In the early 1800s, Washington Irving (Author of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Wnikle) wrote a work of historical fiction titled The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. In it, Irving describes Columbus as working against the popular notion that the earth was flat, and later proving that the earth was round by sailing to America. Of course, it was a fictional story. (Not to mention, that wouldn't really prove that the Earth was round.)
But schoolteachers decided that it was all true, and for two hundred years we've been teaching kids the same nonsense of Columbus and the flat earth theory when, in truth, the Europeans had believed in a round earth for a very long time. Brilliant ancient minds, including Pythagoras and Aristotle, had already proven through mathematical observations that the planet must be round, and this point of view was dominant. Washington Irving either didn't know this, or thought that his idea made a better story. If he had known that he would screw up our schools for two hundred years he might have decided to write about something else.
Of course, some teachers today use this book in the classroom...
Did He Discover America?
I probably don't need to say this, but the Vikings found the Americas long before Columbus. (Of course, their "discovery" is also minimal since people were already here.) The Vikings never set up any real settlements, but used Canada as a place to get lumber and bring it back to their homelands. Historians are still working out the details, some say the Natives chased them away and some say that the Vikings just didn't have the manpower to settle so far away, but we know that Columbus wasn't the first European to get to America.
Not that Columbus would have understood this - he thought he was in India the whole time. (Of course, it looked nothing like Marco Polo's descriptions, so maybe Columbus wasn't too bright.)
If you read some selections from his journal, you'll find that Columbus fancied himself a Believer - but you won't find him acting like one. He doesn't mind writing about the murder of native civilians alongside claims that he is doing his work for God's glory. This is pretty much how everyone wrote in late medieval Iberia, because everyone wanted to court the favor of the church.
I've noticed that in homecoming parades local politicians drive by in cars and show support for the local sports team. Of course, they don't care about the sports team, they just want to be associated with that team in front of the local voters. Medieval Christianity often worked in the same way; it was a very popular religion that everyone wanted to be associated with - even if they didn't care about it.
Was he Arrested in Spain?
Upon returning to Spain after many years of governing in America, the Spanish government put Christopher Columbus in chains and found him guilty of barbaric treatment of natives. His terrible treatment of the American Indians has become Columbus' legacy in recent years, and the old heroic images of Columbus have been replaced by pictures of a savage tyrant. Rightly so.
So, what DID he do?
There is reason to remember him in our books. Columbus' voyages sparked the wave of European colonialism that changed this entire hemisphere forever. It's easy to dislike Columbus, but he does have an important place in the timeline of our world.
Also...
I read one of his letters earlier this year and discovered that Columbus was more complex than we had realized. For example, the letter says that he wanted to use the resources from the New World to fund further Crusades to the Middle East. There's some trivia we didn't learn in school.
