth to Garibaldi, and, like the Great Captain, the Great Admiral lived in a high, pure atmosphere of splendid visions, far removed from and above his fellow-men. The greatness of Columbus cannot be argued away. The glow of his enthusiasm kindles our own, even at the long distance of four hundred years, and his heroic figure looms grander through successive centuries.

THE END.