Christopher Columbus Weaknesses

Lowene argues, “The authors of history textbooks have taken us on a trip of their own, away from the facts of history, into the realm of myth.” Today, American high school history classes teach students about historical figures through facts and memorization; this makes a student’s base of American history untrustworthy. As historical events regress further into the past, writers may misinterpret facts that they may have studied. A story of discovery and friendship or a story of conquest, murder, and greed, which of these is Christopher Columbus’ true story. I believe the best method to teach students about Columbus’ story is through historiography. Historiography teaches students to compare and distinguish different outlooks from different

Morison, a naval historian, focused on Columbus's skills as a mariner, or sailor and navigator. Now, more than five hundred years after his discovery . . . [Columbus's discovery of the New World] is celebrated throughout the length and extent of the Americas, his fame and reputation may be considered secure for all time. He had his faults and his defects, but they were largely the defects of the qualities that made him great—his indomitable will, his superb faith in God and in his own mission as the Christ-bearer to lands beyond the seas, his stubborn persistence despite neglect, poverty and discouragement. However, there was no flaw, no dark side to the most outstanding . . . of all his qualities—his seamanship. As a master mariner and navigator, Columbus was supreme in his generation. Never was a title more justly bestowed than the one which he most jealously guarded—Almirante del Mar Océano, Admiral of the Ocean

Sales' was far more critical of Columbus. In a 1990 book, Sales’ portrays Columbus as a “ruthless fortune hunter who set in motion the destruction of native peoples and the American landscape that continues to this day”. Sale’s also takes issue with the view of Columbus as a "master mariner." For all his navigational skill, about which the salty types make such a fuss, and all his fortuitous headings [accidental but lucky directions], about which they are largely silent, Admiral Colón [Columbus] could be a wretched mariner. “The four voyages, properly seen quite apart from bravery and fortitude [endurance], are replete [filled] with lubberly [clumsy] mistakes, misconceived sailing plans, foolish disregard of elementary maintenance, and stubborn neglect of basic safety . . . Almost every time Colón went wrong it was because he had refused to bend to the inevitabilities of tide and wind and reef or, more arrogantly still, had not bothered to learn about them; the very same reckless courage that led him across the ocean in the first place, and saw him through storm and tumult to return, lay behind his numerous