From Columbus' letter to Ferdinand and Isabella Regarding the Fourth Voyage

The last time I posted, I was aggravated at Columbus. What a difference ten years of his life has made. The previous letter I posted about was written in 1493, this letter written in 1503. His entire demeanor has changed. In the first letter written, he came across as pompous and arrogant. In this letter to the King and Queen he's very despondent and defeated. With good reason, though, seeing the things he has gone through (and in hindsight he passed away three years after this letter was written).
He speaks of "weeping" (p. 13) when he thinks about the lands that he has found, due to the fact that they are pretty much barren. People are dying on them daily because of the audacity that people have there, imprisoning people, taking their lands, etc, and these people that are dying are native to the land. The people of the Indies have come to inhabit them and have completely taken over (which, in my earlier post, I commented on and stated how this wasn't an ideal situation due to the fact that there are people living on the lands already). Columbus is speaking specifically of Panama where he was shipwrecked earlier in the voyage.
Columbus is worried about his name, with what I feel is good reason. Columbus had been the first to want to set sail to find a new way around the world for trading purposes, managed to discover the New World, and now everyone in his native land has jumped on the bandwagon and wants to go out and find a new life. He says that even "down to the very tailors seek permission to make discoveries." What a thing to see happening. He had lived his whole life to go out on ships and make new discoveries (he states that he has "not a hair on his body that isn't gray") and now people that wouldn't know a spyglass from the wheel of the ship are asking to go and discover new lands. Columbus very rightly says that they're plundering everything in their path, and also states that its doing "damage to the enterprise." What authority is going to allow people to go and make great discoveries that need to be made, places that need to be explored, areas that need to be looked at, if people that have gone before them have ruined what they have been given? It makes more sense for authorities to save their money (and sanity) and say no to further discovery missions since all it causes them is headaches.
Columbus asks the King and Queen to punish Alonso de Ojeda, who is the man that took almost everything he had, and give him the same punishment that Columbus endured. When Columbus wrote the first letter, its very obvious that he is a religious man. It is clear that as he has endured everything that has happened that his faith may not have wavered, but his need for justice has become greater. He does speak of the church only once in this letter, where he noted it several times in his previous letter. The only time he does speak of the church is to say that where he is at, the people are "separated from the holy Sacraments of Holy Church" and his "soul will be forgotten."
When left in such a situation, being able to hold on to something such as faith, that is unable to be seen, has to be one of the most difficult things to do. There is nobody there that he is able to relate to regarding his religion, he's not able to practice what he wishes to, and while he must have been praying to God for a resolution, none ever came, and things continued to get worse as the days went by. He must have felt as though his entire lifes work was going down in flames because others were selfish. I wonder if he equated this back to when his crew wanted to turn back the first time and he didn't allow it, and whether he wished he could go back in time and NOT travel to the New World now that he sees the damage it caused both himself and his homeland.

From Columbus' letter to Luis de Santangel Regarding the First Voyage

I'm a little annoyed at Columbus right now. He's excited to have found this land, as well he should be, and I realize that I'm reading this with a 21st century mindset. However, when he says "...of them all I have taken possession for their highnesses, by proclamation made and with the royal standard unfurled, and no opposition was offered to me." I could feel my annoyance with him begin to rise. I know that when he was sailing it was commonplace to claim land but in my 21st century mind, I can't fathom just going onto some island, seeing people on it and saying "Hey ... this is mine" throwing a flag into it and nobody saying anything to oppose. Its quite mind-boggling for me. Later, he says that "they all fled immediately" when he comes up on what he thought was China and says that he wants to "have speech" with them. First of all, he's coming from Spain, growing up in Italy, and thinks he's in China. How on earth is he going to speak to them? In what common language will they converse? Though I'm sure some smartypants out there is going to tell me that Columbus studied Chinese. And of course they fled. These people with three huge boats, that look nothing like them came barreling into their harbor. And while he thought it was China, we now know it wasn't, so these people didn't have the slightest clue what was going on. Which makes me wonder about Columbus. He had thought he had found China, which is where he wanted to end up. They obviously weren't sure of the size of the world, but I wonder if he didn't think that China as a whole knew that boats pulled into harbors. He writes about not wanting to go north because of it being winter, and sends three men to the land and they return in three days time without anything too interesting. I'm curious as to how and what he was thinking and feeling at that time. I'm curious if he thought that he would be able to find the same harbor as everyone else who had come before him, and the fact that he hadn't found anything remotely even close to what he had expected was handled. For that matter, how his crew handled this knowledge, knowing that they wanted to turn back during the voyage over. Being on his crew and wanting to turn back, having your captain say that wasn't an option, and then not finding what you had expected to find must have been a lot for them to handle. I wonder if all of them went back to Spain in their right minds, and if they didn't, how they were taken care of by doctors.

Christopher Columbus Introduction

I'm sure that 9 times out of 10 I won't write regarding the introduction to a piece, and merely write about the literature itself. However, with the Columbus introduction I feel compelled to comment. The story of Columbus is taught to children in grammar school. I know when I taught 1st-3rd grade I taught the Columbus story many times over. Never once did I actually take the time to do any more digging into it than what I was taught in school and what the text for the children said. Not until today did I know that Columbus had to return to Spain and clear his name, or that he was arrested again in the Islands. I'm sure that people much more intelligent and historically trained than me were quite well aware of this, but being that I never had a real interest for history (just please don't tell my History teacher father), I didn't bother to dive into anything further than "Columbus sailed with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, he saw land, he saw some Indians (Native Americans if being politically correct), he found some gold, and he sailed back." I knew that he had gone back a few times, but had no earthly idea that it was four.
I realize that as we teach our children history, it's important to teach them things that are factual, attempt to hold their interest for a 45 minute lesson, and taught in a way that can be understood, but I wonder if we're doing any justice at all to our children by not telling them the entire story when they are old enough to handle it. Columbus Day is all well and good, but the story of Columbus goes much farther and deeper than "Yay he discovered America." The story that we teach fails to make children realize that there were people living on this land before the Europeans found it. Nor does it tell them what happens to the Indians after the Europeans started to inhabit the land. Or the devastation it caused the Indian population since the Europeans were bringing over foreign diseases. Again, perhaps something a bit too morbid and deep for young children, and maybe it was just the schooling that I received and the books that I used to teach, but to not revisit the Columbus story in more depth and detail as students get older, I feel is doing them a disservice.

Thank you, my Dear Kier

Yesterday I was on facebook and saw a post from Keirin that said she was going to read the entire British Literature Anthology. Not more than a week ago I was thinking the same thing as I was dusting off my bookshelf. However, being that Brit lit and I have always had a love/hate relationship, I was dusting off my American Literature Anthology. While in college there were things in there that I did want to read, but never were assigned, and therefore I never did because of the sheer amount of other work I had to do.
I will read the entire anthology, and I will make notes here. (If you're insane *ahem .. interested* enough to follow this you can follow Kier's too at britlitter.blogspot.com if you're into British literature, as well) I'm sure some of these entries will be a lot more thought out than others. There are some authors in American literature that I know are in that book that I just don't like, though not an excuse to not attempt to write something intriguing. Or at least give a valid attempt. It also doesn't mean that things won't be edited as I ponder and process.
Now, there is no way that I will be able to handle reading just the anthology because that's a lot of academia for my peon little mind all at once. I will be reading more contemporary things while I do this, as well.
I'm probably a lot more excited about this than I should be. My nerd sense are tingling as I write this. I know I've made a lot of sidebar notes in that book, and I think that not only will it be interesting to see what I wrote all those years ago, since I've been using that book since my first semester Freshman year, but if I still agree with things that I wrote.