Columbus? Or Marco?
Columbus Day. Still a federal holiday in the USA, it’s now called ‘Indigenous People’s Day in some states. And in Canada, clever as always, they refer to the original inhabitants as ‘The First Nations’, which I kind of like. (Of course, ‘the inhabitants’ is already taken by the Montreal Canadiens- Les Habs- hockey team, so we can’t call them that.)
The US holiday now serves as a platform for historical and racial dialog, as Christopher Columbus’ (1451-1507) ‘discovery’ of the New World and his subsequent mistreatment of its inhabitants are once again weighed in conversation.
Now, if you just want to dog ol’ Chris, I understand. He didn’t acquit himself in what we’d call an admirable fashion. He didn’t even make it to the mainland, and still left a horrible mark. His subjugation and brutal treatment of the natives tribes are casually noted, along with his use of the term ‘savages’. All of the indigenous people of the Caribbean and the American continents would bear this brutal misnomer, and with it, an inherent lack of respect and guarantee of abuse.
Not to mention, calling everyone ‘Indians’ because he thought he actually got there. He had no idea there was a continent, let alone another ocean and then some to China and India.
This is the mindset that has manifested as systemic racism. Yea, the guy who thought he made it to India. First thing he does, start pillaging the locals because they aren’t white and have never heard of Jesus. A fair portion of the US population identifies as conservative under that very basis.
But, why then, did Columbus think that he could cross the ocean and end up in India? He’s largely credited for taking on the voyage to prove the world is round. Did he?
Well, he likely knew about some of the many Ancient Greek writings calculating just that, as far back as 500BCE. These kinds of documents and relics made the rounds after the Enlightenment began.
Now, the fact that he postulated this- and that he was right in that the world is round- is humorously overshadowed by the fact that there were still two more very large continents and another, larger ocean still between him and China and yet another ocean to India.
Really, Columbus’ only virtue was that he was not cowed by maps that said ‘here be dragons’. He thought China had an eastern shore across the ocean. Where did he get that hare-brained idea?
That had to be Marco Polo.
While we don’t want to understate, or belittle or dismiss Columbus’s abuses, we might also take an opportunity to look at why it happened, and see if there is, maybe, a wisdom to use now buried in there somewhere.
Now, there is no way we can find that wisdom within the Columbian world. It’s a set historical chain of events and repercussions. We can only really understand it if we can compare it to another, better working pattern. Luckily, history has provided us with a doozy.
Yes, that would be Marco.
Marco Polo (1254-1324) is arguably one of if not the most revered explorer / travelers in history. And, he’s entirely germane to any discussion about Christopher Columbus and the brutality of the colonization of the Americas.
A wide range of people had professed the spherical nature of the earth, with even Columbus’ contemporary Dante taking note. Centuries of such talk had not prompted many to go looking to prove it for its own sake until Magellan in 1519. During those three decades between Columbus in 1492 and Magellan, there were others sailing off from Spain, Portugal and England, some following routes around the southern tip of Africa and up into the Indian Ocean. Yes, exploration was at its peak!
Blarney.
Exploration in its purest aesthetic had nothing to do with these voyages, at least until Magellan, who was admittedly trying to circumnavigate the globe. What, then, is the real reason, since I’ve implied so?
Back to Marco.
Remember what he did that was so amazing. The Italian merchant traveled to China- the hard way, without an RV. He and his caravan went overground eastward and south, encountering peoples that had no prior contact with Europe or the Middle East. He followed and marked the legendary ’Silk Road’ to the Orient, and stayed with the infamous Mongol King Kublai Khan, among other royalty along the way, opening a channel for the goods and spices of the East- namely, China and India.
So, we don’t have stories of people dead and enslaved in Polo’s wake. And he said, on his death bed, “I didn’t tell half of what I saw’. But, he brought back more than enough to spark interest across Europe. Hell, spices alone were reason enough on a continent where food is bland by nature and incredibly perishable.
England was the first to get around Cape Horn and establish regular trade and colonies in Asia. (Think- silk, curry, opium, jade, rubies, opium, ginger, pepper, curry, cinnamon, opium, curry, tea, gunpowder, opium, curry and those little silk folding fans with the dragons…)
Capitalizing on Polo’s work was the point of all of these new voyages. Exploiting the locals for their commodities and riches was the goal. They would, inevitably, all be seen in advance as ‘savages’ by these state-sponsored ‘explorers’. They all raced to find the land of the Silk Road from the other end.
So, why didn’t Marco Polo leave a bloody trail of abuse along the entire Silk Road? Because he, as a merchant, and traveling in a small private caravan, would have believed in the old ‘when in Rome’ axiom, and instinctively known to accept and go along with practices and customs of those he met so as not to rile them. This attitude is likely the reason he survived the trip in the first place.
With Columbus’ military attitude and empowered by an armed regiment, he may well have been wiped out at his first stop in Mongolia.
But, there’s the difference between Polo and Columbus. One went to discover and the other went to take. More importantly, one carried cultural relativity and the other carried ethnocentrism.
Let’s demonstrate- imagine a jungle tribe encountered in the 1500s in Africa or South America. When all the men gather around the fire, they all wear a similar feather on a string around their necks.
Cultural relativity sees that these are formal adornments for the occasion- they are wearing ties, just like the men in Europe.
Ethnocentrism says they wear feathers because they are stupid savages.
Cultural Relativism compares actions and language objectively to recognize similar belief patterns, understandings or customs.
Ethnocentrism assumes what is and what it knows to be the standard, and anyone that does not conform is therefore incapable of knowledge or understanding itself.
This is how so many great nations of American and African peoples were dehumanized for slavery and slaughter.
Fleets of merchants like Polo would not have destroyed and colonized. But fleets of Columbusites were sent, and the rest played out only as ethnocentricity will allow- hideously.
So, what can we learn now? That ethnocentric tendencies can surface and skew at much more subtle levels nowadays, and can still be devastatingly brutal. All these traits come into play when vilifying a black shooting suspect, stereotyping immigrants, minorities and women, lambasting atheists and other religions, etc.
In many ways, the conservative political playbook we’re seeing today is very close to the Columbian evangelical playbook of the 1500s. These explorers believed their European culture and Christian faith applied to everyone they met, and that they were all primitive, incapable of sophisticated thought, or even slang and humor.
This attitude persists in the remnants of Jim Crowe, and throughout the MAGA movement, popping up in dog whistles by right wing politicians and media voices, but also in the ghastly framing of minority immigrants, the jaw-dropping racial shooting rationalizations, and that’s without getting into sex and gender identity issues. Our conservative wing has embraced that ‘Columbian’ ethnocentric mindset.
It seems we’re pretty poor at cultural relativity even within our own relative culture!!!
Let’s get an update on that, shall we? It won’t hurt us a bit.
In the meantime, never mind ol’ Chris- let’s celebrate Marco!
Polo!
Marco!
C.2024 Cousin B
