A Palette for Columbus Day Rev.
Craig Moro
Sermon Today I’ll
paint Columbus for you, with a palette
of different colors. “In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two, Columbus sailed the ocean
blue...” Tomorrow is Columbus Day, so let’s start today with the color blue:
the blue seas surrounding the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, under
blue skies, when three ships set sail on September 8, that year. What were the
names of these three ships? You know, as well as you know the names of the
four Gospels, or better. We’ve all been taught to recite these names like a
prayer or mantra, The Niña, The Pinta, and The Santa Maria, as if some part of
each of us had come floating on those ships. They were
under the command of a man who had been dubbed the Admiral of the Ocean Seas by King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella of Spain--Christopher Columbus, Cristoforo
Colombo in Italian. There was no nation of Italy at the time, but we have all heard that he came
from the city of Genoa on the Italian
peninsula, so Columbus Day has become a day of pride and celebration for many
Italian-Americans. Columbus may in fact have been a
Corsican, or perhaps a converso, the son of a Jewish or Muslim family ordered
after the Christian reconquest of Spain from the Moors to convert; or leave the land
they’d cultivated and the cities they’d worked for centuries to build; or be
killed. This order on behalf of king and queen was signed by Juan de Coloma,
the same name on the sailing orders Columbus carried west. [1] For now
let’s assume he was Genovese. He might even have had blue eyes. Some of the 90
men who sailed the blue seas with him on these three boats no longer than a
tennis court might have had blue eyes, too. Most would no doubt have had the
dark eyes of the Arabs and Berbers who had occupied Spain for centuries--many of
whom were exiled by the Inquisition to the Canaries where Columbus gathered his crew. One
Luis de Torres was chosen as the official interpreter. His language of
expertise? Arabic. That was the one language that earlier European mariners
had encountered wherever they roamed, ‘discovering’ places and peoples on
earlier voyages east and south, so they expected to need it when heading west
as well. One thing
they did not expect was to fall off the edge of the world. They believed they
could reach the eastern lands of Japan, China, and India by sailing west,
although they weren’t sure how long it would take or what, if anything, lay
between. Most navigators by this time had accepted that the world was round, even
if the church had not. Columbus did not have to calm the fears of his crew on
this score, although he did give them daily false reports of the distance
they’d traveled, understating it so they would feel the return trip should not
take too long. They carried enough food for a year, but sailed for just over a
month, a fairly easy voyage, under blue, blue skies. In fact, by
the second week of October when Columbus Day now falls, things were too blue,
too calm. As the Admiral had feared, the men started grumbling that such soft
winds and calm seas meant it would take too long to reach their destination,
and then get home. Here’s a transcription made by a Spanish priest from Columbus’ own log books: Wednesday, 10
October. Steered west-southwest and...made fifty-nine leagues' progress;
reckoned to the crew but forty-four. Here the men lost all patience, and
complained of the length of the voyage, but the Admiral encouraged them in the
best manner he could, representing the profits they were about to acquire, and
adding that it was to no purpose to complain, having come so far, they had
nothing to do but continue on to the Indies, till with the help of our Lord,
they should arrive there. Thursday, 11 October. Steered
west-southwest; and encountered a heavier sea than they had met with before in
the whole voyage...The crew of the Pinta saw a cane and a log; they also picked
up a stick which appeared to have been carved with an iron tool, a piece of
cane, a plant which grows on land, and a board. The crew of the Nina saw other
signs of land, and a stalk loaded with rose berries. These signs encouraged
them, and they all grew cheerful. Sailed this day till sunset, twenty-seven
leagues. So we come to the color
green, the color of promise, of land somewhere, not far away. The Indies, no doubt, and look! A
stick, no doubt carved by an Indian. Soon Columbus would be writing of the islands from which
these signs had come: ...Groves of lofty and flourishing
trees are abundant...Everything looked as green as in April in Andalusia. The melody of the
birds was so exquisite that one was never willing to part from the spot, and
the flocks of parrots obscured the heavens... A thousand different sorts of
trees, with their fruit were to be met with, and of a wonderfully delicious
odor... Green,
green as April in the land the Moors had named al-Andalus, The Garden, when
they left their more arid homelands and ‘discovered’ Spain centuries earlier. Columbus in his turn would
change the names of these islands from their native ones to Santa Maria de
Guadalupe, Santa Maria de Monserrate, Santa Maria La Antigua. Santa Maria. Holy Mary, Holy Mary,
and again Holy Mary he named them, as if praying a rosary of deep green beads.
A group of naked people appeared on the shore of the first lovely bead of this
rosary of islands, and Columbus went ashore--armed, of
course--to meet them. The Admiral bore the royal standard,
and the two captains each a banner of the Green Cross, which all the ships had
carried; this contained the initials of the names of the King and Queen each
side of the cross, and a crown over each letter. Arrived on shore, they saw
trees, very green, many streams of water, and diverse sorts of fruits. Columbus
described the people who greeted him on shore as being the color of the natives
of the Canary Islands from which he’d set sail, but later Europeans would name
that color red. Let’s keep red separate from green just one moment longer with
a thin line of silver--the silver blade of a Spanish sword. The Admiral
reports that when he had swords shown to these simple folk, they tried to grasp
them by the blades and so accidentally shed the first blood of the New World on the weapons of the
Old. This is a
moment worth imagining. Columbus writes that the natives “cut themselves through
ignorance” on these swords, but how did the Spaniards display them? Handle
first, point down, in a relaxed way? Or were they held by hands tense with
fear, by men whose blood was pounding in their heads, so that they were insensitive
to how the islanders were looking at or reaching out for the blades? Did they
instinctively jerk back, or push forward? Or was it more than instinct--was
there an urge to show power at the start by letting others really feel it?
We’ll never know, but--even if Columbus made it up--this story tells us something about his state
of mind. It’s an early warning. His journal tells us quite a
bit more. This is from the very first entry that he made on the island. We see
how quickly he was assessing the people he had just met as potential converts
and Christians. "As I saw that they were very
friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to
our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red
caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of
small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully
attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots,
balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged
for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk's bells; which trade
was carried on with the utmost good will. Still in
this very first entry, we see how quickly Columbus’ mind turns to other
possibilities, not so rooted in “good will”: It appears to me,
that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion
that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no
religion. (italics added) (That’s a curious statement to make so
soon. Did Columbus mean that the natives
carried no banners of their own, or books, or that they wore no symbols of
religion like crucifixes strung from their necks?) They very quickly
learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my
return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our
language. Two days later he wrote: ...Should your
Majesties command it all the inhabitants could be taken away to Castile or held
as slaves on the island, for with fifty men we would subjugate them all and
make them do whatever we wish.[2] How quickly
he moved from imagining these people as Christians to also imagining them as
slaves! Here I quote the author Frederick Turner on how Columbus carried out his plans: On his second voyage
he would act upon his own suggestion, bringing back with him a cargo of slaves
along with spices, woods, and precious little gold. He would eventually
suggest to the crown that a steady traffic in slaves be instituted to help
defray the costs of colonization, and he would bring back from his third voyage
fifteen hundred such captives. Alas, it was learned too late for these that
such inoffensive islanders did not keep well in the holds. Better to work them
where they were...[3] We’re
catching a glimpse of gold here already, but for now I want to stay with the
color red. A few short years after Columbus set foot on the islands, their native
populations were decimated. As the local people died, slaving expeditions began
to raid Cuba and Jamaica to provide fresh labor
for the plantations the Admiral had helped to establish. The holds of the
slave ships were stuffed with human cargoes and on the journey to the colonies
corpses were thrown out onto the waters in such profusion that it was said a
course could be charted by this floating refuse alone...[4] Here were the first American conversos,
and their conversion was complete: first into Christians; then slaves; then
trash--‘red’ trash floating on the blue sea, past the beautiful green rosary of
the islands that had been their home. Santa Maria, Santa Maria--Holy
Mary, mother of God, how blessed are your children... In the
summer of 2001, a man named James Cosner took a sledgehammer to the statue of Columbus in the city hall of San Jose, a town in California named after Santa Maria’s earthly husband,
Joseph. He was protesting “the genocide, slavery, colonialism, and racism” he
felt the statue represents. For this act of public witness, we would expect
James Cosner to be charged at least (or perhaps at most) with vandalism.
Interestingly enough, he was charged with a felony hate crime, which vastly
increases the penalties he would face. This took place just months before
lashing out at an American monument took on a new dimension of meaning, one
that he could never have anticipated. Hate crime laws, as I
understand them, apply to acts of violence against a person or persons for
being members of an ethnic or religious group; or for a supposed or real sexual
orientation--for simply being who they are. How can James Cosner’s attack on
the Columbus statue be a hate
crime? What group was he targeting? We suppose Columbus was Italian. Was this a hate crime
against Italians, or Italian-Americans? The Admiral sailed under Spanish
orders. Was it a hate crime against Spaniards? What group among us does that
statue stand for? Does it stand for you, or me? When we were taught as
children to say our rosary of The Niña, The Pinta, and The Santa Maria--with
its cadence so much like The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit--did our own
spirits enter that trinity of little ships? Could that have been the reason for
teaching it to us? Cosner claimed to act in
protest of “the genocide, slavery, colonialism, and racism” the statue
represents. We all understand how someone could hate those practices and
attitudes. Maybe all of us hate the conversion of people into things, then
less than things, then nothing--like those red human bodies floating on the
blue sea between the green islands. They weren’t treated like trash, they were
trash, and then they were nothing. And that was only the beginning. And we
know it. Things, less than things, nothing. There’s the holy trinity of
Empire, whether it comes in the name of spreading a religious, political, or
economic system. People, turned to things; then less than things, then nothing. Maybe Cosner’s
act was a hate crime against conquistadors. You remember that word from
history classes in primary school, I’m sure. It’s used to describe people like
Pizarro and Cortez. Our little illustrated books would depict the
conquistadors with gleaming crested Spanish helmets and armor, riding horses in
search of cities of gold. There was usually some small acknowledgment that
these fellows had motives that placed them a cut or two below true “explorers”
like Magellan, or certainly Columbus. Columbus is usually depicted in a soft cap, like
that of a Renaissance scholar--never in one of those helmets. Columbus had a head for
discovery. The conquistadors only had eyes for gold. True? Here’s an
entry from Columbus’ journal, made his
second day on the islands, when the local people had rowed out in their
canoes, carrying items to trade with the newcomers on the much bigger boats: They came loaded with
balls of cotton, parrots, javelins, and other things too numerous to mention;
these they exchanged for whatever we chose to give them. I was very attentive
to them, and strove to learn if they had any gold. Seeing some of them with
little bits of this metal hanging at their noses, I gathered from them by signs
that by going southward or steering round the island in that direction, there
would be found a king who possessed large vessels of gold, and in great
quantities. Columbus’ hunger to find gold
runs, not like a thread but like a thick rope through his journal entries,
twisting and organizing whatever questions he asked the natives as well as the
movements of his crew. His ships roamed from island to island for months until,
on Christmas Day of 1492, the Santa Maria ran aground off the island of Hispaniola, and could not be
saved. The next day, as the Admiral pondered what to do, he was invited to a
feast by Guacanagari´, leader of the island’s Arawak people. He was given
food and some small sheets of gold, perhaps to cheer him up after the loss of
his ship. How hard could it have been for these natives--who learned new words
with such “ingenious” speed--to read his face, and see how it lit up whenever
he saw this shiny metal? Guacanagari´explained that
the gold came from another island. He also told Columbus how another people,
the Caribs, frequently attacked the peaceful Arawak, and a bargain occurred to
both leaders. Columbus agreed to leave behind
a garrison of his crewmen to protect Guacanagari’s island from the Caribs, in
exchange for more gold. The large timbers of the Santa Maria were salvaged to build
the framework of this fort, while the remainder of the hull began to drift
helplessly. Columbus ordered a cannon shot
from one of the remaining ships, and the Arawak fell on their faces as the hull
went down. 38 crewmen armed with cannons and other modern weapons stayed on
when Columbus departed. His stories
and the bits of gold he brought back impressed the king and queen of Spain, to say the least. They
equipped him to return by November the next year with 17 ships, between 12 and
15 thousand men, with horses and other livestock--an armada not for exploration
but colonization. No natives appeared on the shores to greet them. As they
made their way to the garrison they began to find corpses, Spaniards or
Indians, they couldn’t tell. The bones of both are white, the newest color in
our palette. One had a rope around its neck and the other had its arms tied
to a pole “as if on a cross.”[5] Further on, they found
two more, one with a heavy beard like no Indian could grow. When they reached
the garrison, they found it pulled to pieces and the adjacent village burned to
the ground. Most of the natives now fled from the
Europeans in fear, but the few who dared approach explained that the men from
the fort had begun demanding more and more gold, and raping women. One local
leader had finally taken matters in hand, and had all the outsiders killed.
Relations would be much worse between the natives and this new invading
force--a white terror in search of gold. The colonists repeated the pattern of
rape and raiding until two native leaders united a small force to challenge
them. The Admiral himself led his men on horseback, with firearms, swords, and
armor, to crush the rebellion. Now Columbus had his day, the real “Columbus’ Day.” After this
day, he established the encomienda, a system of plantation labor using the
natives as slaves.[6] In areas that had gold
he required that every three months each person above the age of fourteen must
pay, quote, “a large belly-full of gold dust” for the privilege of staying
alive to watch what was happening to their homes and families, to see them turn
to wrecks and bones. (Columbus’ illegitimate son,
Ferdinand, records that after each native paid, she or he was given a metal
disc as proof and forced to wear it like a crucifix on a cord around the neck,[7] so we can assume that at last these
people appeared to have a “religion.”) What had first been offered
as a gift by these so-called Indians had become in three short years a demand
that would destroy their lives. What an ugly moment: when a gift freely given
becomes a demand. What ugly colors white and gold can be. What filth they can
spread and leave behind. Whatever kind of hat he wore,
Columbus was a conquistador.
Can it really be a “hate crime” to take a hammer to a monument for such a man?
Might it be something like a hate crime, to put it on display? What’s the
right punishment, and who should be punished? Columbus himself seems to have
gone very wrong in his efforts to match punishments to crimes. By his third
voyage, in 1498, he was the virtual dictator of the new colonies. With the
native people already decimated, he turned his deadly efforts to controlling
the behavior of the settlers. When the king and queen sent an inspector to
check on rumors that these efforts were excessive, he found that the central
monument in the settlement was an elaborate gallows with several Spanish bodies
displayed upon it. After completing his
investigation, the crown inspector sent Columbus home in chains
(presumably some shiny clean ones, and not the rusty things used for slaves.)
I’m not sure what crime he was charged with, or if hate was thought to be part
of it. Those of you who are quick with details will have noticed something
else here. Voyage number three is also the one from which Columbus sent back those 1500
native islanders as slaves. So, the ships that returned from the green islands,
over the blue sea, back to Spain included gold, red slaves, and the Admiral himself, in
silver chains--and black despair. We need to remember this
whole palette of colors for Columbus Day, not just ditties about 1492 and the
ocean blue and the names of three ships that--God help us--may indeed contain
some little part of us all in their holds. I believe that statues of Columbus should remain standing
where they do now. They should stay afloat like ships loaded with the full
cargo of their history--gold, slaves, and the first conquistador himself, in
chains. Their most precious cargo must be the truth about what they stand for.
They give memory, and protest, a place to focus, although laying pieces of gold
or of chain at the base of any memorial to Columbus might be a better statement than smashing it
with a hammer. I also feel that all
Americans who wish to, not only Italian-Americans like myself, should continue
to celebrate Colombus day, and even to carry his picture in parades, but only
if the Admiral is painted with the full palette of colors from his story: blue,
green, silver, red, bone-white, gold and black. I do not mean thereby to
further humiliate Columbus; or those who admire him; nor to deny his real feats
of navigation. Too much humiliation has already occurred and is still
occurring in irresponsibly planned meetings between the peoples of the world.
To be humiliated is a human tragedy, a wound that may never heal, as any of the
victims of Empire, today or in the past, can tell you. But to be humbled is
something else. The Bible, the Qur’an and every other religious scripture I
can think of will tell you that to be humbled is the beginning of wisdom,
patience, and peace. And this can indeed be cause for celebration. I hope
you’ve heard something this morning to remember, as well as celebrate, when
Columbus Day comes tomorrow, to the New World we find ourselves responsible for today. Amen.
[1] See Frederick Turner, Beyond Geography,
Viking Press, 1980, p. 126. I am deeply indebted to Turner’s visionary study
for much information and many ideas in this sermon, particularly his chapter
called “Defloration.”
[2] Quoted in Turner, p.131