The Truth About Christopher Columbus

There are a lot of theories as to who actually discovered America. Actually, nobody 'discovered" it. The Native Americans were here long before anybody from Europe. Some say that the Vikings landed here in their straw boats years before anyone else from Europe made it here. Others say that it was actually discovered by a man named Amerigo Vespucci.

According to Wikipedia, Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian navigator, explorer and cartographer. The continent of America is popularly believed to be te feminized version of his first name.

But if you ask most schoolchildren, they will tell you that Christopher Columbus discovered America. "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Supposedly he was looking to discover a trade route for spices from the West Indies and stumbled upon the continent of what later would become America instead. He originally thought that he was in the West Indies.

According to Wikipdia, Christopher Columbus was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. With his four voyages of exploration and several attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, all funded by Isabelle of Castile, he initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general European colonization of the "new World."

You'd think that the person who did all that would be better recognized here in the United States. Sure, his day, October 12^th, is a national holiday when all of the banks, and other public offices are closed, but that's about it. It seems that the only celebration here in St. Louis was the Columbus day parade on the "Hill," the largely Italian section of St. Louis.

It seems that the Italians have pretty much adopted Columbus as their own. They must figure that the Irish have their own holiday, St. Patrick's Day, so why not them too? But Columbus's image has changed over the years. Originally thought to have discovered America, he probably landed somewhere in the Bahamas.

Native Americans don't like him very much because he started the colonization of America by white Europeans and he also brought diseases like yellow fever and smallpox with him.

As a matter of fact, November, the time of Thanksgiving, is now a month set aside to honor the American Indians. The focus is rightly on them instead of Christopher Columbus.

But you have to give old Christopher some credit, he was a great explorer and without him it would have probably taken a lot longer to colonize America. Whether that was a good or bad thing, I will leave up to you to decide.

According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, there are several places in Illinois named after Columbus.
One of them is Columbia, Illinois. Originally known as L'Aigle (French for "The Eagle"), the city was renamed in honor of Columbus in 1820.

There's also Columbus Elementary School, Edwardsville: Students named the school after the explorer in February 1909 following a public vote; other candidates were President Washington and Daniel Webster.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerigo_Vespucci

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2009/10/15/stclair/news/1011cvj-columbus00.txt