Thomas King the author of The Inconvenient Indian, takes a chapter to explain the stories and history surrounding the past relations of Whites and Native Americans by presenting many common conceptions then describing why they are actually misconceptions. The Chapter is named Forget Columbus, the author elaborates by saying his wife told him not to start the book with Columbus but this becomes relevant when he continues to say that everyone believes they know what Columbus did and they revere him for his deeds when no one actually knows him or was able to witness the explorer’s deeds first hand. This is much like the history of conflicts between the United States and Native Americans. Kings then lists famous battles, massacres, and war heroes
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Tunnel vision may cause people to forget Columbus has experience under his belt before he set across the great blue and he deserves some respect for that. In his time, he was surely a superstar and his next voyage was probably not predicted to be the most important of his career. Looking from the point of view of one of his beloved fans, the idea of finding an alternate route to India may have seemed the opposite of risky. The voyage was undoubtedly seen as a good idea because it’s going to improve the economy and shorten travel time for desirable Indian merchandise. The voyage probably seemed like a political move… Instead the expedition resulted in the discovery of something so amazing that processing the emotions would be unbearable. Columbusonians (mega fans of Columbus) are probably worried sick, the government has to be very tense waiting to hear back after days, weeks, or more, then all of the sudden word gets back that Columbus has reached land and it’s not India… is a new place. In a blink of an eye the world just got bigger and no one knows how much bigger. Curiosity, fear, skepticism, elation could have boomed. How big is the world? Are there others humans? Are they friend or foe? How can we trust the government or Columbus to know what they’re talking about? Most importantly: What did Columbus just find? Columbus just …show more content…
Why would anyone debate such a discovery? The idea of finding the lands that would one day be home to one of the biggest super-powers in the world great outweighs any other achievement within realistic reasoning. The story could have gone either way, either “Columbus thinks he’s going to India, instead finds dirt inhabited by savages.” Or “Columbus makes a great discovery for his country once again!” With a prior reputation of awesomeness, it is so much easier to see this mistake as a great discovery. King is right when he says, “History is the stories we tell about the past…Benign” but that’s why it’s called a story and not an informational retelling of facts. Stories are meant for entertainment and in a time when documenting important events wasn’t as easy as opening a laptop and typing the information, hearing a story and retelling it was likely the most common transfer of “History.” This process left the story open to interpretation and allowed the story to be changed every time it was told. This also may explain why the explanation of Columbus’ discovery is so vague in textbooks, no one really knows and that’s
Tunnel vision may cause people to forget Columbus has experience under his belt before he set across the great blue and he deserves some respect for that. In his time, he was surely a superstar and his next voyage was probably not predicted to be the most important of his career. Looking from the point of view of one of his beloved fans, the idea of finding an alternate route to India may have seemed the opposite of risky. The voyage was undoubtedly seen as a good idea because it’s going to improve the economy and shorten travel time for desirable Indian merchandise. The voyage probably seemed like a political move… Instead the expedition resulted in the discovery of something so amazing that processing the emotions would be unbearable. Columbusonians (mega fans of Columbus) are probably worried sick, the government has to be very tense waiting to hear back after days, weeks, or more, then all of the sudden word gets back that Columbus has reached land and it’s not India… is a new place. In a blink of an eye the world just got bigger and no one knows how much bigger. Curiosity, fear, skepticism, elation could have boomed. How big is the world? Are there others humans? Are they friend or foe? How can we trust the government or Columbus to know what they’re talking about? Most importantly: What did Columbus just find? Columbus just …show more content…
Why would anyone debate such a discovery? The idea of finding the lands that would one day be home to one of the biggest super-powers in the world great outweighs any other achievement within realistic reasoning. The story could have gone either way, either “Columbus thinks he’s going to India, instead finds dirt inhabited by savages.” Or “Columbus makes a great discovery for his country once again!” With a prior reputation of awesomeness, it is so much easier to see this mistake as a great discovery. King is right when he says, “History is the stories we tell about the past…Benign” but that’s why it’s called a story and not an informational retelling of facts. Stories are meant for entertainment and in a time when documenting important events wasn’t as easy as opening a laptop and typing the information, hearing a story and retelling it was likely the most common transfer of “History.” This process left the story open to interpretation and allowed the story to be changed every time it was told. This also may explain why the explanation of Columbus’ discovery is so vague in textbooks, no one really knows and that’s