So let’s talk history

A recent letter from Chele Farley talked about Columbus Day and the importance of learning and celebrating historical moments. I couldn’t agree more. So let’s talk history.

First, it is a myth perpetrated by Washington Irving that Columbus proved the world is round.

People in 1492 weren’t idiots: they saw ships sink into the horizon and knew that meant the earth was curved. The ancient Greeks already knew it was round.

The story doesn’t even make sense. If people thought the earth was flat, once they figured out the Americas weren’t Asia they would have had no more reason to think the earth was round than they had before.

Columbus’ motivation wasn’t some great discovery, it was wealth for him and his benefactors.

Second, best estimates are 60 million people lived in the Americas when Columns landed, so he hardly discovered them.

I found my way to Warwick for the first time in 1998, but I’ve never claimed to be its discoverer. That would be an insult to all the people who lived here before me.

This claim is both incorrect and insulting to native Americans.

As to those natives, Columbus quickly took to murdering, mutilating and enslaving them and destroying their social systems.

If there was anyone in this sad story who was out to cancel culture, it was Columbus.

Yes, we should learn history, but that means we should learn history rather than the stories we like to tell ourselves. I have benefitted from Columbus’ stumbling on the Americas, but that does not make him a hero worth celebrating.

Robert McGrath

Warwick