Christopher Columbus, Failure

american heritage. ^ | May 20, 2006 | Christine Gibson i

[tbird5]

No matter how widely he had been hailed as a hero 14 years before, by 1506, when he died (500 years ago today), Christopher Columbus was all washed up.

Crowds from across Spain lined the streets of Seville in 1493 to welcome him home from his first voyage to the Americas, but he already hadn’t found what he was looking for, a seaway to India’s spice-trade ports. He never would, though the search consumed the rest of his life. A little genocide here, some slavery there, several mutinies, and multiple executions of crew members later, and Columbus fell out of favor with the Spanish crown and the public. When he died he was surrounded by family and by the trappings of his substantial income. But he went to his grave with the gouging sense of injustice he couldn’t forgive and of failure he couldn’t explain.

[humblegunner]

When he died he was surrounded by family and by the trappings of his substantial income.

He won! Who can ask for more than that.

I love a happy ending.

[CAWats]

I think we've found Clinton's legacy.

[Renderofveils]

By then the man who had opened the door for those advances—but balked at walking through—was no longer around to jockey for credit.

Indeed. Leifr Eiríksson died around 1020.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Columbus started one of the greatest migrations in world history. Also, his actions started the spread of Western Civilization over the Americas. He is still a hero with a vision who had the guts to go for it. God Bless Him

[Verginius Rufus]

If not for Columbus' discovery, the Swiss would not have chocolate, the Italians would not have tomatoes, the Irish would not have potatoes, and the Turks would not have turkeys.

[Tanniker Smith]

Indeed, famine would've been widespread across Europe if it hadn't been for the potato.

[Verginius Rufus]

The exchange of new products between the Old World and the New World after 1492 is sometimes called the "Columbian Exchange." The Old World came out ahead--it gained a lot of valuable new commodities (tomatoes, potatoes, corn, chocolate, etc.) which were often more nutritious than the Old World products which entered the New World (although there were some useful ones--horses, cows, chickens, wheat, wine, olives, etc.). New World populations were decimated by Old World diseases. In return they gave the Europeans syphilis and tobacco.

[Tanniker Smith]

Nice summary, although some might argue against the introduction of cows to the New World. The cows displaced the buffalo and they had a negative effect on the land that they grazed on.

TS
(using weasal words, like "some might argue . . .")

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, buffalo were better adapted to the Great Plains than cows, and their meat is supposed to be better for you than beef, but they are hard to tame...I don't know if it has ever been done. Imagine American history with no cowboys. I guess we might have had buffalo girls instead.

The first European to see an American buffalo was the Spaniard Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, who speaks of them in his Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition. He was shipwrecked on the coast of Texas in 1528 and spent several years as a captive of local Indians. He says he had eaten the meat (he calls them "cows" but must mean bison). His own name "Cabeza de Vaca" means "cow's head."