HOW TEXAS DISCOVERED COLUMBUS
Michael Horton
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
August 2017
Committee:
Ruth Herndon, Advisor
Amilcar Challu
Kyle Ward
© 2017
Michael Horton
All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT
Ruth Herndon, Advisor
This project examines the Columbus legacy in U.S. history textbooks used in Texas from
1919 to 2017. This study argues that the traditional and glorified interpretation of the life of
Columbus dominated his coverage in U.S. history textbooks adopted for use in junior high and high school classes in Texas during the twentieth century. The wave of scholarly criticisms of
Columbus at the end of the twentieth century had only sporadic effects on textbooks published at the turn of the century. Inconsistent representations of the new debate over Columbus’ legacy in these textbooks show at best a delayed response and at worst a reluctance to change the traditional story of Columbus as an American hero. iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The completion of this thesis has resulted from many long nights of research, writing, and revision and there are several wonderful people who have contributed both advice and never ending support to me over the past two years. All of these people deserve mention here, beginning with my thesis advisor, Dr. Ruth Herndon. Over the past four years, I have had the pleasure of working with Dr. Herndon in several ways, from taking her classes as an undergraduate, to serving as a teacher’s assistant for her classes in graduate school. During this time, I have been able to gain a wealth of experience both in the classroom and in my own abilities as an historian. The knowledge and advice from her has helped shape who I am as an historian and I am grateful for her constant support of this project.
Dr. Amilcar Challu’s presence on my committee helped to broaden my knowledge on the
Columbian Legacy, especially from a Latin American perspective. At several times throughout this process, he was able to point me to a useful resource or raise an important question to be addressed in my thesis. He was also able to help me a great deal with creating the many tables featured throughout the thesis, providing comments on the best way to organize and present my data.
The third member on my committee, Dr. Kyle Ward, served as a source of inspiration for me in regards to engaging in the discussion of history textbooks. His book, History in the
Making, was one of the first I read on the subject and I was very grateful that he was able to join the committee. His interest in my research was very encouraging and motivating.
A vital contributor to my months of research was Professor Carol Singer. Her vast knowledge of the many historical databases and experience with using the right search terms in the right places helped me to locate excellent resources. I admire her ability to appear to pull a v great article or primary source out of thin air and whenever I was stuck trying to find something, she was always there to help. Working with her greatly improved my own researching abilities, helping me learn how to navigate databases containing thousands of sources.
I would also like to pay thanks to my graduate cohort. I came into this program two years ago, feeling uncertain of what the following years would hold for me and forming a bond with others in the program with me helped me to soldier on through the toughest parts of graduate school. In particular, I would like to thank Lindsey Bauman and Allison Nelson, who’s own work has inspired me in many ways. Through the many challenges faced in this program, these two have always supported me and helped to provide great insight for my own work. It seems that whenever I was at a loss or could not figure out how to convey my thoughts, Lindsey and
Allison were there to help. The long meetings on campus between us were invaluable to me and the experiences we had are something I will never forget.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, without whom I would not be who I am today.
Growing up I was very fortunate to travel to many different places, fostering my passion for history. Every family vacation both in and out of the United States allowed me to add to my historical knowledge and without the opportunities provided by my family, I may have not developed a passion for history. The encouragement of my parents to pursue these passions and achieve my dreams have allowed me to survive graduate school and eased my fears of what the future may hold. None of this would have been possible without their support, and for that, I am eternally grateful. vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION. COLUMBUS, TEXTBOOKS, AND HISTORIANS……………...... 1
Central Problem ...... 1
Main Argument ...... 2
Why Texas? ...... 2
Significance ...... 5
The Scholarship on Textbooks ...... 7
Methodology ...... 16
Main Categories ...... 17
Sacred Knowledge ...... 17
Profane Ideas ...... 17
Neutral Portrayals ...... 18
Auxiliary Categories ...... 18
Viking Expeditions as Part of Pre-Columbian History ...... 18
Cortés and Pizarro Portrayed Positively ...... 18
Cortés and Pizarro Portrayed Negatively ...... 19
CHAPTER I. 1892: CELEBRATING 400 YEARS OF THE “GREAT DISCOVERY” ..... 21
CHAPTER II. COLUMBUS GOES TO SCHOOL ...... 29
Columbus Scholarship ...... 30
Textbook Analysis ...... 34
Columbus Day and the Knights of Columbus ...... 40
CHAPTER III. AN AMERICAN HERO ...... 47 vii
Columbus Scholarship ...... 47
Textbook Analysis ...... 52
CHAPTER IV. QUESTIONING THE COLUMBUS RELIGION ...... 61
American Indian Movement ...... 62
Columbus & The Space Race ...... 66
Vinland Map & Newfoundland Settlement ...... 67
Textbook Analysis ...... 69
CHAPTER V. THE GREAT WAR FOR COLUMBUS ...... 77
Columbus Scholarship ...... 78
500-Year Anniversary ...... 80
Textbook Analysis ...... 83
CHAPTER VI. EXPLORERS VS. CONQUERORS ...... 90
Coverage ...... 91
Greatest Achievement ...... 92
Impact on Native Americans ...... 95
CONCLUSION. A TIME FOR REFLECTION ...... 98
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 104
Primary Sources: Textbooks ...... 104
Primary Sources: Columbus in Public Sphere ...... 107
Secondary Sources: Used as Primary Sources: Historical Scholarship on Columbus 109
Secondary Sources: Scholarship on Textbooks ...... 110
APPENDIX A. TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS: 1919-1937 ...... 112
APPENDIX B. TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS: 1939-1962 ...... 117 viii
APPENDIX C. TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS: 1962-1984 ...... 122
APPENDIX D. TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS: 1986-2017 ...... 128
APPENDIX E. AVERAGE COVERAGE: COLUMBUS, CORTES, PIZARRO:
1919-2017 ...... 133 ix
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1 Columbus Day Parade New York City 1892 ...... 21
2 Columbus, Washington, and Lincoln ...... 29
3 Columbus Memorial Unveiling ...... 44
4 Christopher Columbus and John Glenn ...... 72 x
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1 Gallup Poll on Columbian Legacy 1991 ...... 6
2 Textbooks: 1919-1929 ...... 35
3 Textbooks: 1929-1939 ...... 38
4 Textbooks: 1939-1945 ...... 54
5 Textbooks: 1950-1962 ...... 59
6 Textbooks: 1962-1973 ...... 70
7 Amount of Coverage: Columbus & Vikings 1962-1973 ...... 73
8 Textbooks: 1973-1984 ...... 75
9 Textbooks: 1986-1992 ...... 84
10 Textbooks: 1992-1998 ...... 85
11 Textbooks: 2003-2017 ...... 87 1
INTRODUCTION. COLUMBUS, TEXTBOOKS, AND HISTORIANS
Christopher Columbus represents one of the most important historical figures in human history for his role in shaping and, in essence, launching the modern world. He has also become one of the most polarizing figures in history, particularly at the end of the twentieth century, which marked the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the Americas. For much of the twentieth century, Columbus has been seen in the United States as a founding father of the
Americas who used his expertise as a navigator to bravely forge a path into the unknown bringing European civilization to the Americas. This interpretation of Columbus has dominated the historical landscape. Recently, however, new studies of Columbus and his endeavors have presented a different interpretation. These new interpretations have challenged the image of
Columbus as an icon of history and a hero of modern civilization. Instead of associating
Columbus with terms such as: “courage,” “innovation,” and “brilliance,” these works have connected Columbus to “enslavement,” “genocide,” and “greed.”
Central Problem
My project centers on the question of how the historical presentation of Columbus has evolved in textbooks over the past one hundred years. The works of celebrated historians such as
Samuel Eliot Morison and Howard Zinn have sparked a great debate over how Columbus should be represented in the grand historical narrative. Over the last thirty years, this debate has spilled outside the realm of academics into the public sphere, with questions arising over whether
Columbus is a man to be celebrated or condemned. While this debate over the legacy of
Columbus has raged on, it has not been fairly represented in junior high and high school U.S. history textbooks. For the majority of the twentieth century, the heroic legacy of Columbus was reinforced by historians and U.S. history textbooks, but once criticisms of Columbus arrived on 2 the scene in the 1980s and 1990s, textbooks failed to adapt to the new scholarly landscape or convey the scholarly debate to students.
The change in public opinion on Columbus has been a slow process, with a critical view of
Columbus becoming widespread knowledge only within the last thirty years. This delayed response to the scholarly debate over the legacy of Columbus and his status as a hero of
American history warrants an examination. This project examines the evolution of Columbus’ representation in junior high and high school textbooks in one specific place—the state of
Texas—over the last one hundred years.
Main Argument
This study argues that the traditional and glorified interpretation of the life of Columbus dominated his coverage in U.S. history textbooks adopted for use in junior high and high school classes in Texas during the twentieth century. The wave of scholarly criticisms of Columbus at the end of the twentieth century had only sporadic effects on textbooks published at the turn of the century. Inconsistent representations of the new debate over Columbus’ legacy in these textbooks show at best a delayed response and at worst a reluctance to change the traditional story of Columbus as an American hero.
Why Texas?
Texas makes a good case study because this state exerts a strong influence on textbook adoption policy at the national level. Being one of the largest state adoption states, Texas represents a massive market for textbook publishers. During the latter half of the twentieth century, Texas, along with California and Florida, accounted for seventeen percent of the entire national textbook market and these key states play a major role in determining the content of 3 textbooks used for the whole nation.1 In his article on how textbook publishers attempt to please the state of Texas, Mike Bowler states that “when a single committee (15 educators, in the case of Texas) chooses the textbooks to be read by 2.5 million Texas schoolchildren, and when that choice means $48 million in yearly sales, publishers are going to tailor their products for the
Texas market and concentrate selling efforts there.”2 The decision of textbook publishers to appeal to the wishes of states like Texas affects every state, even ones that do not select textbooks at the state level, states like Texas control what textbooks in other states contain.
Aside from heavily influencing the textbook market, Texas has also made lasting impressions on national education policies. According to Gene Preuss, “Texans first came to national prominence in education during the 1950s when President Dwight Eisenhower named
Houston newspaper publisher Oveta Culp Hobby as the first secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare. Texan Lyndon Johnson became the first president to earn the moniker “education president” by signing over 60 major legislative initiatives to restructure the nation’s education system.”3 Even more recently, another well-known Texan, President George W. Bush emphasized the need for improved education reform standards during his presidency, most notably through the implementation of No Child Left Behind. Preuss states that “On January 24,
2001, President George W. Bush swore in former Houston Independent School District superintendent Roderick Paige as secretary of education…Bush continued, “Every problem now facing our nation’s public schools Dr. Paige faced as superintendent”…Bush announced at the beginning of his administration that he wanted to be known as the “education president.”4 This
1 Mike Bowler, “Textbook Publishers Try to Please All, but First They Woo the Heart of Texas,” The Reading Teacher 31 (1978): 515, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20194584. 2 Bowler, Please All, 515. 3 Gene B. Preuss, “Public Schools Comes of Age,” in Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History, ed. John W. Storey and Mary L. Kelley (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2008), 358-359. 4 Preuss, Comes of Age, 358. 4 emphasis by prominent Texans on education over the last fifty years has left an indelible mark on national education that is still felt today.
Finally, Texas’ political and social culture have helped shape popular attitudes towards
Columbus. The Lone Star State takes great pride in having once been an independent republic, underscoring its affinity for path-breaking heroes such as Columbus. The space race (see Chapter
III) resulted in the construction of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, the Lyndon B. Johnson
Center, near Houston in 1961, giving Texas a significant stake in a national narrative that privileged Columbus as a heroic discoverer and identified astronauts as explorers who followed in Columbus’ steps. This along with other industrial advancements in Texas during the twentieth century made Texas “second to none” in the nation.5 Just as significantly, Texas did not figure strongly in the American Indian Movement or other civil rights efforts of the 1960s and 1970s that ultimately pushed back against the image of Columbus as an uncomplicated hero. With the major actions taken by the American Indian Movement, such as the occupation of Alcatraz in
1969, occurring outside of Texas, the state did not attract as much public attention. David La
Vere’s book, The Texas Indians, describes life for American Indians as a constant struggle during the twentieth-century. Vere stats that “the Indians lost much of their land through the allotment process or unscrupulous non-Indians. Their culture also came under attack from schoolteachers, missionaries, government officials, and their non-Indian neighbors…Not until the late 1960s did Indians begin to experience a cultural, political, and economic resurgence.”6
With many Native Americans battling for equality in the courts rather than staging grand
5 John W. Story and Mary L. Kelley, ed., Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History, (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2008), 4. 6 David La Vere, The Texas Indians (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004) ,237. 5 demonstrations in Texas, preservation of traditional narratives such as Columbus was largely successful in the state.
No state can represent the whole spectrum of opinions on textbook content and education policy, but Texas serves as an excellent starting point for research on the representations of
Columbus in history textbooks in the 1900s. During the twentieth century, Texas maneuvered itself into a position of power when it comes to establishing education standards and cornered the market on influencing the production of textbooks for every grade level. Texas textbooks thus set an important baseline for comparison. Future studies could compare Texas to other states such as
California, which have also had a powerful influence on education, but which have a more liberal political and cultural history in the twentieth century.
Significance
This study speaks to the current education system and to the polarizing debate over
Columbus. Since the celebrations of the 400-year anniversary, Christopher Columbus has been a historical icon, a founding father of the modern world, and someone to be celebrated for his great work. Today, however, his public image has begun to change, as people become more critical of
Columbus’ personal faults and more critical of the cultural norms that shaped his world. Once described as a courageous innovator and great discoverer, Columbus is now often described as a greedy and cruel conqueror. Historians and the public have been divided over this issue of
Columbus’ legacy and no clear consensus has yet emerged. But this debate is missing from US history textbooks adopted by the Texas school system, as my analysis shows.
The decade surrounding the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage is crucial to understanding the shift in knowledge of and attitude towards Columbus. During the 1990s, historians published works that challenged the conventional image of Columbus. But the public 6 impact of this scholarly debate was very limited. A Gallup Poll taken in 1991, a year before the
500-year anniversary, revealed startling results on this matter. The poll asked basic questions such as Columbus’ birth and year of voyage before asking people their thoughts on the
Columbus legacy in light of the new criticisms of Columbus from historians. The results are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Gallup Poll on Columbus’ Legacy 1991 Columbus as hero 41% Columbus as hero and villain 49% Columbus as villain 1% Source: George Gallup Jr, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1991 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1992), 205.
By 1991, scholars had significantly challenged Columbus’ status as a hero, but an overwhelming majority of Americans still viewed him as a hero, despite acknowledgment of his faults.
The debate over Columbus Day highlights the growing controversy over Columbus. In much of the United States, the second Monday in October is observed as Columbus Day, a federal holiday established by President Roosevelt in 1937. Over the past twenty-five years, the concept of Columbus Day has become quite controversial and today four states no longer recognize Columbus Day as a holiday. South Dakota became the first state to do so in 1990, with
Hawaii, Alaska, and Oregon subsequently adopting this policy. Many cities across the nation, most recently Seattle, Washington, have changed the name of the holiday to a different celebration, such as Indigenous People’s Day or Explorers Day. These changes shift attention away from Columbus towards Native Americans and explorers whose names are not currently surrounded by controversy.
This debate over the legacy of Christopher Columbus has remained a hot topic for over twenty-five years and has sparked a discussion over how we chose to present Columbus to junior high and high school students. Questions arise: what is the legacy of Christopher Columbus? 7
How do we teach students about him and the world he lived in? Most importantly, is it appropriate for junior high and high school students to learn about the darker side of history?
This case study does not answer these questions but rather observes and documents how the
United States educational system has responded to this discussion.
The previous iconic image of Columbus and the “exploration” of Europeans that has been taught in schools across the country is based on a Eurocentric view of world history, which neglects the voices of other people and cultures throughout history. Historians today consider it essential to bring into view previously neglected historical information. Does this new debate over Columbus’ legacy reach the ears of junior high and high school students across the United
States? Does the Eurocentric “standard” still hold sway over our education system? Most students who primarily rely on textbooks that have failed to incorporate new scholarship are unaware that the historical field is one of great debate that constantly shifts as new evidence is brought forth.
The Scholarship on Textbooks
When it comes to the education of junior high and high school students in the United States, the textbook is the tool upon which every teacher must rely. In terms of historical education, textbooks span centuries in their coverage of history and limited alternative sources of educational materials make the textbook one of the only feasible means of conveying historical knowledge. With so many topics and time periods to cover, history textbooks can reach up to a thousand pages in length, and consequently cover periods such as the Civil War in just a couple of pages. This method of primarily relying on textbooks to dictate course curriculum prevents the presentation of multiple historical perspectives. Traditional narratives are formed and many 8 details are left out of the master narrative, for the sake of space, importance, and intended message.
The American education system has become a contentious and divisive issue, especially since the turn of the twenty-first century. The majority of Americans rely on either public or private education institutions to ensure their children are receiving a competent level of knowledge to prepare them for adulthood. In the United States, no national curriculum is set by the federal government and therefore each state must decide this for themselves. Each state chooses one of two approaches to their educational policy for textbook selection, local control or state control. Many states choose to delegate responsibility for school curriculum to local school districts, allowing each district to create their own education programs as long as they meet standards set at either the state or federal level. Other states choose to centralize control over the education system with state run educational committees determining curriculum standards and textbook adoption for every district in that state. Among the latter is Texas, the second largest player in the textbook adoption business, California being the largest. Historians have debated many topics regarding education reform in the United States, each with their own approach to the topic. Most relevant to this project are those scholars who discuss the actual content in history textbooks used in the United States and who examine the state policies for selection of textbooks.
Many textbooks tend to play fast and loose with the concept of “historical accuracy” when it comes to covering certain topics. This problem stems from the incredible pressure placed on textbook publishers by outside parties, as well as biases of the textbook authors which result in at least subtle differences in textbooks. These influences are especially apparent in the production of U.S. history textbooks, as several interpretations, special interests, and biases vie for control of how to teach U.S. history. These forces have controlled the historical narrative, omitting 9 unsavory details and spinning stories about prominent historical figures to make them more appealing.
Ideally, the goal behind a history textbook is to present a fairly balanced account of events which allows students to be exposed to the many interpretations and debates which make up the historical landscape. However, students are typically provided one fixed, unchanging story which implies that there is no debate and perpetuates the idea of history being written in stone. As Kyle
Ward puts it, history should be shown “warts and all…and hopefully, in the long run, we can destroy the curse and let others in on the secret that history is not written in stone but is actually a subject that needs discussion, debate, and research to keep it alive and interesting to all.”7 Ward has studied extensively how history is presented in textbooks in the United States. In History in the Making, he argues that different forms of bias, perspective and interpretation have controlled the production of US history textbooks for the last 200 years, leading to a distortion of historical information. Ward shows the impact of this by selecting numerous topics throughout American history and examining textbook portrayals over the course of time. His examination of
Columbus’ story shows this man has been used as an inspiration to students through his glorified representation in textbooks leading up to the twenty-first century. According to Ward,
“[Columbus’] story was used to teach young Americans that if they hold on to their convictions and ignore the naysayers, great things will come their way.”8 Controlling the way in which US history is presented has the most impact on those historical figures who are identified as
American heroes and thus their stories are designed to infuse patriotic values in the students.
7 Kyle Ward, History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How American History Has Changed in the Telling Over the Last 200 Years (New York: The New Press, 2006), xxv. 8 Ward, History in the Making, 26. 10
Textbook production goes through so many reviews and edits that material can be altered numerous times between the time the author wrote the book and its final arrival in the classroom.
Madelon Bedell and Howard Dodson assert that the first textbooks we read as young children leave an indelible imprint on our minds about this history of the United States, which carries the stamp of authority and truth.9 Establishing these textbooks as the ultimate authority on historical information imbeds the idea of a single historical narrative which will tell them all they need to know. Textbook production remains a business venture as a part of the United States publishing industry, which brought in $28 billion in 2014 across all publications from textbooks to recreational novels.10 In order for textbooks to become published, they must conform to various criteria. The number of alterations made to textbooks have led Bedell and Dodson to claim that
“The ‘real authors’ of the book, say some, are the editorial workers at the publishing houses who fit, comb, paste, edit, delete, and modify the original manuscript into a final book that is deemed acceptable to the marketplace.”11 Conforming to the requirements established by publishing companies inevitably leads to the adjusting and distorting of historical material and contributes to the construction of a single historical perspective.
A strong message of patriotism and the instilling of accepted American values can be found in nearly all U.S. history textbooks. James Loewen, one of the staunchest critics of history textbooks, illuminates the dangers of presenting the history of the United States as a glorious path to the great country of today. According to Loewen, “Textbooks seldom use the past to illuminate the present. They portray the past as a simple-minded morality play. ‘Be a good
9Madelon Bedell and Howard Dodson, Thinking and Rethinking U.S. History, ed. Gerald Horne (New York: Council on Interracial Books for Children, 1988), 3. 10 Marissa Bluestone, “U.S. Publishing Industry’s Annual Survey Reveals $28 Billion in Revenue in 2014,” last modified June 10, 2015, http://publishers.org/news/us-publishing-industry%E2%80%99s-annual-survey-reveals-28- billion-revenue-2014. 11 Bedell and Dodson, Thinking, 4. 11 citizen’ is the message that textbooks extract from the past. ‘You have a proud heritage. Be all that you can be. After all, look at what the United States has accomplished.’…The optimistic approach prevents any understanding of failure other than blaming the victim.”12 This connects to the way heroic figures are treated in textbooks, which appear to serve the primary purpose of imprinting patriotic values on students.
Rachel Hutchins agrees with Loewen’s analysis of patriotic messages. In her examination of the effect of nationalism on history education. Hutchins argues that nationalistic ideals have dominated the education system and that historical education has been designed to provide a sense of national identity to students. According to Hutchins, “History education gives an official, or quasi-official, vision of national identity showing who ‘we’ think we are in the present, where we think we came from, and where we would like to go in the future.”13 When it comes to national identity and the concept of national heroes, Hutchins argues that textbooks have continually built up the legends of the nation’s heroes and use these stories as “a vector of national memory and culture.”14 Hutchins’ assessment suggests that national heroes are used to maintain national identity and thus are protected in the historical narrative provided in textbooks.
Aside from the manner in which the contents of a textbook are controlled, the issue remains of school dependency on textbooks as the means of conveying lessons to the students. Junior high and high school history classes span hundreds or even thousands of years of historical events and topics. Schools have long relied on cramming this material into textbooks which can now reach almost a thousand pages in length with the hopes that students will remember what
12 James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 3. 13 Rachel D. Hutchins, Nationalism and History Education: Curricula and Textbooks in the United States and France (New York: Routledge), 2016, 2. 14 Hutchins, Nationalism, 187. 12 they have learned. Several historians have criticized the use of textbooks as a reliable means of transferring knowledge to students. In his comparison of Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro, Jebadiah
Lillejord claims that high school teachers themselves cannot be expected to be experts in every topic covered in a particular class, thus, textbooks are often viewed by readers as the authority on the subject.15 Loewen, too, points to flaws regarding the structure of textbooks and their use in the classroom. He explains the problem of cramming so much material into a textbook for a student to learn, explaining that there is no way a student is going to remember this information as it is presented to them. He explains that textbooks cause students and teachers alike to fall into a pattern of memorizing information that will appear on the next test and then proceeding to forget that information to make room for information for the test after that, resulting in an endless cycle of memorize, reproduce, forget, and repeat.16 This cycle leaves only the most basic historical information behind. Unless they do further study, students leave their history classes with a distorted view of American history.
Of the twenty-two states that have official state-level control over textbook adoption, Texas is one of the largest and is thus a major player in the textbook publishing industry. Two departments control the adoption of curriculum and textbooks, the Texas Education Agency
(TEA) and the State Board of Education (SBOE). The director of the TEA is appointed by the governor of Texas and provides oversight to local adoption committees. The SBOE is made up of fifteen representatives who are elected to four year terms to establish curriculum guidelines and oversee textbook adoption.17 Because these positions are filled through political election and
15 Jebadiah S. Lillejord, “Christopher Columbus, Hernando Cortés, and Francisco Pizarro: A Qualitative Content Analysis Examining Cultural Bias in World History Textbooks” (PhD Diss., Seattle Pacific University, 2013), 16. 16 Loewen, Lies, 4. 17 Keith Crawford, “The Manufacture of Official Knowledge: The Texas Textbook Adoption Process,” Internationale Schulbuchforschung 25 (2003): 12, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43056528. 13 appointment, special interest groups influence the process significantly. As Keith Crawford summarizes, “Inherent in the textbook selection process are power struggles over the production of knowledge and because knowledge is not distributed equally, there is conflict over who holds the power.”18 Crawford’s article, published in 2003, examines the influence of the “Christian
Right” over the Texas textbook adoption process and shows how organizations of this demographic had infiltrated the TEA and the SBOE. Crawford argues that the influence of special interest groups like the Christian Right lead to a strict set of requirements for textbook adoption designed around a political agenda. Crawford states: “What Texas schools get are textbooks which are selected following an intensely ideological process which is dominated by the views of politically and economically powerful pressure groups. The politics may be different, the outcome is not - the rejection of textbooks which do not conform precisely to a particular set of cultural, ideological and political values.”19 Another set of interest groups vying for control over textbook material is what can be called the “Politically Correct Left”. While members of the Religious Right may seek to censor textbook material to push their agenda, members of the Politically Correct Left push their agenda by trying to control the treatment of minority groups in textbooks.
The battle between these two influential forces in the textbook adoption industry is summarized in David Whitman’s book, The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption. Here he explains that during the 1950s and 1960s the state of California instituted sensitivity guidelines designed to remove stereotypes and other prejudices found in textbooks. He argues that while this venture had noble intentions, it has actually become a hindrance rather than a benefit: “A selection in a reader or chapter in a social studies textbook, might lack literary quality or skew
18 Crawford, “Manufacture,” 12. 19 Crawford, “Manufacture,” 22. 14 history. But if it had the right numerical balance of genders and minorities, the textbook could be approved.”20 The liberal agenda pushed by California during the 1950s and 1960s was quickly countered by what Whitman calls “Texas Traditionalists” in the 1980s. This perpetual battle between conservative and liberal policies over textbook production has continued ever since.
According to Whitman, “By the start of the 1990s, publishers had already added the concerns of the religious right to their bias and sensitivity guidelines, self-censoring textbooks and readers so as to avoid controversy and attacks from fundamentalists.”21 The resulting tug of war over establishing textbook adoption guidelines and criteria has further damaged the adoption process, since requiring textbooks to conform to so many criteria inhibits the ability for textbooks to present history.
Religious Right organizations have taken a special interest in the running of education systems across the country, with the goal of excluding materials they consider to be immoral or
“Anti-God”, leading to numerous censorship cases over recent years. Edward Jenkinson studied several cases of censorship during the 1970s and cited religion as one of the primary motivations.
According to Jenkinson, “The charge that the schools preach the religion of secular humanism has attracted considerable attention and has become one of the rallying cries of organizations that attempt to ban books, materials, and teaching methods that they brand as being secular humanistic.”22
This project of analyzing the representation of Columbus in 53 Texas textbooks has illuminated several flaws and prompted recommendations for reform. The most blatant of these
20 David Whitman, The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption (Washington D.C.: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2004), 9. 21 Whitman, Mad, Mad World, 15. 22 Edward B. Jenkinson, Censors in the Classroom: The Mind Benders (Ill: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979), 68. 15 flaws comes from the high level of inconsistency in sets of textbooks chosen for some contract periods. As I will show, the coverage of European contact with the Americas is drastically different from textbook to textbook in some sets. Certain historical details weave in and out of these textbooks, appearing in one but missing from another. For example, one textbook begins
U.S. history with the settlement of Jamestown, while others in the same set begin with
Columbus. Particularly in the first half of the twentieth century, about half of the textbooks mentioned the Viking voyages, while the other half left it out entirely. This imbalance in textbook production standards undercuts the integrity of the state adoption system.
My analysis of the Texas textbook adoption process also reveals the system’s inability to select textbooks which are up to date on the current scholarly debate. The state of Texas adopts textbooks for use by every school for grades K-12 and the duration of this use is determined by each textbook’s contract period with the state. Texas typically adopts textbooks for six-year contract terms and 46 of the 60 United States history textbooks used in this study were contracted for four to six years. The remaining fourteen textbooks were contracted for either shorter or substantially longer terms. Six textbooks among the group were contracted for three years or less, while the other eight were contracted for ten years or longer. These long-term-use textbooks show the state’s reluctance to adopt textbooks presenting the most recent historical scholarship. In 2017, the second largest textbook state in the nation is currently using textbooks that were originally contracted back in 2003. This fourteen-year lag underscores the problem of students reading material rooted in a previous generation of scholarship.
16
Methodology
For this study, I relied primarily on discussions of Columbus in U.S. history textbooks adopted by the State of Texas.23 A database of adopted textbooks available on the University of
Texas at Austin website, contains a detailed record of every textbook adopted by the Texas
Board of Education for each subject and grade year of pre-collegiate education. The textbooks chosen for this study included U.S. history textbooks used in Texas for both junior high and high school classrooms. The key selection factor was the grade at which students were taught early
American history and the voyages of Columbus; this designated grade varied throughout the study period. I began with textbook lists for 1919 (the earliest date for which I could find the relevant textbooks) and continued on to the present day with an examination of textbooks used during the 2016-17 academic year. In all, I analyzed the portrayal of Columbus in 53 textbooks.
I designed a set of questions to ask as I reviewed each textbook. I adapted these questions from Lillejord’s dissertation on the comparison of Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro in textbooks.
Lillejord began by separating the representation of these three men into two distinct categories: sacred knowledge and profane ideas. Sacred knowledge in textbooks comes from defined
American values. Lillejord explains in this way: “American tradition places importance on carrying out the rites and ceremonies of American national ethos and religion.”24 Upholding
American values and traditions demands that a certain core knowledge be contained in educational texts, which then maintain traditional historical narratives for generations. Profane ideas, in contrast, are anything that challenges the sacred knowledge and values. Lillejord
23 Kyle Ward’s examination of US history textbooks exhibits the level of importance placed on these textbooks in historical education. He explains that in many cases, these textbooks are the most crucial, and often only, source teachers can use to educate their students. Ward explains that the development of the first US history classes were designed with the goal of instilling ideals of patriotism, being a good citizen, and memorization. See Ward pp xxi. 24 Lillejord, “Christopher Columbus,” 12. 17 explains: “The rise of Communism, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the Civil
Rights movement are all examples where profane ideas and events challenge the current sacred values.”25
Lillejord’s sacred and profane categories served as a starting point for my own method of determining the range of representations of Columbus. I developed main categories and auxiliary categories. In the Appendix, I provide a spreadsheet of the textbooks analyzed and the specific categorization of each, drawing from the following list:
Main Categories:
(1) Sacred Knowledge:
a. Traditional portrayals: Columbus is portrayed as the discoverer of the
Americas. Columbus’ voyage is described and established as the connection
between the “Old World” and the “New World”.
b. Positive portrayals: Columbus is glorified as a historical hero. Columbus is
praised by association with ideas such as bravery, innovation, proving the
roundness of the Earth, and spreading Christianity. Columbus is separated
from the atrocities committed against native Americans after the arrival of
Europeans.
(2) Profane Ideas:
a. Revisionist portrayals: These contrast with the established traditional
portrayal. Columbus did not discover the Americas. Columbus did not
25 Lillejord, “Christopher Columbus,” 13. 18
originate the idea to sail west from Europe. Columbus did not originate the
round Earth theory.
b. Negative portrayals: These directly criticize the character of Columbus.
Columbus failed as governor of Hispaniola. Columbus committed atrocities
against Native populations. Columbus’ greed was the primary motivation for
the voyages.
(3) Neutral Portrayals:
a. The textbook mentions Columbus but does not go into detail about him or his
voyages. This category acknowledges Columbus’ presence within the
textbook while still pointing out the lack of sufficient content to meet any of
the other classifications
Auxiliary Categories:
By focusing on the distinction between “explorer” and “conqueror,” these three auxiliary categories help identify how Columbus and other famous historical figures of his era are portrayed.
(4) Viking expeditions as Part of Pre-Columbian History:
a. Leif Ericsson’s expeditions to the Americas nearly five hundred years before
Columbus indicates that Columbus was not the first European to successfully
sail west to Europe. Who gets credit for European discovery of the
Americas—the Vikings or Columbus?
(5) Cortés and Pizarro Portrayed Positively:
a. These men were explorers and skilled warriors.
19
(6) Cortés and Pizarro Portrayed Negatively:
a. These men were conquerors and ruthless killers.
In addition to the textbook discussions of Columbus, I have also incorporated publications that related to the public sphere of the United States. These primary sources include numerous newspaper articles, erecting of monuments in Columbus’ honor, presidential proclamations and lobbying efforts by the Knights of Columbus.
Finally, I reviewed and incorporated key historical scholarship on Columbus, and I compared the scholarly findings to what appeared in the textbooks. These scholarly works, which would normally be understood as secondary sources, actually served as primary sources in this study. I did not do an exhaustive literature review on Columbus, but rather I identified the most prominent historians whose work influenced how Columbus’ story would be told in the textbooks. In each chapter of this project, I discuss the most important scholarly works of the era, but several deserve mention here. Washington Irving wrote a highly regarded account of
Columbus’ life in 1826 which would contribute greatly to Columbus’ glorified image. Samuel
Eliot Morison’s acclaimed biography became the authority on Columbus scholarship during the
1940s and his book Admiral of the Ocean Sea is still a must read for Columbus historians.
Howard Zinn and Kirkpatrick Sale represent two of the most prominent Columbus critics during the decade of turmoil surrounding the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage. These historians have made the most important contributions to the debate over Columbus.
The following chapters show how I arrived at my conclusions about the legacy of Columbus in U.S. history textbooks. These chapters follow a chronological order. The prologue begins in
1892 with discussion of the 400-year anniversary celebrations. Chapter I shows how Columbus glorified legacy, as established during the 400-year anniversary, is reflected in the textbooks of 20 the early twentieth century, which focus on Columbus’ bravery, innovation, and persistence in the face of great adversity, thus embodying the American spirit. The chapter culminates with a discussion of President Roosevelt’s establishment of Columbus Day as a federal holiday in 1937 and the influence of the Knights of Columbus. Chapter II turns to the historians who reinforced this interpretation of Columbus’ legacy and the subsequent textbook representations during the
1940s and 1950s, featuring the arrival of Samuel Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea, which would become the authority on Columbus scholarship. Chapter III showcases the earliest examples of turmoil over the legacy of Columbus, with the Civil Rights Movement serving to inspire groups like the American Indian Movement to attack the glorified image of Columbus. At the same time, Columbus’ legacy was used as inspiration for the new American space program.
Chapter III also discusses the new revelations about the Viking voyages to the Americas with the discovery of the Vinland Map and the L'Anse aux Meadows settlement in the 1960s. Chapter IV examines the scholarly and cultural war which broke out over the legacy of Columbus during the explosion of Columbus revisionism and the celebration of the 500-year anniversary in 1992.
Chapter V considers how Columbus, the great navigator, is presented in comparison to Cortés and Pizarro, the great conquerors, in all the textbooks under consideration from 1919 to 2017.
The story begins in the nineteenth century, when Columbus’ glory was admired in a way that is much different from today. In 1892 the United States witnessed year-long celebrations of the 400-year anniversary of Columbus’ first landing in the Americas. These celebrations culminated with the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition in May of 1893 in Chicago, where Columbus was honored with a massive festival.
21
CHAPTER I. 1892: CELEBRATING 400 YEARS OF THE “GREAT DISCOVERY”
Figure 1. Columbus Day Parade New York City 1892 Source: New York Public Library 1892 Columbus Day Parade.26
“The man we think of, the man we admire, the man we talk about, the man whose wonderful story we read and re-read, is Christopher Columbus, the greatest human benefactor of the human race.” - Rossiter Johnson, A History of the World’s Columbian Exposition
The year 1892 was a year of celebration for the United States and marked the 400-year anniversary of the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Across the nation, the memory of
Columbus was widely celebrated with numerous parades, festivals, and dedication ceremonies, culminating in the World’s Columbian Exposition which opened May 1, 1893 in Chicago. To an unknowing observer, Columbus may have been royalty in the United States based on the way he was celebrated during the 400-year anniversary and his status during this time would be
26 Art and Picture Collection and The New York Public Library, "Columbus Day parade, Union Square," New York Public Library Digital Collections, http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e3-b92f-a3d9-e040- e00a18064a99. 22 comparable to men such as George Washington and the other founders of the nation. Throughout the 1890s Columbus was honored as a hero and the number of newspaper stories, statues, theatrical productions and praise from historians contributed to the heroic Columbus legacy.
Viewing Columbus as a historical icon who should be admired for his courage and genius did not originate with the 1892 celebrations, but looking at these celebrations serves as a great example of how Columbus has been represented in the United States throughout history. This form of
Columbus’ legacy has been reinforced throughout much of the twentieth century and this image of Columbus went almost entirely uncontested during that time.
The fervor surrounding the celebrations of Columbus was so great that an article in The New
York Times reported that a proposal was being filed to canonize Columbus, claiming that “The discovery of America was a divine inspiration.”27 The suggestion to raise Columbus to the level of sainthood is very telling for this time period and is a testament to the admiration people had for the “discoverer” of the Americas. Since establishing the story of the legendary Christopher
Columbus the following generations of young Americans grew up learning about his great deeds.
His description could be that of a founder of the modern age. This story of Columbus came to them through their school textbooks and the content in these textbooks was inspired by the glorification of Columbus during the celebrations of 1892. Today, the legacy of Columbus is in turmoil, and the celebrations of 1892 are polar opposites of the Columbus criticisms in 1992, during the 500-year anniversary of his voyages. It is therefore important to begin the discussion of Columbus’ representation in the United States in 1892, at a time of near universal love and praise for the man who kick-started the modern age. Three specific characterizations awarded to
27 “St. Christopher Columbus,” New York Times, June 29, 1892, 5. 23
Columbus during the 1892 celebrations provide insight into the values held by Americans during this time, explaining why Columbus was so adored at the close of the nineteenth century.
During the 1890s, many American values can be found in the legend of Christopher
Columbus: a sense of adventure, individualism, creativity and ingenuity. Three distinct characteristics stand out above the rest in the publications honoring Columbus from this time in
American history: being a devoted Christian; having a strong sense of morality; and being persistent in the face of great adversity. These three characteristics define how Columbus was viewed in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century and form the basis for how
Columbus was represented in the one-hundred years following the 1892 celebrations. One of the most interesting aspects of developing the heroic Columbus legend is the ability of his admirers to separate Columbus from those who came after him. Columbus was presented as a man of upstanding morality who, through the spirit of adventure presided over one of the greatest events in human history. Explorers who came after Columbus were not protected from their treatment of the Native Americans, as Columbus was. Noah Webster portrays Columbus as a man who was compassionate towards the native people he encountered on his first voyage. Weber states that
“Had his companions and successors of the Spanish nation possessed the wisdom and humanity of the discoverer, the benevolent mind would feel no sensations of regret in contemplating the extensive advantages arising from the discovery of America.”28 Weber’s account of Columbus’ morality is intriguing and reveals to us American values seen in Columbus by the American people. Suggesting that Columbus would have been appalled to learn of some of the atrocities that followed his voyages, implies that he is innocent of any wrongdoing during the conquest of the Americas. Shifting the blame for the decimation of Native Americans during colonization
28 Noah Webster, “The Career of Columbus,” in Columbian Selections: American Patriotism For Home and School, ed. Henry B. Carrington (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1896), 13-14. 24 away from Columbus has become part of his enduring legacy. Today, however, the atrocities committed during Columbus’ time in the Americas are beginning to come to the forefront of the historical conversation of early European colonization of the Americas.
Columbus’ history as a devout Christian is very well documented in sources such as the journal he kept during his first voyage to the Americas. This knowledge of Columbus’ faith was used to bolster his heroic image as a bringer of Christianity (as his name implies) to the “new” world. The importance of Columbus being a man of faith in the eyes of the American people cannot be underestimated in the establishment of his enduring legacy. An example of this importance comes from dedication ceremonies for the World’s Columbian Exposition, when
Vice-President Levi Morton proclaimed: “The transcendent feature in the character of Columbus was his faith. That sustained him in days of trial and darkness, and finally gave him the great discovery. Like him, let us have faith in our future.”29 The gravity of this statement from the
Vice-President would have inspired many Americans to look up to Columbus for his religious conviction as a standard for the continued prosperity of the nation. This same message was conveyed through many avenues during the celebrations of the 1890s, including popular publications such as poetry. Patrick Fanning was one such poet who contributed to the glorification of Columbus and went as far as to portray him as an instrument of God. Columbus was “A man sent by God to lead the way to wider and nobler life and it was his deep trust in his divine mission which gave him the heroic mood that no opposition could weaken.”30 It is not hard to believe that a proposal was submitted to canonize Columbus during this time, when publications such as these idolized Columbus for his faith.
29 Rossiter Johnson, ed., A History of the World’s Columbian Exposition Held in Chicago in 1893 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897), 287. 30 Theodore S. Vaughn, Satan in Arms Against Columbus (Chicago: J. S. Hyland & Company, 1892), 2. 25
The ability to persevere in the face of great adversity and hardship is a value Americans have held since the first American colonies were settled at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Many stories circulated praising Columbus for his determination to explore and to not accept “no” for an answer when it came to achieving his goal of exploration. An article from The
New York Times illustrates this value of perseverance by highlighting a speech by Dr. A. A.
Miner on celebrating Columbus. His response revolves around this value of perseverance, stating that “his [Columbus] persistency in purpose…he was indomitably committed to discovery…His power in persuading them [sailors] on until success was achieved showed a master mind.”31
Miner’s speech was given at the Avenue Universalist Church, which further implies Columbus’ religious importance in Christianity at the time.
Publications from Washington Irving serve as another example exhibiting the value of
Columbus’ perseverance in the pursuit of his vision. According to Irving, the most extraordinary aspect of Columbus was that “He was decidedly a visionary, but a visionary of an uncommon kind, and successful in his dreams. The manner in which his ardent imagination and mercurial nature were controlled by a powerful judgement…”32 The emphasis placed on Columbus’ determination to achieve his goal resonated with the American people and perpetuated the belief that, without Columbus, nothing we know today would have been possible.
Although Columbus believed till his death that he had found a new route to India, those who came after him soon realized that he had reached a continent previously forgotten and unknown to Europeans. Since this time, Columbus has been celebrated as the “discoverer” of the
Americas. In addition, Columbus was credited with proving that the Earth was round. Until rather recently, many believed that the majority of people of Columbus’ day believed that the
31 A. A. Miner, “Dr. Miner Spoke of Achievements of the Discoverer,” The Boston Globe, October 17, 1892, 8. 32 Johnson, Columbian Selections, 18. 26
Earth was flat, and to sail west of Europe was impossible. An important part of Columbus’ enduring legacy is the belief that Columbus came up with the revolutionary idea that the Earth was actually round and his voyages proved this claim. Today it is known that this was not the case, and in fact, most people from the time of Columbus knew that the Earth was round.
Nevertheless, the story of Columbus credited him with proving that the Earth was round and not until recently has this story changed. During the Columbus celebrations of the 1890s, a theatrical epic was composed entitled, “A Vision’s Quest”, which told the grand tale of Columbus and his first voyage to the Americas. During the fifth act of this play, there is a line given by one of
Columbus’ crew proclaiming the greatness of Columbus: “The Admiral was right in his strange prophecy, he against all the world, believed the Earth a sphere. He prophesied this land and now tis here!”33 This play is one of many publications designed to praise Columbus and, in a way, give thanks to the man who was seen as a founder of the modern age. Even though there have been advocates of the sphere shaped Earth since the ancient Greeks, Columbus has been seen as the man who proved it to the rest of the world.
How did Americans envision Columbus during the 400-year anniversary of his voyage to the Americas? Simply put, Columbus was a hero, a god amongst men whose legacy deserved high praise and celebration from those whose current lives were made possible because of his accomplishments. In 1892, during the height of the celebrations, Elbridge Brooks published The
True Story of Christopher Columbus, which chronicles the life and accomplishments of the
“discoverer” of America. In one passage, he perfectly summarizes the attitude towards Columbus during this time: “Columbus, who did so much and yet died almost unnoticed has grown more and more famous; his name is immortal, and today he is the hero Columbus, one of the world’s
33 Alice E. Lord, A Vision’s Quest: A Dram in Five Acts (Baltimore: Cushing & Company, 1899), 119. 27 greatest men…In 1892, we celebrated the greatest of all our birthdays, the discovery of the continent that made it possible for us to be here at all.”34 Today, a statement of this manner would be reserved for the founders of the United States or some of the most popular Presidents.
In 1892 however, this honor was reserved for Columbus and the heroic image presented at the close of the nineteenth century would go nearly unchallenged for the next one hundred years.
The celebration of the 400-year anniversary of Columbus’ voyages was not limited to 1892, rather Columbus was celebrated and at the forefront of public interest during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Historical publications, pop-culture productions, paintings, poetry, and statues were being produced throughout the 1890s and they played a major role in cementing the legacy of Columbus as one of the great heroes of history, a man to be admired and valued for his faith, commitment, and moral purity. The story of how Columbus is presented to the American people in the 1890s can be broken down into several key aspects. The first and most important aspect of this story is that Christopher Columbus discovered America and without his daring voyage, the world would not be what it is today. Second, Columbus possessed ingenuity unparalleled by his peers, which led him to test and prove his theory that the Earth was in fact round drawing criticism from his peers for harboring such a ludicrous idea. Finally, Columbus’ moral character drove him to persevere in the face of insurmountable odds while maintaining a devoted level of faith to Christian values, spreading it to the “New World”. It is hard to imagine a world in which Columbus is revered as a true hero in the eyes of the American people. The
American values seen in the story of Columbus have reinforced ideas of American exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny, constantly pushing the American people forward to
34 Elbridge S. Brooks, The True Story of Columbus: Called the Great Admiral (Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1892), 174. 28 discover, as Columbus did. Today’s Columbus is highly controversial with admirers and critics praising and damning him in an attempt to win the war for the legacy of Columbus.
29
CHAPTER II. COLUMBUS GOES TO SCHOOL: COLUMBUS’ SPIRIT SHINES IN
TEXTBOOKS, 1919-1939
Figure 2. Columbus, Washington, and Lincoln Source: Elbridge S. Brooks, The True Story of Columbus35
The image above depicts three portraits situated side by side. The image features,
Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Each is captioned with a phrase honoring them for a specific achievement important to the history of the United States.
This image of Columbus situated alongside two historical juggernauts of American history is indicative of Columbus’ reputation in the early twentieth century.
35 Brooks, The True Story of Columbus, 179. 30
Celebrations of the 400-year anniversary of Columbus’ first landing in the Americas established how the American public viewed him. Columbus was a national treasure during this time, the discoverer of America and a man who exhibited many of the values Americans hold in such high esteem. Columbus holds a high position in the halls of important historical figures in
U.S. history and it is because of this status that Columbus’ story is told at length during the education of young Americans. The praises given to Columbus at the close of the nineteenth century carried over into the twentieth century and the influence of the celebrations can be seen in the U.S. history textbooks that followed.
Columbus Scholarship
During the turn of the twentieth century, Columbus’ legend grew to staggering heights and the publications dedicated to his life during this time formed the base for his representation in
U.S. history textbooks. The story of Columbus presented in the early 1900s was very similar to the 1892 celebrations, in that, Columbus discovered America through his daring and ingenuity and without him life as we know it today may not exist. Three key points in Columbus’ life are most often covered by textbooks used from 1919 to 1939. First is Columbus’ attempts to gain support for his ideas and his future voyages. Second, the events of Columbus’ first voyage reaching and exploring the Americas. Typically, only Columbus’ first voyage is given any detail and the other three voyages he took are only briefly mentioned, if at all. Finally, these textbooks typically talk about Columbus’ death and his enduring legacy as a major historical figure. With this in mind, I look at coverage of these three areas of Columbus’ life in publications and scholarship from the early 1900s.
When discussing Columbus’ search for support during the 1480s, many academic publications and public works focus on Columbus’ seven years of waiting and the scrutiny he 31 faced for his theories about reaching the Indies by sailing west. One of the more popular ways in which Columbus’ story was conveyed to the public during the early 1900s was through theatrical plays. One such production, entitled Christopher Columbus: A Play in Four Acts, opens with
Columbus waiting to hear from the Spanish crown regarding his request for funding. In the scene
Columbus’ proposal is turned down based on the ludicrously of his idea. “Does not your whole project hinge on the theory of the spheroidicity of the Earth, not its flatness?...But the CIII Psalm says “as far as the East is from the West,” thus proving that East and West never meet and that therefore the Earth is flat.”36 Not only does this scene feed the belief that Columbus alone conceived the round-Earth theory but a note at the beginning of the script claims that the work of
Columbus historians were used as references and that the play was a work of historical accuracy.37 Frederick Ober reinforces the claim that Columbus’ belief in the rotundity of the
Earth was absurd for the time in Columbus: The Discoverer. Ober references the same event covered in the first scene of the previously discussed play when Columbus’ proposal was turned down and he was mocked for his theories about the Earth. “For a man to defend the theory of the earth’s rotundity, and base his premise of New-World discovery upon it, was not only the height of absurdity, but also (in the monks’ opinion) heretical, and rendered its advocate liable to correction.”38 These representations of Columbus’ search for support during the 1480s is designed to show the readers and audience Columbus’ great persistence in the face of immeasurable scrutiny.
Easily the most important and most talked about point of Columbus’ life is the day he first landed in the Americas on October 12, 1492. Columbus’ landing is marked as one of the most
36 Alice Johnstone Walker, La Fayette, Christopher Columbus, The Long Knives in Illinois: Brief Plays for the Young (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1919), 90-91. 37 Walker, La Fayette, 72. 38 Frederick A. Ober, Columbus: The Discoverer (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1906), 28. 32 glorious events in human history and works published on his life have not shied away from proclaiming this glory. Washington Irving’s Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, describes the overwhelming joy felt by Columbus and his crew upon standing on land in the
Americas.
The feelings of the crew now burst forth in the most extravagant transports. They had recently considered themselves devoted men, hurrying forward to destruction; they now looked upon themselves as favorites of fortune, and gave themselves up to the most unbound joy. They thronged around the admiral with overflowing zeal, some embracing him, others kissing his hands…Many abject spirits, who had outraged him by their insolence, now crouched at his feet, begging pardon for all the trouble they had caused him, and promising the blindest obedience for the future.39
Irving’s description of Columbus and the praise felt by his men give Columbus a sense of being a prophet with boundless loyalty from his followers. The gravity of Columbus’ voyage is proclaimed in countless publications during the early 1900s including poetry. Countless poems were written to describe Columbus’ first voyage and one such poet, Albert Rupp, describes
Columbus’ voyage as a gift to the world. “A fertile continent thou gav’st mankind, which only lay in lonely idleness; through sufferings terrible, and great distress this was accomplished; for thy noble mind and faith excelled all others thou stood’st alone.”40 The most striking line from this poem is from the author referring to the Americas as standing idle and alone, which gives the impression that there was no one else living there before Columbus. Publications such as these exhibit the true level of admiration for Columbus and the intensity of those who portray him in their writings.
The final portion of Columbus’ life that is most often exhibited in these textbooks is his death and subsequent legacy. In the majority of portrayals, Columbus is said to have died in
39 Washington Irving, Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (New York: Thomas D. Crowell & Co., 1904), 104. 40 Albert Rupp, in Christopher Columbus in Poetry History and Art, ed. Sara Agnes Ryan (Chicago: The Mayer and Miller Company, 1917), 110. 33 poverty and essentially forgotten. Despite this his legacy lived on as the “discoverer” of America and it is this portrayal that dominated the landscape during the early 1900s. According to
Mildred Byne, “The event on May 20, 1506, passed unheeded. A life had ended whose results were more stupendous than those of any other human life ever lived…The nation was too busy watching the men who had practical plans for colonizing the new lands, and turning them into profit, to concern itself with the death of the one brave soul who had found the path.”41 Depicting the end of Columbus’ life as tragic creates a sense of sympathy for him, furthering his glorified legacy and almost depicts him as a martyr. Another account from Charles McCarthy’s Columbus and His Predecessors, places emphasis on his greatness as a human being. “Columbus was a human being with human limitations…He was a great man, great not according to the standard of the tented field, but because of an original greatness. He was great by reason of his conception of a grand design and because of its accomplishment. His fame is secure and will flame forever in the firmament of time.”42 Examples of this glorification of Columbus’ legacy are countless and this legacy has persisted through accounts such as McCarthy’s and Byne’s.
Clearly attitudes towards Columbus in both the academic world and the public sphere show near universal support towards glorification of the Columbus legend and his status as an
American icon. Columbus’ undying will and perseverance remain the main focus of presenting his early years searching for someone, anyone, to fund his voyages. After finally breaking through to the Spanish crown, Columbus put together his entourage of three vessels crewed by skeptics who believed Columbus to be a foolish dreamer, while the staunch Admiral never wavered in his pursuit of justification for his ideas. The brave Columbus would silence his critics
41 Mildred Stapley Byne, Christopher Columbus (New York: Macmillan Company, 1915), 239. 42 Charles H. McCarthy, Columbus and His Predecessors: A Study in the Beginnings of American History (Philadelphia: J. J. McVey, 1912), 214. 34 on October 12, 1492, when he landed in a “New World”. Columbus’ name forever lives in glory for his discovery of America, and though he was underappreciated in life, we honor him today for his bravery, ingenuity, and perseverance. This story makes up the Columbus legend during the early twentieth century. Every young American during this time reads this story in school from their textbooks. Comparing the Columbus legend with the representation of Columbus in
U.S. history textbooks from the state of Texas during the period of 1919 to 1939, shows an undeniable connection.
Textbook Analysis
The Columbus legend, which grew out of the celebrations of the 400-year anniversary of
Columbus’ landing, carried over into the publications of the first two decades of the twentieth century. The combination of Columbus scholarship and public works from the beginning of the twentieth century, provides a guide in which to follow as textbooks are analyzed. Considering the glorified image of Columbus, as described by historians and public figures alike, presents itself as a basic historical truth, the textbooks used during the 1920s and 1930s in Texas, almost universally echo this legend. eleven of the thirteen textbooks contained in this set contain elements classified as the traditional and positive portrayals of Columbus, with one textbook omitting Columbus’ story, and one remaining neutral in its portrayal of Columbus. Table 2 on the following page shows the results of textbook analysis for junior high and high school classrooms from 1919 to 1929. The categories of the table are as follows: Textbook name, year of publication, contract period, grade level, Columbus’ portrayal, presence of Viking expeditions, and the number of pages dedicated to Columbus. Notice that all five textbooks present the traditional and positive portrayals of Columbus, thereby perpetuating the Columbus legend presented by historians and the American public. 35
Table 2: Textbooks 1919-192943 Textbook/Publication Year Contract Portrayal Viking Pages Period Expedition (Columbus) The Beginner’s History of 1919-1929 Traditional/Positive No 10.5 Pages Our Country (1901) The Student’s History of Our 1919-1920 Traditional/Positive No 5 Pages Country (1917) American History for 1919-1929 Traditional/Positive Yes 2.8 Pages Schools (1913) History of the United States 1925-1929 Traditional/Positive No 5.5 Pages (1920) History of the United States 1925-1929 Traditional/Positive No 4.2 Pages (1921)
It is clear from these examinations that these textbooks follow the glorified version of
Columbus’ story and the authors felt it was important to spend a great deal of time on Columbus.
Notice in Table 2 that only Cousins’ American History for Schools, mentions the early Viking expeditions to the Americas. Cousins talks about how the Vikings created settlements in Iceland and Greenland way back in the ninth century and by the tenth century, they had reached North
America. According to Cousins, after these voyages, “The Northmen no longer made voyages to
America, and what little knowledge of the Western Continent had been obtained seems to have been forgotten.”44 Cousins’ textbook stands alone among the other four used in the 1920s to tell of Europeans reaching the Americas before Columbus did at the end of the fifteenth century. The absence of this account in the other textbooks implies that Columbus was the first to make this voyage from Europe to the Americas, thus adding to the gravity of his accomplishment. Even though Cousins gives the Viking story a place in the story of U.S. history an important difference can be gleamed from their representation and Columbus’. Cousins does not give any sort of
43 The grade levels for each textbook range from grade school to high school for this set. The Beginner’s History of Our Country was used in grade five classrooms. The 1920 edition of History of the United States was used in grade seven and the 1921 edition was used in grade 10. The other two textbooks in the set were not assigned a specific grade year for use. 44 R. B. Cousins and J. A. Hill, American History For Schools (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., Publishers, 1913), 32. 36 praise to the Vikings for their voyages to the Americas, even though they made the journey in the rough seas of the North Atlantic and using vessels and technology far behind that of Columbus’ time. When it comes to Columbus’ voyages however, Cousins spares no expense in proclaiming his glory: “The theories of the size and form of the world were pretty enough in the cloister of the monk and in the study of the geographer, but the practical application of them required a man who combined the genius and the hero.”45 Praise such as this can be found in every one of these textbooks with varying degrees of detail.
Most of the textbooks center their coverage of Columbus on his voyages to the Americas, beginning with his appeal for help and ending in his death. Estill’s book, The Beginner’s History of Our Country, goes much farther than that and essentially gives a biography to Columbus’ life.
For a book that covers roughly 400 years of history in approximately 300 pages, to devote over ten pages to Columbus alone sends a message that he was a man of immense importance to the
American people. During his discussion of Columbus’ life, Estill perpetuates the old myth that most people during the fifteenth century believed that the Earth was flat and to sail west into the
Atlantic would result in sailors falling off the edge of the Earth. Estill claims that it was
Columbus who proved the rotundity of the Earth. According to Estill, “Most teachers of geography in those times taught that the Earth was flat, though there were a few learned men who believed that it was round. While a schoolboy, Christopher probably heard both of these beliefs expressed but which was correct no one knew.”46 While Estill saw fit to proclaim this theory that before Columbus it was generally accepted that the Earth was flat, other textbooks from this period imply the opposite. For example, in Latanè’s History of the United States, he uses Columbus’ own words to exhibit that the rotundity of the Earth was a common belief.
45 Cousins, American History, 32. 46 Harry F. Estill, The Beginner’s History of Our Country (Dallas: The Southern Publishing Company, 1901), 4. 37
“Columbus, in common with other navigators, appears to have accepted the scientific view without serious question: ‘I have always read,’ said he, ‘that the world, comprising the land and the water, is spherical, as is testified by the investigations of Ptolemy and others, who proved it by the eclipses of the moon’”47 This lack of consensus between two textbooks used in the same school during the same time period would be very confusing to students who noticed the difference and it raises questions about the adoption process for textbooks in the state of Texas.
Slight deviations appear in textbooks used in Texas during the 1930s as compared to their
1920s counterparts, though all but two of them ensure the presence of the Columbus legend remains intact. Table 3 represents the textbook analysis for textbooks used from 1929 to 1939, notice that all but one of these textbooks are used exclusively at the high school level, whereas the textbooks in Table 2 range from junior high to high school. This indicates a shift of early
American history material from grade school to high school classrooms.
47 John Holladay Latanè, A History of the United States (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1921), 2. 38
Table 3: Textbooks 1929-1939 Textbook/Publication Year Contract Portrayal Viking Pages Period Expedition (Columbus) The Beginner’s History of 1929- Traditional/Positive No 10.4 Pages Our Country (1925) 1933 History of the United States 1929- Traditional/Positive Yes 2.4 Pages (1919) 1935 History of the American 1929- Traditional/Positive Yes 3.9 Pages People (1927) 1939 Negative History of the United States 1929- N/A No 0 Pages (1926)48 1935 Our Nation’s Development 1935- Traditional/Positive No 2.7 Pages (1934) 1939 America Its History and 1935- Traditional/Positive Yes 1.04 Pages People (1934) 1939 Revisionist History of the United States 1935- Traditional/Positive Yes 1.6 Pages (1934) 1939 Revisionist A Unit History of the 1935- Neutral No .13 Pages United States (1932) 1939 Note: All textbooks in this set, with the exception of The Beginner’s History of Our Country, which was used for grade five classes, were used in high school classrooms.
There are several interesting points of similarity and difference between these textbooks and the ones used during the 1920s. For one, with the exception of Estill’s 1925 edition of The
Beginner’s History of Our Country, the amount of coverage given to Columbus drops off significantly with approximately four pages being the longest stretch of text given to Columbus’ story. With Columbus’ story becoming so well known since the 400-year anniversary, textbook authors may have believed it unnecessary to cover Columbus in as much detail, making room for other topics.
Another notable difference between these textbooks and the ones used during the 1920s is the presence of some revisionist and negative characteristics in the telling of Columbus’ story.
Identifying these characteristics in these particular textbooks has raised several questions
48 Charles Beard’ History of the United States, begins with English colonization of North America and makes no mention of the voyages of Christopher Columbus. It remains in this study because it has value in the discussion of textbook adoption in the state of Texas by raising more questions about the states requirements for curriculum setting. 39 regarding consistency and how these authors have established Columbus’ legacy. One such contradiction in the presentation of Columbus comes from David Muzzey’s History of the
American People, which was used from 1929 to 1939. During his account of Columbus, Muzzy discusses Columbus’ time as governor of Hispaniola, describing his ability as a leader as anything but glamorous. “His misfortunes as an administrator equaled his disappointments as an explorer. His vanity, avarice and despotism invited resentment and plots among his followers.”49
It was very surprising to see Columbus described with adjectives synonymous with arrogance, excessive greed, and oppressive leadership and this description appeared to greatly detract from the glorified image of Columbus. Despite this description, Muzzey still maintains the great importance of Columbus’ voyages and his grand historical status. On the very next page Muzzey proclaims the injustice done to Columbus by allowing these new continents to be named after another. “The man whose vision and courage had discovered a new world was not even to have the honor of giving it his name.”50 These two quotes from Muzzey appear in the same paragraph and both condemn and praise Columbus, showing inconsistency in Columbus’ legacy and likely confusing readers on whether they should admire Columbus or condemn him.
During the 1930s two out of the eight textbooks used in junior high and high school classrooms for the state of Texas contained slight revisionist elements regarding Columbus’ story. In the case of these two textbooks, Faulkner’s America Its History and People and Fish’s
History of the United States, there exists revisionist details that go against the traditional
Columbus narrative. Faulkner strays from tradition in two ways, the first being his assertion that
Columbus did not originate the round-Earth theory, but rather it was quite an old theory which
49 David Saville Muzzey, History of the American People (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1927), 16. 50 Muzzey, American People, 17. 40 only the most ignorant of people from the time would not accept.51 Faulkner also continues to give credit to the Vikings for being the first Europeans to reach the Americas while at the same time, shifting the reason for Columbus’ glory by stating: “In reality he won eternal fame for opening to settlement a new world. Strictly speaking, Columbus simply rediscovered
America.”52 This statement by Faulkner serves the purpose of acknowledging the accomplishments of the Vikings without detracting from the glorious image of Columbus held at the time. Fish similarly inserts revisionists aspects on Columbus, though this may have been inadvertent. According to Fish, when discussing Columbus’ first landing in the Americas, “At first the Indians were timid, and well they might be, though they could hardly have guessed that those three little ships were harbingers of a civilization which was to crush their own.”53 Fish’s statement about Columbus’ landing alludes to the connection between Columbus and the eventual decimation of Native American tribes throughout the Americas. While the connection is not blatant, it certainly detracts from the glorious Columbus legacy.
Columbus Day and the Knights of Columbus
Celebrating Columbus’ first landing in the Americas was a common practice in some cities and states long before the date being officially declared a state holiday. It is believed that the earliest celebration of Columbus Day was held by the New York Columbian Order on October
12, 1792 to commemorate the 300-year anniversary of the landing.54 Colorado became the first state to officially declare Columbus Day a state holiday in 1905 and interestingly enough,
51 Harold Underwood Faulkner and Tyler Kepner, America: Its History and People (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers), 6. 52 Faulkner, America its History, 7. 53 Carl Russell Fish and Howard E. Wilson, History of the United States (New York: American Book Company, 1934), 12. 54 Rebecca Coleman, “The Timeline History of Celebrating (and Not Celebrating) Columbus Day,” last modified October 10, 2016, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/timeline-history-celebrating-and-not-celebrating- columbus-day-180960736/. 41
Denver, Colorado is now one of many cities that choose to observe Indigenous People’s Day rather than Columbus Day. It would not be until 1934 that the House of Representatives would officially request that President Roosevelt declare Columbus Day a federal holiday. On April 30,
1934, during the 73rd Congress, the House approved House Joint Resolution 10 which states:
“Requesting the President to proclaim October 12 as Columbus Day for the observance of the anniversary of the discovery of America.”55 Though this proposal was put forward in 1934 the observance of Columbus Day as a national holiday was not officially announced by President
Roosevelt until 1937. An article from The New York Times on September 23rd stated that the
President made the proclamation the previous day, which officially made October 12th Columbus
Day across the nation.56 This announcement by President Roosevelt served to not only further the glorification of Columbus but to make Columbus Day an “American” holiday which celebrates Columbus for exhibiting the values and characteristics prized by Americans.
One of the primary driving forces behind the establishment of a federal holiday in honor of
Columbus was the Catholic organization known as the Knights of Columbus (KoC). The organization was founded in 1882 by Father Michael J. McGivney in the town of New Haven
Connecticut. The fraternity arose out of interactions between Father McGivney and Irish-
American patrons of his church, who believed they needed to create a strong fraternal bond within the Catholic community. Christopher Kauffman explains the significance of choosing
Columbus as the patron of the fraternity in Columbianism and the Knights of Columbus. “The choice of the name “Knights of Columbus” was profoundly significant. By taking Columbus as their patron, this small group of Irish-American Catholics displayed their pride in America’s
Catholic heritage. The very name Columbus evoked the aura of Catholicity and affirmed the
55 H.R. 10, 73rd Cong. (1934). 56 “Proclaims Columbus Day,” New York Times, September 23, 1937, 29. 42 discovery of America as a Catholic event.”57 Over the following years, the KoC would use their influence to further the glorification of Columbus’ heroic legacy.
As the Knights of Columbus grew in numbers and strength across the nation they began to lobby for the establishment of a monument to Columbus in the nation’s capital. With Colorado becoming the first state to recognize Columbus Day as a state holiday in 1906, the KoC began lobbying Congress for a Columbus monument. The purpose behind this push from the Knights was to spread the ideals of Columbianism and gain recognition for the contributions of Catholics to the formation of the country. Patrick Scalisi’s, “The Admiral’s Memorial”, which is featured on the Knights of Columbus website, explains the purpose of the memorial and the motives behind the KoC’s lobbying efforts.
The Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain has stood for the past century as a tribute to the ingenuity and perseverance that led to the discovery of the New World…For years, the Order had pushed for increased recognition of its patron. Knights lobbied for Columbus day to be adopted as a national holiday…A primary goal of these initiatives was to combat anti-Catholic sentiment by highlighting the contribution that Catholics had made to the discovery of the New World.58
Efforts by the KoC paid off quickly as the bill that was introduced in January of 1906, H.R.
13304, was signed into law by President Taft in 1907. The bill called for the creation of “A suitable memorial to the memory of Christopher Columbus…for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated.”59 Not only did the Knights of Columbus achieve their goal of a monument dedicated to Columbus in the nation’s capital, the bill also established a commission in charge of choosing the location, design, and oversight of construction of the monument. On
57 Christopher Kauffman, Columbianism and the Knights of Columbus: A Quincentenary History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 23. 58 Patrick Scalisi, “The Admiral’s Memorial,” last modified May 24, 2012, http://www.kofc.org/en/columbia/detail/2012_06_columbus_memorial.html. 59 An Act To provide a suitable memorial to the memory of Christopher Columbus, Pub. L. No. 267, 2932 (1907). 43 this commission was the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus at the time, Edward
Hearn, giving the Knights direct influence over the construction of the monument. When the monument was completed the unveiling ceremony on June 8, 1912 was designed to be an amazing spectacle. An article in The New York Times a week before the unveiling describes what the Knights of Columbus had planned for the ceremony.
The Knights of Columbus, who have charge of the unveiling ceremonies. The civic bodies of the capital, and all in official life who have had any part in the matter, have combined to make the unveiling an event second only to the inauguration of a President. It is estimated that 150,000 spectators and participants in the ceremonies will be gathered in Washington for the final presentation of the statue to the people of the city and Nation.60
To expect a crowd comparable to a presidential inauguration at the unveiling of a memorial to
Christopher Columbus is bold and whether this estimate was accurate or not is unclear. The picture on the next page shows that regardless of how many people actually attended, the ceremony was quite the spectacle.
60“Splendid Columbus Memorial to be Unveiled in Washington on Saturday,” New York Times, June 2, 1912, SM 11. 44
Figure 3. Columbus Memorial Unveiling Source: Harris and Ewing, Columbus Memorial Unveiling, General View61
The decision to declare a national holiday to commemorate the first voyage of Columbus to the Americas served the purpose of not only celebrating his life but to reinforce patriotic values and emotions in the people. The push for Columbus Day to become a national holiday really began with the Knights of Columbus as they were looking to combat anti-Catholic sentiment in the United States during the early twentieth century. According to Kauffman, “The K. of C. promotion of a national celebration of Columbus Day on October 12, which began in Colorado with the governor’s proclamation of Columbus Day, had reached national proportions by 1912,
61 Harris and Ewing, Columbus Memorial Unveiling, General View, Photograph, Washington D.C.: Harris & Ewing, From Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/hec2008000779/. 45 with thirty states following Colorado’s lead.”62 Lobbying by the KoC spread across the nation and culminated in the proclamation of Columbus Day as a federal holiday by President
Roosevelt in 1937. As the mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia put it during the celebration of Columbus Day in 1935: “Columbus’ mission was not one of conquest by a military force but of discovery by scientific means. There was established here the greatest free government in history.”63 La Guardia, an Italian-American, connects Columbus directly to the foundation of the United States thus elevating him to the level of the other founders in the minds of the people. The concept of looking to the life of Christopher Columbus for inspiration on the meaning of being an American was common for this time. President Roosevelt made a very compelling statement on Columbus Day in 1940, a time where the future of the world was uncertain due to World War II. Roosevelt states: “This year when we contemplate the estate to which the world has been brought by the destructive forces with lawlessness and wanton power ravaging an older civilization, and with our own republic girding itself for the defense of its institutions, we can revitalize our faith and renew our courage by a recollection of the triumph of
Columbus after a period of grievous trial.”64 You can feel the passion in this statement from
Roosevelt and how he is using Columbus Day as a call for unity of the American people during a dark period in world history.
The fact that Columbus gets a day every year in the United States devoted entirely to his life and accomplishments is significant praise. When looking at the yearly calendar of the United
States, there are ten total federal holidays each year as established by the federal government.
62 Christopher Kauffman, Faith and Fraternalism: The History of the Knights of Columbus 1882-1982 (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 164. 63 Fiorello la Guardia “Columbus Rallies End in Clash Here,” New York Times, October 13, 1935, N1. 64 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Statement on Columbus Day.,” October 12, 1942, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16177. 46
Out of these ten holidays, eight of them commemorate either a major event or specific groups of people, such as Veterans Day and Memorial Day. The two remaining holidays are specifically devoted to one person and the first one is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January and the second is Columbus Day every October. George Washington used to have his birthday celebrated in the
United States every year but that has since changed to President’s Day, honoring all United
States Presidents. This is a very intriguing distinction between federal holidays. MLK gets his own holiday for being a champion of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and Columbus gets his own holiday for being seen as the “discoverer” of America. This fact about Columbus
Day is very revealing as to just how important Columbus is seen to the foundation of the United
States, despite the rising controversy over Columbus and the continuation of the holiday.
Columbus’ presentation in these textbooks resulted from the celebrations of the 400-year anniversary of Columbus’ apparent discovery of the Americas. Columbus died in obscurity as the true weight of his voyages was still being measured, his legacy would eventually grow to rival that of George Washington and the other founders of the United States. returning to the image which opened this chapter, Columbus holds position among two of the greatest historical figures in United States history. Side by side with Washington, the “founder of our country”,
Lincoln, “the savior of our country”, Columbus stands as the “discoverer of our country” and, chronologically, the first American hero. Washington and Lincoln are possibly the two most well-known presidents in the United States and both hold a spot on Mt. Rushmore. If Rushmore were not reserved for presidents, I would not be surprised to see Columbus’ face on the mountain side today. 47
CHAPTER III. AN AMERICAN HERO: COLUMBUS AS CONFIRMED BY
HISTORIANS, 1939-1962
Columbus Scholarship
The establishment of the “great discoverer” Columbus remained largely intact during the
1940s and 1950s and most scholarly publications and public works maintained the great values which Columbus embodied. This combined with the ever-growing sense of patriotism meant that there was little chance of Columbus’ legacy coming under fire. The 1940s also gave us the
Columbus biography that became the long standing authority of Columbus scholarship. Samuel
Eliot Morison’s two volume work, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, was a blockbuster release in 1942 and since has become an absolute must read and reference for any Columbus scholar. So popular was this book that a review of the biography was published on the front page of the March 1st edition of The New York Times. After a lengthy review, written by Philip Ainsworth Means, highlighting both the good and the bad aspects of the book, Means concludes: “Altogether this is, if not a “definitive,” at least a supremely valuable contribution to the literature on Columbus. It rests not only on a rich marine experience but also on wide knowledge of books and charts.”65
Morison’s book achieved so much acclaim not just for being thoroughly researched, but
Morison’s book is seen as so reliable mainly because it is based off of his own expedition where he retraces the steps and voyages of Columbus, implying to readers that Morison’s work carries more weight than other biographies of Columbus.
Not only is Morison regarded as one of, if not the leading Columbus expert, even in death, he can easily be considered one of Columbus’ top supporter. Morison’s voyages tracing
65 Philip Ainsworth Means, “Columbus and His Four Voyages: Samuel Eliot Morison’s Fine Biography Carries the Tang of the Sea,” review of Admiral of the Ocean Sea A Life of Christopher Columbus, by Samuel Eliot Morison, New York Times, March 1, 1942, 22. 48
Columbus allowed him to essentially become Columbus, giving him a sense that he knew the truth of because he followed Columbus’ path. It is apparent in his book that he does not care much for the opinion of those who disagree with him about Columbus, as he saw his account of
Columbus as being absolute. Means’ review of Morison’s book echoes this assessment:
“Another and less laudable result of Dr. Morison’s seamanship is that he developed an argonautical arrogance toward those of us who are so unfortunate as to lack his marine experience…He merely “snoots” those whose opinions differ from his. He should confront them, debate with them, and if possible confound them with sound arguments.”66 Despite his refusal to engage in the theories of other historians, his biography of Columbus has a clear influence on textbooks used in the years to follow as Admiral of the Ocean Sea and other works by Morison are recommended for further reading in the textbooks themselves.
There is no denying that Morison’s biography on Columbus is extremely detailed, and considering the amount of attention and praise it received upon release, it makes sense for the book to make an impact on the content of textbooks. It is clear that Morison truly looked up to
Columbus as a hero and he likely related to Columbus in many ways based on their mutual love of seafaring. This caused Morison to be very passionate when describing Columbus’ triumphs and very dismissive of his faults. Morison does cover Columbus’ failures as administrator of
Santo Domingo during his second and third voyages to the Americas but he also makes sure to justify these failures throughout his book. Morison argues that when Columbus was arrested at the end of his third voyage he was treated cruelly and unfairly by Francisco Bobadilla, who was sent to bring Columbus back to Spain to stand trial for the terrible conditions in Santo Domingo.
Morison states: “Although nothing can excuse the outrageous proceedings of Bobadilla, it must
66 Means, “Columbus and His Four Voyages,” 1. 49 be admitted that Columbus as governor of a colony had been a failure. He had been weak when he should have been firm and ruthless at the wrong time.”67 Morison describes Columbus’ failure in his account but he is quick to shift the blame for these faults to others rather than Columbus himself. In addressing Columbus’ failures as an administrator, Morison claims that “If Columbus was a failure as a colonial administrator, it was partly because his conception of a colony transcended the desire of his followers to impart, and the capacity of natives to receive, the institutions and culture of Renaissance Europe.”68 Morison implies with this statement that
Columbus was simply ahead of everyone around him and therefore was not accepted by his contemporaries and he is even so bold as to blame the natives for not being more open to
“receive” European culture as their own.
Though Morison’s publication is the clear highlight of Columbus works during the 1940s and 1950s several other publications still stand out and must be included for review. There is one specific biography of Columbus that sticks out most to me, even more than Morison’s, not because it was very popular, but because of how it presents Columbus. Charles Duff’s The Truth
About Columbus and the Discovery of America. Published in 1936, this book is a very important piece of scholarship because it could be seen as being out of its timeframe. Duff’s book, though still containing many positive portrayals of the life of Columbus, is the earliest example I have found that fleshes out the dark side of Columbus’ life and actions in great detail as well as other arguments that would be considered revisionist portrayals of Columbus and the European discovery of the Americas. Even more interesting, Duff opens his book with a section on
America before Columbus and discusses the theories on travelers from Europe reaching the
67 Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1942), 571. 68 Morison, Admiral, 670. 50
Americas. Duff argues that the Viking voyages are verifiable as fact, stating that “There is no longer any doubt about those astounding voyages and discoveries of the Norsemen. They are not only recorded with circumstantial detail in the Flatey Book, but they are fully confirmed in other writings of the period.”69 Duff’s credit to the Vikings as the first Europeans to reach the
Americas is reflected in the textbooks that come after his book, but unlike the textbooks, Duff gives credit where credit is due and acknowledges them as a magnificent achievement, regardless of what followed.
An important detail of Columbus’ voyages to the Americas, which the broader public was unaware of until the end of the twentieth century, is his contribution to the enslavement of the
Native Americans he encountered. Duff makes a special note of this aspect in his book, devoting an entire section of his discussion on Columbus’ second voyage to the tribute system established by Columbus. During the second voyages, Columbus led a massive fleet to colonize the lands he had reached in the previous voyage. After establishing the colony at Santo Domingo, Columbus set out to find any valuables that could be taken back to Spain, particularly gold. To his dismay,
Columbus realized that gold was not easily found and he became desperate. As Duff explains:
in a frantic desire to collect gold, the Admiral decided to levy a tribute of gold dust on every adult native in the island…The payment of this tribute was used to discipline, train and Christianize the natives…The harmless and gentle Indians, whose life had hitherto been like the life of the flowers and the birds, were turned into a race of forced labourers; until finally they faded away and disappeared - victims of European greed and exploitation.70
To see a direct connection between Columbus and slavery before the wave of criticisms at the end of the twentieth century was almost unheard of, even Morison only lightly touches on this topic and ends up brushing it aside in favor of Columbus’ glorious legacy. Despite this inclusion,
Duff still ends his account of Columbus’ life in an honorific tone. According to Duff, Columbus
69 Charles Duff, The Truth About Columbus and the Discovery of America (New York: Random House, 1936), 6. 70 Duff, The Truth, 198-199. 51 was wronged with Amerigo Vespucci being credited with naming the Americas and he states that
“The real discoverer was dead and forgotten. It was a final stroke of irony on the part of Fate to rob Christopher Columbus of the honour of having the New World called after him.”71 This method of honoring Columbus above all others who may or may not have reached the Americas before him, despite his many faults, remained a very common theme by historians of this era.
Another historical publication which, like Morison’s, received public attention was Salvador
De Madariaga’s, Christopher Columbus: Being the Life of the Very Magnificent Lord Don
Cristobal Colon. One reviewer praised the Columbus biography as illuminating, stating: “Rarely in these days so over-supplied with gaudy, fictionalized histories does one encounter a recently written masterpiece of historical writing in the grand manner of earlier and more intellectual periods. In this book, however, we have precisely such a masterpiece.”72 Madariaga’s book is unique for this time in that he makes a claim that has not been made before this point. He claims that the Columbus family was of Spanish-Jewish origins rather than the common Italian-Catholic origin which has dominated the landscape of the Columbus narrative. In his review of the monograph, Means says that Madariaga supports his claims with strong evidence suggesting that
Columbus’ family migrated to Genoa around 1391 and converted from Judaism to Catholicism.73
While Means suggests that Madariaga’s claims may have some merit and warrant debate, others do not think so. Morison also wrote a review of the book and he slams Madariaga’s argument as having no concrete evidence. Morison states that “This brilliant book cannot be accepted as a work of lasting value or even as a contribution to our knowledge of Columbus…The book is
71 Duff, The Truth, 274. 72 Philip Ainsworth Means, “Madariaga’s Life of Columbus: His Illuminating Biography Is a Masterpiece of Historical Writing,” review of Christopher Columbus: Being the Life of the Very Magnificent Lord Don Cristòbal Colòn, by Salvador De Madariaga, New York Times, January 28, 1940, BR1. 73 Means, “Madariaga’s,” BR1. 52 written in a racy style, with commendable fire and spirit, and gives an interesting analysis of
Columbus’ character. But it is essentially a clever piece of special pleading, not a life of
Columbus.”74 Morison’s review is based entirely on the claim made by Madariaga about
Columbus’ origins rather than his coverage of Columbus’ later life and voyages to the Americas.
In Madariaga’s account, he presents both Columbus’ triumphs and his failures. He describes
Columbus as being born with an insatiable hunger for adventure and describes it as a mark of great souls.75 At the same time, he does not shy away from the darker side of Columbus’ story and points out that Columbus established the earliest form of the encomienda system in the
Americas which distributed Native Americans among colonists in the Spanish colony of Santo
Domingo.76 Though Madariaga presents a more balanced account of Columbus’ actions, he still paints Columbus as an overall great historical figure and his choice of language romanticizes
Columbus’ story and preserves the heroic legacy.
Textbook Analysis
In the years following the formation of Columbus Day as a national holiday, there is a notable shift in the presentation of Columbus in the U.S. history textbooks used in Texas. The textbooks used from 1939 to 1962 continue to spend less space covering Columbus and usually move on after no more than a page or two at most, continuing the pattern set with textbooks used from 1929 to 1939. Most of the textbooks focus their attention on the glorification of Columbus, focusing on positive attributes such as his faith, courage, and persistence, rather than the actual voyages he made. When these textbooks do cover the voyages of Columbus, the majority of
74 Samuel Eliot Morison, review of Christopher Columbus: Being the Life of the Very Magnificent Lord Don Critòbal Colòn, by Salvador De Madariaga, American Historical Review 40 (Apr., 1940), 653 and 655. 75 Salvador De Madariaga, Christopher Columbus: Being the Life of the Very Magnificent Lord Don Cristobal Colon (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940), 69. 76 Madariaga, Christopher Columbus, 329. 53 cases focus attention the first voyages of Columbus. After the first voyage is covered, these textbooks either gloss over the next three voyages or do not mention them at all. Finally, these textbooks tend to make a point of giving credit for initial European discovery of the Americas to the Vikings but then discrediting the importance of these voyages. The textbooks credit
Columbus’ voyage as either the “rediscovery” or the “true” discovery of the Americas because it led to permanent settlement. Two potential theories will be explored during the analysis of these textbooks. The first is that coverage of Columbus has continued to dwindle in part because of the establishment of Columbus Day as a national holiday, thus leading authors to believe they do not need to spend extra time covering a story which is already so well known. The second theory is that the discovery of alleged Viking artifacts such as The Kensington Stone, forced the inclusion of Viking expeditions into textbooks but the authors almost unanimously give credit to
Columbus for either the “real” discovery or the “rediscovery” of the Americas.
Before beginning the analysis of the Texas textbooks used from 1939 to 1962, a couple of notes need to be made. Frist, the time frame of 1945 to 1950 is not represented in this study.
Unfortunately, I was unable to acquire the books from that contract period. With that in mind, six textbooks under contract from 1939 to 1945, four from 1950 to 1956, and five from 1956 to 1962 are all represented in this chapter. Another note that needs to be made is that two of the textbooks contracted in the 1950s, Canfield’s The Making of Modern America and Bragdon’s
History of A Free People, were unavailable in the designated edition mentioned in the Texas
Education Agency’s list for the year. To compensate I had to selected versions of these textbooks from the previous edition. Selecting the previous edition of these textbooks should limit the margin of error as changes from year to year tend to be minimal. Considering the increased coverage of Viking voyages in these textbooks, I have added a category to Table 4 that was not 54 used in the textbook analysis from Chapter I. Along with the original categories which were previously used, Table 4 includes a category that designates who the textbooks credit with the discovery of the Americas.
Table 4: Textbooks 1939-1945 Textbook/Publication Contract Portrayal Viking Credit for Pages Year Period Expedition Discovery (Columbus) America Its History 1939- Traditional/Positive Yes Vikings 1.06 Pages and People (1938) 1945 Columbus (RD)77 The Record of 1939- Traditional/Positive Yes Vikings .5 Pages America 1945 Historic Currents in 1939- Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus .45 Pages Changing America 1945 (1938) The Development of 1939- Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus .62 Pages America (1938) 1945 Story of America 1941- Traditional/Positive No Columbus .95 Pages (1941) 1945 Note: All textbooks in this set were assigned to tenth and eleventh grade classrooms.
Before detailing the changes made in the chosen textbooks shown in Table 4, it is important to outline what similarities are present between these textbooks and the textbooks examined in
Chapter I. The most important characteristic that has carried over to these textbooks is the traditional/positive classification for the portrayal of Columbus, and all five of these textbooks adhere to this portrayal. The presence of the Viking expedition has remained consistent though coverage of the Vikings has not yet become unanimous in these textbooks as Story of America skips over their voyages. Another trend which has continued is the decreasing amount of coverage for Columbus in the textbooks. In Chapter I, there were examples of Columbus being covered for ten pages and from there the amount of coverage began to dwindle though seven of the thirteen textbooks from Chapter I maintained coverage of over three pages. Table 4 shows
77 “(RD)” as seen in the table stands for “Rediscovered”, which credits Columbus with the “rediscovery” of America while acknowledging that Vikings reached the Americas long before Columbus. “(RD)” appears several more times in future tables, the meaning is the same. 55 that coverage of Columbus has drastically dropped and of the six textbooks used, only America its History and People actually goes over a page in coverage. The two most important points of examination for these textbooks is how the authors increase the coverage of the Viking voyages and decrease coverage of Columbus.
Mention of the Viking voyages from the textbooks examined in Chapter I provided a limited look into the Viking settlements in the tenth and eleventh centuries. In most cases this did not change with the textbooks featured in Table 4 and only three of the five textbooks cover the
Vikings. Coverage of the Viking voyages is still rather limited in most cases with two of the three textbooks covering the Vikings limiting their coverage to a few lines or one paragraph, The
Record of America being the exception which spends a little over a page covering the Vikings.
Notice in Table 4 that both, Faulkner’s America Its History and People and Adams’ The Record of America, give credit for the discovery of the Americas to the Vikings. While these two textbooks credit the Vikings with the initial European discovery of the Americas, they immediately diminish the significance of these events and overshadow them with Columbus.
Faulkner explains the difference between Columbus and the Vikings by stating, “In reality he
[Columbus] won eternal fame for opening to settlement a new world. Strictly speaking,
Columbus simple rediscovered America. As early as the ninth century the Norsemen had colonized Greenland, and it appears that Leif Ericson about 1000 sailed from Iceland and landed on the coast of North America.”78 While Faulkner overshadows the achievements of the Vikings with the glory of Columbus James Adams goes even further in The Record of America. Adams goes into much more detail on the Viking expeditions than has been seen to this point. He cites specific archeological evidence that suggests the Vikings did indeed land in the Americas long
78 Harold Underwood Faulkner and Tyler Kepner, America: Its History and People (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1938), 7. 56 before Columbus. Adams talks about The Kensington Stone, which was found in 1898 in
Minnesota, and “The inscription indicates that the point where it was found marks the southern limit of an expedition of Norsemen who came overland from Hudson’s Bay in 1362.”79 Today, the authenticity of this tablet is highly debated and many believe it is a forgery, at the time however Adams appears to have believed in its authenticity. Despite his discussion of the Viking expedition, he still opens the chapter with the statement: “Our history is about four hundred years old. Our history, unlike the records of the great powers of the Old World begins with marked abruptness.”80 This statement is baffling as it refuses to acknowledge anything before Columbus as “our” history. Adams closes his section on the Vikings by completely discrediting the voyages of the Vikings as having any real significance. “The summing up of the evidence in 1935 would seem to give this record the best claim to being the earliest monument of white men in our country. These Norse voyages apparently had nothing to do with the later authentic discoveries.”81 Those last two words may seem insignificant but it instantly shifts all credit and glory to the voyages of later Europeans, especially Columbus who is covered on the following page of the textbook.
If one phrase could describe what these textbook authors had done to the representation of
Columbus and his glorification it would be “doing more with less.” As previously noted, the amount of Coverage devoted to Columbus drops significantly during this contract period. At first glance this may appear to show a decline in Columbus’ prominence in U.S. history, upon close examination however, changes in the public sphere allowed authors to gloss over Columbus and still maintain his glorified image. Honestly, it is a stroke of genius, by reducing the amount of
79 James Truslow Adams and Charles Garrett Vannest, The Record of America (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937), 24. 80 Adams, Record of America, 23. 81 Adams, Record of America, 24. 57 coverage on Columbus, his legacy is preserved in the educational field. This was made possible by the establishment of Columbus Day as a national holiday in 1937. Recognizing Columbus with his own federal holiday cements him as not only a national hero, but the first American hero in the historical timeline. A link can be seen between the recognition of Columbus Day and this approach by textbook authors as the accounts of Columbus in textbooks spend the majority of their time on his origins and his lobbying for support of his voyages, rather than the voyages themselves. An excellent example of this approach and the first instance where I see Columbus
Day as part of the school curriculum, comes from Harry Carman’s Historic Currents in
Changing America. Columbus is covered in roughly half a page in this textbook but the chosen key points reveal much about what was considered important in the story of Columbus. The message sent by Carman is that Columbus possessed an indomitable will that persisted in the face of incredible odds. When it comes time to actually cover Columbus’ voyages however,
Carman sees seven lines of text as being a sufficient record. It is here where Carman uses
Columbus Day to cover Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas. Carman states that: “Columbus
Day, October 12, the anniversary of his landing on the island of San Salvador in the West Indies in 1492, commemorates his faith and courage.”82 There are two important factors to take away from this statement. The first is that the textbook is telling the students that Columbus Day is celebrated because of the first voyage and this celebration will tell them all they need to know about Columbus. The second is implying that Columbus Day celebrates Columbus’ faith and courage, in other words his upstanding moral character, which props up Columbus as a man to admire and look up to. As I discussed earlier, these textbooks began to shift the reason why
Columbus is celebrated away from him as the discoverer of America and more towards honoring
82 Harry J. Carman, William G. Kimmel and Mabel G. Walker, Historic Currents in Changing America (Chicago: The John C. Winston Company, 1938), 6. 58 him as a national hero who embodied the values of America. The shifting Columbus narrative in textbooks is even more prevalent in the textbooks analyzed from the 1950s.
As is well known, the United States in the 1950s is a time where patriotism is embedded in everyday life. With the battle against communism and the emphasis placed on good old
American family values, people were expected to be proud of the nation and its heroes. These ideas were made a part of school curriculum in the state of Texas and textbooks began to reflect the purpose of being an American citizen. David Muzzey’s letter to high school students in the opening of his 1950 textbook, A History of our Country, explains the purpose of his textbook:
This is your book, written to help you to understand your America better, in order that you may be better equipped to perform your duties as American citizens…above all, to increase your patriotism by inspiring in each of you the desire and determination to do your part to make your “patria” a fatherland more worthy of reverence and love of its generations of sons and daughters to come.83
Messages such as Muzzey’s that open proclaiming the greatness of the United States and the purpose of these textbooks are found in many of the textbooks used during the 1950s. Table 5 shows the textbooks used in Texas for the contract periods of 1950 to 1956 and 1956 to 1962, notice that Columbus is given credit for the discovery of America in every textbook reviewed.
Also, coverage of Columbus has risen slightly to between one and two pages and there are two examples of revisionist/negative portrayal aspects of Columbus’ story.
83 David Saville Muzzey, A History of Our Country (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1950), ix. 59
Table 5: Textbooks 1950-1962 Textbook Portrayal Viking Credit for Pages Publication Year Expedition Discovery (Columbus) Contract Period A History of Our Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus 2.3 Pages Country (1950) Revisionist/Negative 1950-1956 The Making of Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus 1 Page Modern America (1950) 1950-1956 Our Own United Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus 1.8 Pages States (1948) 1950-1956 Our Nation (1949) Traditional No Columbus 1.8 Pages 1950-1956 Our Nation’s Story Traditional/Positive Yes Vikings .9 Pages (1954) Columbus 1956-1962 The Making of Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus 1.01 Pages Modern America (1952) 1956-1962 History of a Free Neutral No Columbus .08 Pages People (1954) 1956-1962 A History of Our Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus 2.3 Pages Country (1955) Revisionist/Negative 1956-1962 United States History Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus 1 Page (1955) 1956-1962 Note: All textbooks contracted for eleventh and twelfth grade classrooms.
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Columbus’ heroic legacy was probably strongest during this time. The 1940s marked the arrival of Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea, which glorifies nearly every aspect of Columbus’ life, cementing him even further as an American icon. The 1950s represented a period of reinforced patriotism and belief in the ideals of freedom, faith, and courage, possession of all of which would be needed to defeat communism, and characteristics all associated with Columbus and the founders of the United States. The universal response by textbooks used in Texas to the question of who deserves credit for the discovery of the Americas also reveals a great deal about the importance of Columbus as an American icon. Every textbook sided with Columbus as either the true discoverer or the “rediscoverer” of the Americas rather than the Vikings. Though some admitted the Vikings reached the Americas before Columbus, Columbus remains the one deserving of such an honor as the discovery of a continent. Even the acknowledgement of
Columbus’ faults, especially during his time as regional governor of Hispaniola, could not greatly damage the first American hero. Morison specifically, showed that the negative aspects of Columbus’ life and voyages hold no bearing on his overall greatness. Today, Columbus’ faults are front and center in the scholarly debate and the public eye. During Columbus’ golden age however, it did not matter that Columbus was responsible for the death and enslavement of thousands of Native Americans, he discovered the Americas and without him we would not be who we are today. This attitude allowed Columbus’ dark side to be continually swept under the rug in favor of his patriotic and exceptionally American image. The golden age of Columbus’ legacy, could not last forever, and as the Civil Rights movement emerged, the Columbian legacy would find itself facing new challenges to overcome. Challenges that would not disappear and in time would begin to break down the heroic image of Columbus.
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CHAPTER IV. QUESTIONING THE COLUMBUS RELIGION: THE IMPACT OF THE
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ON THE COLUMBIAN LEGACY, 1962-1984
Many changes and new revelations made themselves apparent during the 1960s and 1970s which began the slow process of breaking down the traditional and glorified Columbus narrative.
Columbus’ legacy played a prominent role in many events during this era, some positive, and some negative. The lasting impact of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States inspired other minority groups to push for equality rights of their own. From this struggle arose the
American Indian Movement, which would protest the glorified image of Columbus as an insult to their heritage and even going as far to lay claim to Alcatraz Island in 1969 claiming the “right of discovery” as Columbus had done during his time. While these actions by Native Americans gained significant media attention, little change was made on textbook representations of
Columbus.
Before the arrival of the American Indian Movement (AIM), new archaeological discoveries brought solid proof of European explorers in the Americas before Columbus with the revelation of the Viking Vinland Map as well as the discovery of the L’Anse aux Meadows Viking settlement in Newfoundland. These discoveries cemented the long held belief that Columbus was not the first European to reach the Americas but many textbooks continue to reassert Columbus’ rediscovery of the Americas. While organizations such as the AIM were criticizing the
Columbian legacy, Columbus’ story was being used to prop up the American space program in their bid to reach the moon. Columbus’ voyages were seen as inspirations for the lunar programs.
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American Indian Movement
During the late 1950s and 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement swept across the nation as
African American communities rose up to fight for equality rights, which they had been denied for so long with various segregation and discrimination policies. The Civil Rights Movement has become a staple in American history but African American protests were not the only newsworthy gatherings of the day. Native American groups also arose during this time and eventually led to the formation of the American Indian Movement in 1968. One of the most pressing points of complaint from these groups, aside from equality rights, is contention over the legacy and celebration of Columbus as the discoverer of the Americas. Several occurrences of
Columbus Day protests and defamation of Columbus monuments can be found in newspaper coverage spanning the 1960s and 1970s.
With the many holidays commemorating the beginning of the United States, a proposal was made in 1960 to establish a holiday devoted to Native Americans. Where did this proposal come from? Surprisingly, the idea to establish an American Indian Day came from a seven-year-old girl in New York City named Lynn Michaelson. She wrote to Republican senator Jacob Javits asking why we celebrate Columbus Day and Washington’s birthday, but not the American
Indians. Javits, along with forty-three other senators came forward to make the proposal to
Congress in 1961. Javits is quoted as saying, “The American Indian is the original American…he has made an indelible imprint on our national character and culture, and history is replete with names and deeds of many outstanding American Indians who have contributed immeasurably to our way of life, our moral standards, and our love of nature.”84 This sounds like a heartwarming story exhibiting the power the words of a young girl can have on Congress, but, oddly enough
84 “Child Stirs Senate,” Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 18, 1961, 6A. 63 the same story crops up in newspapers three years later in 1964. It appears that despite the strong push for the establishment of American Indian Day by forty-four US senators, the legislation never got through and no such holiday was established. I found it interesting that I was unable to find a newspaper article confirming the proposal had either been shut down or approved. When searching for a national holiday observing Native Americans, it is not until 2004 that National
American Heritage Day is established by President George W. Bush.
The Civil Rights Movement caused a major shift nationwide in the fight for equality rights for all African Americans. In the wake of this movement, the Native American Red Power movement made similar attempts at making their voices heard, though this movement was much smaller. The main drive behind this movement was to bring to the forefront of American thought, the plight that Native Americans have faced since the arrival of Europeans, their land taken away, millions dead, and continued existence in a state of harsh conditions and terrible poverty. An article by Peter Benchley opens with tackling the position on who actually discovered America:
Who discovered America? If you’re a middle-class white citizen of the U.S., you’ll probably come up with some name out of the traditional history texts like Christopher Columbus or Leif Ericsson. But this country was not discovered in the 11th or 15th century by white Europeans. It was discovered 20,000 years ago by Asiatic nomads who became its first citizens- and the ancestors of our American Indians.85
Establishing this message as Native Americans being the true discoverers of the Americas and the rightful owners of the land was a staple for the movement and is exhibited at the end of the article as well. When taking a poll on Native Americans’ opinion on the Vietnam war the results were likely unique compared to other samples: “Fifteen percent replied that U.S. should get out
85 Peter Benchley, “Red Power: Although Indians Have Long Way To Go Before Catching Blacks, New Militancy Erupts,” Anderson Herald, November 27, 1969, 13. 64 of Vietnam: the other 85 percent stated that the U.S. should get out of America.”86 I must say that this poll made me chuckle but it is very revealing on the attitudes of the movement. Based on this information, members of the Red Power movement saw the Vietnam war as another invasion by a foreign power seeking to control land that was not theirs, something their people have experienced for the last five hundred years. Understandably, Columbus became a common target of the movement in order to spread their message, using one of the United States’ most popular heroes.
Just as most citizens of the United States see the arrival of Columbus as the beginning of
American history, so do Native Americans see the arrival of Columbus as the decimation of theirs. At the annual Columbus Day parade in New York City in 1970, the Red Power movement made its mark by vandalizing the statue of Columbus in Columbus circle. The New York Times reported: “Earlier in the day the sponsors of the parade were disturbed when they found the
Christopher Columbus memorial statue at Columbus circle had been defaced by red paint and pro-Indian slogans on the base. Some of the slogans read: ‘Red Power,’ ‘Indian Alcatraz’ and
‘Indians Discovered America.’”87 This story made national news considering the Columbus Day
Parade, held annually in New York is among the largest celebrations of Columbus in the nation, receiving mixed reactions from other news reports. An article by the Associated Press, which was reprinted in a local Texas newspaper, had some choice words for those who vandalized the
Columbus statue. “Maybe Columbus would have second thoughts about finding America if he had been treated 488 years ago the way he was treated this year. In New York mutineers slunk across Columbus circle in the middle of the night, hopped through the fountain and climbed a
86 Benchley, “Red Power,” 13. 87 Martin Gansberg, “5th Avenue Columbus Parade Draws crowds and Candidates,” New York Times, October 13, 1970, 37. 65 base supporting a statue of the far-gazing Italian explorer.”88 The opening statement of this article alone shows the admiration for Columbus felt by many in the United States, and the article goes on to outline other Columbus Day celebrations across the country. The Red Power movement did not limit itself to minor acts of vandalism when making their voices heard, and in
November of 1969, the movement made a very bold move.
In 1969, a group of Native Americans led by Adam Nordwall landed on Alcatraz Island in
San Francisco and laid claim to the abandoned prison. This event became the source for the slogan “Indian Alcatraz” and according to a brief piece in The New York Times, “89 American
Indians occupied Alcatraz…which they say is theirs ‘by right of discovery.’ A spokesman for the
American Indian Center here said today that the group planned to stay on Alcatraz to set up a center for Native American studies.”89 The occupation of Alcatraz lasted until 1971 when the federal government forcibly removed the remining occupiers and transferred control of the site to the to the National Park System. This event was an ironic switch-reverse as the United States found one of its occupied lands claimed by the Native Americans by emulating Columbus’ “right of discovery”. Leader of the occupation, Adam Nordwall, would make headlines again two years later when he paid a visit to Italy. An article in the Post Star and Times describes his visit:
“Lucky Eagle [Nordwall]…set foot on Italian soil, rested his spear on the tarmac and stated: ‘In the name of the Indian people I claim the right of discovery and take possession of this land. I proclaim Sept. 24 the Discovery of Italy Day.’”90 Examples such as these by Nordwall exhibit how the Red Power movement sought to spin the perspective of the Columbus narrative by showing people what Native Americans thought about being “discovered”.
88 “Indian Power Protesters Discover Columbus Day,” Associated Press in Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, October 12, 1970, 1. 89 “Indian Group Stakes A Claim to Alcatraz,” New York Times November 21, 1969, 49. 90 “Italy Claimed by Indian Chief,” in Post Star and Times September 25, 1973, 3. 66
Columbus & The Space Race
While Columbus’ legacy was under fire from organizations such as the American Indian
Movement, the United States was in the middle of the space race and the mission to the Moon, as set forth by President Kennedy. Part of the strategy of selling the American people on the expense of going to the Moon was to use Columbus’ legacy as inspiration for their actions.
When President Kennedy was giving his famous “Urgent National Needs” speech at Rice
University, he states:
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people… Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war.91
Although not directly stated, Kennedy clearly alludes to Columbus’ voyages to the Americas and gives the message that America would now follow in the footsteps of Columbus. More interesting still, is learning that Kennedy was a member of the Knights of Columbus which explains his use of Columbus’ legacy in his speech. President Kennedy also honored Columbus in a way not previously seen by presidents During the Columbus Day celebrations in 1962 he became the first president to lead the Columbus Day parade in New York City, where thousands gathered to watch him lead the five hour long procession.92
Throughout the 1960s, the work of NASA astronauts were often compared to the voyages and ambitions of Columbus. An article in the New York Times describes the differences between these two great ventures by comparing the men who sailed with Columbus to the astronauts of today. “This change in the character of the explorers – from the dregs to the elite – tells much
91 John F. Kennedy, “Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs,” May 25, 1961, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8151. 92 “Thousands Hail Kennedy in Columbus Parade,” New York Times, October 13, 1962, 9. 67 about the immensely greater complexity of modern-day exploration. It also points up the fact that man today is being driven to explore “new worlds” by far different motivations than those which led him nearly 500 years ago to the new world of America.”93 Drawing parallels between
Columbus’ voyages and the modern-day NASA astronauts inspired Americans to support the space race through the spirit of Columbus.
Vinland Map & Newfoundland Settlement
The 1960s were a time where the voyages of the Vikings in the early eleventh century were receiving more attention than usual. This new attention was the result of the discovery of the
Vinland Map in 1957 and the discovery of a Viking settlement in Newfoundland in 1960. This site is considered concrete evidence to prove the claim that Vikings settled in the Americas long before Columbus’ voyages. Although the origin of Vinland Map is still a topic of debate today, its discovery caused quite the stir when Yale University announced the document to the public shortly before Columbus Day in 1965. One of the initial controversies regarding the implications of the Vinland map came from Columbus supporters seeing the constant coverage of this map as diminishing the impact of Columbus’ voyages. Never one to shy away making his voice heard,
Morison gives his opinion on the Vinland Map in a book review he wrote of The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation. Morison makes his opinion on the publicity of the map clear in this review, stating:
93 John W. Finney, “Astronauts – Adventurers of Space, Elite of Their Age,” New York Times, October 8, 1961, M6. 68
It is a good thing for scholars to share their special skills and knowledge with the public; but the publicity material on this book, cannily issued by Yale University Press at the approach of Columbus Day…has gravely distorted what the manuscript tells us and is unworthy of a sound, scholarly production. The “Vinland Map” has been played as a discovery of a fact generally known since 1837: that Norsemen reached some part of America around the year 1000. It has been used as a stick to beat down the reputation of Columbus and consequently called forth loud roars from Italian-American groups and sarcastic articles in European journals.94
Morison asserts in his review that the discovery of this map does not drastically change what we already knew about the Viking voyages. He is sure to mention several times throughout his review that we have accepted the knowledge that the Vikings landed in the Americas for over a hundred years. Towards the end of his review, Morison points out who the real discovers of
America were. “Everyone seems to have forgotten that the real discovers of America were the
Indians who, tens of thousands of years before the Norsemen paid their brief visits, had spread throughout the continent and established at least three great civilizations.”95 Morison gives credit to the Native Americans in this statement but he also calls the Viking voyages the first discovery of America and makes a point of not diminishing the greatness of Columbus’ voyages, which shows the underlying theme of his review, being to not forget how important Columbus is.
In 1960, archeologists uncovered the remains of a Viking settlement in L’Anse aux
Meadows, Newfoundland, dating back almost a thousand years. News of this revelation was shocking as it has been viewed as the first example of irrefutable evidence that the Vikings were in North America 500 years before Columbus’ voyages at the end of the fifteenth century.96 Even before the discovery of this settlement, historians had long agreed beforehand that the Vikings had reached the Americas before Columbus, it was just unclear where and when they landed as
94 Samuel Eliot Morison, “It all Boils Down to What We Knew Before,” New York Times, November 7, 1965, 7. 95 Morison, “What We Knew,” 92. 96 Nan Robertson, “Viking Ruins Found in North Newfoundland,” New York Times, November 6, 1963, 1. 69 well as what sort of success they had in establishing a settlement. With the revelation of the
L’Anse aux Meadows settlement and the Vinland Map, the presence of the Viking voyages became near constant in the U.S. history textbooks. Before this time, many textbooks chose to cover the Vikings but nearly as many also left the Vikings out of their historical account. The fact that textbooks from about 1960 onwards almost universally cover the Viking voyages, shows that textbooks do adapt to at least some changes in the historical debate.
Textbook Analysis
Considering the changes in public knowledge surrounding the settling of the Americas with the revelation of the Vinland Map and the discovery of the Viking settlement in Newfoundland, points of analysis for the textbooks in this chapter have been adjusted. Textbook analysis has been broken up into two parts for this chapter. Part one will examine the portrayal of Columbus and determining who is given credit for the discovery, and/or, rediscovery of the Americas for textbooks used from 1962 to 1973. Part two compares the coverage of Columbus with the coverage of the Viking voyages in each textbook. This is necessary because as time progresses through the 1960s and 1970s, the Viking coverage becomes much more detailed. During this time a conflict emerges over whether to credit the discovery of the Americas to the Vikings or to
Columbus and it is important to see if this same conflict carries over to the textbooks. Beginning with Table 6, which can be seen on the following page, note to the portrayal of Columbus’ story and who receives credit for the discovery of the Americas.
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Table 6: Textbooks 1962-1973 Textbook/Publication Year Contract Portrayal Viking Credit for Period Expedition Discovery This is Our Nation (1961) 1962- Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus 1968 History of a Free People 1962- Neutral No Columbus (1961) 1968 American History (1961) 1962- Traditional/Positive No Columbus 1968 Rise of the American Nation 1962- Traditional/Positive Yes Vikings (1961) 1968 Revisionist Columbus (RD) The American People, Their 1962- Traditional/Positive Yes Vikings History (1961) 1968 Columbus United States History (1967) 1970- Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus 1973 Revisionist The adventure of the 1970- Traditional Yes Columbus American People (1970) 1973 Note: All textbooks in this set were assigned to high school classrooms.
Table 6 shows that every textbook, aside from Rise of the American Nation and United
States History, still presents the story of Columbus that can be classified as presenting traditional and positive portrayals. Two of the textbooks in this list make a particular connection to the way in which Columbus was used as inspiration for the moon landing during the 1960s. The first example comes from Clarence Ver Steeg’s The American People: Their History, which opens chapter one on the arrival of Europeans in the Americas with a comparison between
“discovering” America and landing on the Moon. “Only man’s landing on the moon will produce such world-shaking results as did Columbus’ discovery touched off one of the great migrations of history. It excited the imagination of European peoples. It opened up spectacular avenues for improving man’s opportunity for a better life. It led to the establishment of a score of nations in the Western Hemisphere, among them the United States of America.”97 Ver Steeg was not the only textbook author to draw comparisons between Columbus and the race to the Moon. Richard
97 Clarence L. Ver Steeg, The American People: Their History, Row (Evanston: Peterson & Company, 1961), 15. 71
Current also devotes time to this in, United States History. Current devotes an entire page towards the end of the textbook comparing Columbus to astronaut John Glenn, quoting Glenn by stating: “Two years after his voyage John Glenn wrote, ‘Like Columbus, it is difficult for anyone to foresee the full benefits of such ventures into the unknown.’ Certainly, if the benefits of the
‘space race’ equal those of the ‘westward route to the Orient,’ the advances of the next 500 years are impossible even to imagine.”98 In addition to this spread comparing Columbus and Glenn, the picture on the next page shows the two men center stage together, implying a direct link between
Italian Columbus and American Glenn.
98 Richard Current, United States History (Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1967), 753. 72
Figure 4. Christopher Columbus and John Glenn Source: Richard Current, United States History99
These connections between Columbus and the NASA astronauts occurred before the actual landing on the Moon and an even early example exists before the creation of NASA. Everett
Augspurger’s, Our Nation’s Story, one of the textbooks from Chapter II, opens with a statement defining the importance of Columbus’ first voyage. “Suppose you were watching television and
99 Richard Current, United States History (Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1967), 753. 73 a voice broke in: ‘We interrupt this broadcast to announce that an American rocket ship has just made a safe landing on the moon’…If this were to happen, you might realize what the discovery of America meant to the world.”100 To see such a statement fifteen years before the Moon landing shows the way in which Columbus was revered in the United States during this time.
Considering the many changes revealed to the historical narrative of early American history, particularly the new discoveries about the Viking voyages, special attention must be paid to the comparison between Columbus and the Vikings as seen in these textbooks. Table 7 compares the level of coverage the two receive and notice how Columbus is given more attention in each textbook than the Vikings.
Table 7: Amount of Coverage: Columbus & Vikings 1962-1973101 Textbook/Publication Year Pages Pages Difference (Columbus) (Vikings) This is Our Nation (1961) 2.7 Pages .59 Pages Columbus 2.1 Pages History of a Free People (1961) .04 Pages 0 Columbus .04 Pages American History (1961) 1.6 Pages 0 Columbus 1.6 Pages Rise of the American Nation (1961) 1.4 Pages .69 Pages Columbus .71 Pages The American People, Their History (1961) 1.4 Pages .78 Pages Columbus .65 Pages United States History (1967) 1.8 Pages .27 Pages Columbus 1.5 Pages The Adventure of the American People 2.4 Pages 27 Pages Columbus (1970) 2.2 Pages
An important change occurs in textbooks during this period and can only be attributed to the new discoveries of the Viking settlement and Vinland Map. Viking voyages to the Americas
100 Everett Augspurger and Richard Aubrey McLemore, Our Nation’s Story (Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers, 1954), 35. 101 Table 7: Note that two textbooks contain a “0” under the Viking category. This is because these two textbooks omit the Viking voyages from the historical record and by this action, Columbus is given full credit for the discovery of America. 74 have now become a part of the traditional narrative of early American history yet textbooks continue to find a way to credit Columbus with discovery of the Americas. The term of
“rediscovery” becomes more and more common in regards to Columbus in future textbooks from this point. One example comes from Lewis Todd and Merle Curti’s, Rise of the American
Nation. Here, in a side section entitled “Columbus was not first”, Columbus is given the glory of discovery of the Americas with the statement: “Other Europeans may also have “discovered” the
New World before Columbus. If so, no written records have remained. In any case, Columbus was not first. It is more nearly correct to say that he “rediscovered” the New World. The important thing is that after Columbus’ great voyage, the Americas stayed discovered.”102 This theme of Columbus’ “discovery” being the crucial one because it led to permanent settlement continues throughout the remaining textbooks in this study. When Columbus is not outright credited with discovery of the Americas, he is credited with its “rediscovery”.
As the 1980s arrive and Columbus revisionism begins to appear, some of the textbooks begin to highlight to darker side of Columbus’ history that had been previously omitted from the historical narrative. Table 8 shows textbooks used in Texas from 1973 to 1984. Notice how representations are becoming more mixed in variety and that a couple of the textbooks include three or four categorical portrayals.
102 Lewis Paul Todd and Merle Curti, Rise of the American Nation (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961), 14. 75
Table 8: Textbooks 1973-1984 Textbook/Publication Contract Portrayal Viking Credit for Year Period Expedition Discovery Quest for Liberty (1971) 1973-1977 Revisionist Yes Native Americans Columbus (RD) Vikings (RD) Foundations of Freedom 1973-1977 Traditional Yes Columbus (1973) (RD) Vikings (RD) The Free and the Brave 1973-1977 Traditional/Positive Yes Unclear (1973) Revisionist Foundations of Freedom 1979-1984 Traditional/Positive Yes Columbus (1977) (RD) Vikings (RD) Rise of the American 1979-1984 Traditional/Positive Yes Native Nation (1977) Americans Columbus Let Freedom Ring (1977) 1979-1984 Traditional/Positive Yes Unclear Call of Freedom (1978) 1979-1984 Traditional/Positive Yes Unclear Revisionist/Negative Note: All textbooks in this set were used in eighth grade classrooms.
Particular attention should be paid to the last textbook in Table 8. Henry Graff’s, Call to
Freedom exhibits aspects of all four analysis categories and represents one of the most balanced representations of Columbus up to this point. Most notable in this textbook’s account of
Columbus is detailed coverage of the three later voyages Columbus made after first reaching the
Americas. For the first time, inclusion of the tribute system imposed by Columbus, is included.
Graff states that “Columbus built more forts in the interior and demanded that every adult
American pay a tax in gold and cotton every three months. The Americans could not possibly meet such unreasonable demands. Actually, there was little gold on the island. When many
Americans fled to the mountains to escape the Spaniards, they were hunted down with dogs.”103
Aside from how damaging this account is to the glorified legacy of Columbus, notice how the
103 Henry Graff and Paul Bohannan, The Call of Freedom (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1978), 68. 76 natives of Hispaniola are referred to as “Americans”, not “Indians”, this shows a drastic departure from tradition in this particular textbook.
Another example of a rising mixture of traditional and revisionist portrayals of Columbus comes from another Graff textbook, The Free and the Brave. Here Graff makes brief mention of
Columbus’ remarks about subjugating the native populaces he encountered but he ends his account of Columbus on a positive note that may cause the reader to forget the brief mention of enslavement. When discussing Columbus’ skill as a navigator, Graff states: “Yet he [Columbus] regarded himself as the greatest explorer who ever lived. Considering his skill as a navigator, his unyielding belief in the idea of an all-water route to the East, and the wide range of his travels, can anyone dispute him?”104 Essentially crediting Columbus with the title of greatest navigator of all time, perpetuates the glorious image of Columbus. What about Ferdinand Magellan, who became the first known explorer to circumnavigate the entire globe just thirty years after
Columbus’ first voyage? It is clear that the winds of change had begun to blow for the legacy of
Columbus as the 1980s arrived. Though still clinging to the glorified legacy which had stood for so long, examples of new interpretations regarding the life and legacy of Columbus began to appear during this time. They would not gain considerable weight for about a decade, but the change was coming.
104 Henry Graff, The Free and the Brave (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1973), 21-22. 77
CHAPTER V. THE GREAT WAR FOR COLUMBUS: SHAKING THE COLUMBUS
MYTHOS TO ITS CORE DURING THE 500-YEAR ANNIVERSARY, 1992-2017
The attitude surrounding the arrival of the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the
Americas could be classified as the polar opposite of the massive celebrations honoring the 400- year anniversary in 1892. Columbus’ heroic façade, which had stood strong for the last hundred years in the United States showed chinks in the armor during the 1980s and 1990s as the more obscure protests from passed decades grew to a crescendo that signaled the debate could no longer be ignored. Revisionist works on Columbus were now as numerous, if not more so than the traditional publications designed to honor Columbus for his achievements. Such a drastic change in attitude towards Columbus would lead one to logically assume that the debate would be widely featured in future textbook publications for students to experience a classic example of how history is a subject to debate and change, rather than set in stone like so many today still believe. Textbook authors however fail to rise to the challenge and meet these expectations, opting to include this debate as a minor footnote, or in some cases, not at all.
The arrival of Columbus revisionists in the 1980s and 1990s represents an essential point of focus for this chapter as it is the single greatest source for works that go against the traditional
Columbus narrative that has dominated the landscape of historical academia and the public sphere for the last one hundred years. From Howard Zinn to Kirkpatrick Sale, these publications start the war for Columbus and if the textbooks refuse to include their side of the Columbus debate, they must be heard here to defend themselves against the traditional narrative.
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Columbus Scholarship
With the explosion of Columbus criticisms published during the 1980s and 1990s, understanding exactly what aspects of Columbus’ life they critique establishes the narrative that opposes the traditional narrative. The best place to begin is with the arguments of Howard Zinn in A People’s History of the United States. Originally published in 1980, this monograph created shockwaves throughout the academic community for its incessant revision of U.S. history. The traditional narrative of Columbus focuses primarily on his early life and the first voyage to the
Americas, while leaving out many concrete details surrounding his second through fourth voyages. Zinn was determined to shine light on these later voyages to show the true motivations for Columbus and his men, which directly contradicts the traditional, glorified narrative. In
Zinn’s description of the second voyage he states: “Because of Columbus’ exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives.”105 This statement must have been like nails on a chalk board to
Columbus traditionalists, as it highlights motives for the voyages that are not honorable and glorious but greedy and brutal. More damning still, Zinn goes on to claim that Columbus set the precedent for the devastation of native populations in the Americas. According to Zinn, “What
Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortés did to the Aztecs of Mexico. Pizarro to the
Incas of Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts to the Powhatans and the
Pequots.”106 If the previous statement was hard to swallow, this one must be even worse. Not only does Zinn attribute the extermination of native civilizations in Central and South America to
Columbus, but also here in the United States as well. Zinn’s book certainly left its mark on the
105 Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 3. 106 Zinn, People’s History, 11. 79 public image of Columbus as can be reflected in an article from the Madison Wisconsin State
Journal in October of 1988. In response to an article written by Columbus supporter Dan Amato the authors state: “(Columbus booster) Dan Amato should go beyond the third-grade textbooks he has been reading and find out the truth. A great place to start would be “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn. Mr. Amato, a statue of “Columbus Taking Possession,” is about as appropriate as a monument of Josef Mengele celebrating healthy babies month.”107
Articles such as this one serve as excellent examples of the impact Zinn’s work made in the academic community, though certainly not the first Columbus critic, Zinn remains one of the loudest voices in the anti-Columbus crowd.
Yet another powerful Columbus critic is Kirkpatrick Sale and his book, The Conquest of
Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy. Sale’s book arrived on the scene during a crucial time in the debate over Columbus’ legacy, being published in 1990. Sale’s main argument revolves around the Columbus encounter in the Americas and subsequent consequences that we as Americans must become aware of and accept as a part of our history.
“he [Columbus] is the figure, who, more than any other, provided the legacy by which European civilization came to dominate the American world for five centuries with consequences, we now realize, involving nothing less than issues of life and death.”108 When it comes to accepting the consequences about the history of the Americas, we must accept some undeniable truths about the impact of Columbus’ voyages to the Americas. There is no doubt that Columbus’ voyages establish permanent connection between the Americas and the rest of the world. According to
Sale however, Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, this is a fact that must be accepted.
107 Philip Watters, “Columbus ‘no great man’,” Madison Wisconsin State Journal, October 17, 1988, 7A. 108 Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy (New York: Plume 1990,) 5. 80
“…Colon did not discover it[America]… Whatever may have been in the Admiral’s mind and the idea of discovery, as we have seen, was only one possibility- we can say with assurance that no such event as “discovery” took place.”109 If anyone can be credited with the discovery of the
Americas, that would be the ancestors of Native Americans that came across the Bering Strait over 20,000 years ago. Based on the current evidence, the Vikings may have been the first
Europeans to reach the Americas, nearly 500 years before Columbus. Columbus, encountered the
Americas, on accident, in 1492 but he did not discover them.
500-Year Anniversary
A lot can happen in one hundred years. There are few examples where this fact is more evident than in the difference between celebrating the 400-year anniversary and celebrating the
500-year anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the United States. What was once a time of near universal admiration of the “Great Admiral” was now a divided moment where some clung to the traditional story of Columbus they learned as kids, and others who challenged and attacked
Columbus for his faults. Columbus Day protests were becoming as numerous as the Columbus
Day parades across the country and the United States faced a new Columbus, one that was very unfamiliar to the one from a hundred years ago.
Three sides become apparent in the great war over Columbus during the time surrounding the 500-year anniversary. Columbus traditionalists, who strove to preserve those familiar stories about the wonderful Christopher Columbus and his discovery of America. Columbus sympathizers, who acknowledge the less glamorous side of Columbus and entertain the debate over who really discovered the Americas, but still believe he should be celebrated. Finally, we have the anti-Columbus groups, who sought to fight against the glorification of Columbus’
109 Sale, Conquest of Paradise, 69. 81 legacy and highlight the atrocities committed during his time in the Americas. All three of these points of view can be heard in a New York Times article covering the annual Columbus Day parade in New York City in 1991. The article talks about the uncertainty surrounding that year’s celebration as new questions have arisen concerning the legacy of Columbus, such as: “Was
Columbus a discoverer or a hype artist? A criminal or a saint? Penniless or rich? The questions just seemed to keep coming. Even those who believe that Columbus deserves credit, not blame, had to acknowledge that one of the fundamental premises of countless history books was suddenly more than a bit shaky.”110 Columbus as a fundamental premise of history books exhibits his importance in the telling of American history, Columbus up until this point has been known as the first American hero in many respects, and now the story of this hero has been challenged. Many statements were taken from people experiencing the Columbus Day parade in
1991, each side of the debate was represented. One Columbus traditionalist stated: “’We’ve been hearing about Columbus since we were in first grade,’ one man said as the parade passed the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. ‘Why do we have to complicate things?’”111 This statement serves as a perfect example of the myth that history never changes so why bother asking questions. The traditional and glorified version of Columbus’ story implants itself into our minds from a young age to the point where most think nothing of it, it is a part of life and does not need to be explored further. The Columbus sympathizers are also heard in this article, one of which happens to have been the mayor of New York City at the time. “Mayor David N. Dinkins said that
‘Native Americans were ill treated, as were African-Americans who came here as slaves.’ But he added: ‘All of that ought not to diminish from the wonderful accomplishment of Christopher
Columbus almost 500 years ago. He is a magnificent achievement and we should let nothing
110James Barron, “What Did Columbus Do To Deserve a Big Parade,” New York Times, October 15, 1991, B1. 111 Barron, “What Did Columbus Do,” B1. 82 diminish that.’”112 This powerful statement coming from the mayor himself bears striking resemblance to some of the textbooks reviewed in this project, concerning acknowledging at least some of Columbus’ faults but never failing to provide justification for celebrating his landing in the Americas. Finally, the anti-Columbus crowd is heard in the article from a woman who was seen protesting the parade and drawing the eyes of the crowd.
And one protester walked along the Fifth Avenue parade route with a placard that said, ‘This Land was Stolen Not Discovered.’ …21-year-old Deborah Piezold of Manhattan. ‘It is not only about discovery, it is about the dehumanization of the native American Indians, the exploitation and the killing.’ She said she had watched paradegoers as they tried to explain her sign to their children. ‘They’re having a tough time,’ she said.113
Those last two lines of text convey a powerful message, which shows that the concept of
Columbus being not only unheroic, but a thief as well, was foreign to most people she came into contact with. New York City, home to one of the most popular Columbus Day celebrations for years, was now a Columbus battleground.
Yet another battleground in the war for Columbus hits much closer to home for the man himself, Santo Domingo, the location of the original colony founded by Columbus in modern day Dominican Republic. In 1992, Columbus was honored with the opening of the Columbus
Memorial Lighthouse, the project was first conceived in 1931 and cost approximately seventy million dollars. This massive structure resembles a cross to portray the bringing of Christianity to the Americas by Columbus, honoring his name as “Christ-Bearer”. To mark the opening of the lighthouse and the celebration of the 500-year anniversary, Pope John Paul II held an open mass in front of the site. According to the Pope the lighthouse “symbolized the crusade of the cross implanted in the land of the New World 500 years ago.”114 This grand testament to the life and
112 Barron, “What Did Columbus Do,” B2. 113 Barron, “What Did Columbus Do,” B2. 114 Howard W. French, “Pope’s Mass at Dominican Monument to Columbus,” New York Times, October 12, 1992, B7. 83 legacy of Columbus has faced severe criticism from protestors as covered by Howard French’s article in the New York Times.
The demonstrators have complained that such a lavish celebration of Columbus is an insult to the memory of the Indian population that was wiped out and the large numbers of blacks who were enslaved beginning with Columbus’ administration of this island. Others have criticized the cost of the elaborate lighthouse, which projects powerful cross-shaped beams into the sky each evening. The cost was widely estimated at $70 million, while the annual per capita income here is $700 and poverty is widespread.115
The controversy surrounding this lighthouse, as well as a visit from the Pope adds greatly to the drama of the war for Columbus’ legacy as the lines between the heroic Columbus and the villainous Columbus begin to blur.
Textbook Analysis
The textbooks analyzed in this chapter are the most crucial in terms of seeing how textbooks adapt to new historical discussions. This period, of 1986 to 2017 represents a time when
Columbus’ legacy falls under ruthless scrutiny as never before in the history of the United States, the war for Columbus was on. With such a detailed and complex period in the legacy of
Columbus, I have decided to deviate slightly from previous chapters, in order to allow each period of textbooks a chance at closer evaluation. The textbooks used from 1986 to the present day have been broken down into three tables centered around three periods. Just as an earthquake shakes the foundation of everything in its path, the foundation of Columbus’ legacy was shaken during the 500-year anniversary of his landing in the Americas. 1986 to1992, featured in Table 9, on the next page, represents the time when Columbus critics really begin to pour on the pressure by amplifying the emphasis placed on Columbus’ faults, and especially, his time as regional governor of Hispaniola.
115 French, “Pope’s Mass,” B7. 84
Table 9: Textbooks 1986-1992 Textbook/Publication Year Portrayal Credit for Pages Discovery (Columbus) America: The Glorious Republic Traditional/Revisionist Vikings 5.2 Pages (1986) Land of Promise (1986) Traditional/Positive Columbus 3.9 Pages The American People (1986) Traditional Unclear .6 Pages The American Nation (1986) Traditional/Positive Columbus 2.1 Pages The United States: History of the Traditional/Positive Columbus 2.4 Pages Republic (1986) Note: All textbooks in this set were used in eighth grade classrooms.
Note that Columbus still dominates in terms of credit for the discovery of the Americas with the exception of two textbooks from Table 9. There appears to be a remarkable level of inconsistency and contradiction in these textbooks as can be seen in James Davidson’s The
United States: History of the Republic. Davidson’s account of Columbus appears to both acknowledge that Columbus discovered lands unknown to Europeans, implying that it was not a true “discovery” and then proceeds to end his account by calling Columbus: “the original discoverer.”116 Any eighth-grade student reading this account may become confused as to who actually deserves credit for the discovery of the Americas, which can explain future uncertainty about the historical narrative of early American history.
In addition to this confusion of who deserves credit for the discovery, inconsistency continues amongst textbooks authored by Davidson. Davidson was also responsible for writing,
The American Nation and he goes on to credit both Columbus and the Vikings with discovery of the Americas, which will inevitably confuse the reader on who really deserves credit for the discovery. According to Davidson, The Vikings discovered the Americas long before Columbus but their voyages remained unknown to the rest of Europe, while also saying that Columbus left
116 James West Davidson and Mark H Lytle, The United States: History of the Republic, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc 1986, 36. 85 on a great voyage of discovery where he established the first Spanish colony in the Americas.117
The difference between supposed discovery and rediscovery is unclear in these textbooks which creates further confusion in the historical narrative, without providing scholarly context to the ongoing debate.
Table 10 shows the period of 1992 to 1998, as Columbus protests and criticisms, after building for some time, exploded onto the scene and the public had eyes on Columbus much different than those who vigorously celebrated the 400-year anniversary in 1882.
Table 10: Textbooks 1992-1998 Textbook/Publication Year Portrayal Credit for Pages Discovery (Columbus) History of the United States Traditional/Positive Columbus 4.8 Pages (1992) Revisionist/Negative American Journey (1992) Traditional/Positive Vikings 1.8 Pages America: The People and the Traditional/Positive Columbus 1.5 Pages Dream (1992) Note: All textbooks in this set were used in eighth grade classrooms.
As the mass of critical scholarship rocked the foundation of Columbus’ legacy, textbooks during this time kept to the same old story for the most part, not unexpected, but still important to the strength of Columbus’ glorified legacy. In Table 10, only one textbook takes a split stance on Columbus, Lorna Mason’s History of the United States. The way in which Columbus is introduced to students returns to some of Columbus’ core values, which earned him such renown in the eyes of the American people. Columbus is presented as a man with a great vision guided by deep religious convictions, sent with a mission from God to do great things. “He believed that
God intended him to make great discoveries in order to spread Christianity. As one writer put it, he ‘had developed in his heart the unshakeable conviction that he would find what he said he
117 James West Davidson and John E. Batchelor, The American Nation (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1986), 50 and 56. 86 would find, as if he had it locked away in a trunk somewhere.’”118 Two important points must be made about this statement, first is the return of Columbus’ religious values. Columbus’ status as a devoted man of faith. This notion remained very popular in textbooks from the early twentieth century, but gradually faded from textbooks in succeeding years. A return to religious values could be a response to rising criticisms of Columbus’ character, thus protecting his positive image. Second is the use of a quotation from an unknown source, hammering home the message of Columbus’ vision and devotions. Failing to provide the name of this source makes it impossible to debate with the writer and at the same time, presents only one perspective on
Columbus, which does not reflect the emergence of the ongoing battle over Columbus’ legacy.
Inversely, this textbook does not shy away from Columbus’ failures when he served as governor of Hispaniola. The textbook points to his cruel policies and thoughts on the natives he encountered, stating:
Today Columbus is honored for having had the courage, the skill, and the broad vision necessary to have made his daring voyage. Despite errors in navigation, he succeeded in reaching the Americas and returning home. Like other Europeans of his day, however, Columbus displayed narrow religious and racial views…Columbus in short, believed that Europeans were superior to Indians. This prejudice had terrible results. As the first ruler of Hispaniola, Columbus set the policies that killed or enslaved untold numbers of Indians.119
As with the previous statement there are underlying messages contained in this presentation. The author begins by explaining why Columbus is celebrated in the United States today, which subtly justifies the following lines of text. Another point of justification comes from making Columbus a product of his time, and therefore implying that the reader should not judge Columbus too harshly for committing atrocities against Native Americans. Nevertheless, the inclusion of these
118 Lorna C. Mason, William Jay Jacobs and Robert P. Ludlum, History of the United States: Beginnings to 1877 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992), 34. 119 Mason, History of the United States, 39. 87 details from Columbus’ later voyages constitutes progress in balancing the representation of
Columbus in textbooks.
2003 to the present represents the aftermath, of the controversy over Columbus in the 1990s,
Columbus’ legacy remains very controversial to this day because of the 500-year anniversary and this debate should be reflected in the textbooks. Table 11 below, represents the last of the textbooks examined in this study, notice that textbooks first contracted in 2003 are still being used for the 2016-17 school year. This fourteen year stretch without any updates is perhaps the most perplexing aspect of these textbooks.
Table 11: Textbooks 2003-2017 Textbook/Publication Year Portrayal Credit for Pages Discovery (Columbus) Call to Freedom (2003) Traditional/Positive Unclear 3.5 Pages Revisionist/Negative The American Nation Traditional/Positive Native Americans 1.54 Pages (2003) Revisionist/Negative Columbus Creating America (2003) Traditional Unclear 2.6 Pages Revisionist/Negative Note: All textbooks in this set were used in eighth grade classrooms.
Although only three of the five textbooks contracted for this period were available for my analysis, they reveal very interesting details as to how the historical narrative of Columbus in textbooks had changed after the 500-year anniversary. Davidson returns to the discussion with a new edition of, The American Nation, this time with some drastic changes from his previous works. Davidson’s take away from the account of Columbus gives his answer as to who deserves credit to the Americas but also ensures Columbus’ glory is not forgotten. Davidson states:
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Columbus has long been honored as the bold sea captain who ‘discovered America.’ Today we recognize that Native Americans had “discovered” and settled these lands long before 1492. Still, in at least one sense, Columbus deserves the honors history has given him. Europeans knew nothing of the Americas until Columbus told them about this “new world.” His daring voyages marked the beginning of lasting contact among the peoples of Europe, Africa, and the Americas.120
Aside from implying that the people of Scandinavia, whose ancestors had reached the Americas five hundred years before Columbus are not Europeans, Davidson ensures that credit is given to the Native Americans for being the first known humans in the Americas while still glorifying
Columbus.
One textbook in this study can attribute part of its account of Columbus’ voyages to the events surrounding the 500-year anniversary in 1992 is Jesus Garcia’s, Creating America. Garcia includes a Native American perspective on the legacy of Columbus in his account of Columbus’ life, in a section entitled “Native American View of Columbus”. In this account a Native
American woman gives her opinion on Columbus’ voyages.
In 1992, many Native Americans protested the 500th anniversary of Coluumbus’s voyage. Suzan Shown Harjo, who is Cheyenne and Creek, explained why. ‘As Native American peoples in this red quarter of Mother Earth, we have no reason to celebrate the invasion that caused the demise [death] of so many of our people and is still causing destruction today.’ The Spanish enslaved the Taino, who nearly all died from disease and bad treatment.121
In no other textbook contained in this study is such an account present. Though jammed into the corner of the page, this is the first example of a Native American perspective being heard in one of these Texas U.S. history textbooks. Not only does it severely damage the glorified image of
Columbus, it exposes students to the reality that there are other ways of thinking and interpreting historical events, which is what the field of history is all about.
120 James West Davidson, The American Nation: Beginnings Through 1877 (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003), 70. 121 Jesus Garcia, Creating America: A History of the United States (Boston: McDougal Littell, 2003), 42. 89
The turmoil surrounding the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ voyage in regards to his legacy launched a debate amongst historians and the American public that has yet to be resolved.
Columbus’ glorified image has never quite recovered and now just as many condemn Columbus as do support him. This debate has finally begun to have an effect on the textbook representations of Columbus as we saw in Garcia’s example. That being said, one textbook is not enough to adequately convey to junior high and high school students the importance of different interpretations of historical events that drives research forward in a never ending quest for understanding of our past.
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CHAPTER VI EXPLORERS VS. CONQUERORS: WHY COLUMBUS IS THE GREAT EXPLORER AND WHY CORTES AND PIZARRO ARE THE GREAT CONQUERORS
What did Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortés, and Francisco Pizarro do that makes them important historical figures? Some of the most common responses to this question may be that
Columbus discovered America, Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire, and Pizarro conquered the
Inca Empire. People learn these stories from a young age in history textbooks but the story does not extend much farther than these points on their achievements. The intended message from these stories is that Columbus was a great explorer of his time while Cortés and Pizarro were among the great conquerors of their time. While that is all well and good, what is the difference between these three historical giants of Spanish colonialism? All three of them led important expeditions that gave rise to a powerful Spanish Empire in the Americas, yet Columbus became the great explorer of legend, while the other two became symbols of the fabled Spanish
Conquistadores.
In truth, little distinction exists between these three figures in terms of their actions while exploring the Americas. Each led expeditions in the Americas to parts previously unknown to
Europeans, each was driven by a lust for finding valuable treasures, and each encountered large native civilizations before proceeding to decimate them. These different labels do not come from their deeds during life, but rather from their portrayals in history, as well as their coverage in history textbooks. Three points of analysis help to identify how these textbooks show the distinction between Columbus, the great explorer and Cortés and Pizarro, the great conquerors.
First, comparing the respective lengths of coverage each of these men receive in the textbooks help to determine the relative level of importance placed on each of them and thus how detail oriented each of their stories are presented. Second, each of these textbooks will single out one 91 event or action that serves as their greatest achievement, the distinction between Columbus’
“discovery” and Cortés and Pizarro’s “conquest” leaves a lasting impression on the reader.
Finally, each of these men are known to have been responsible for the deaths of countless Native
Americans and thus, inclusion of this information, or omission, will indicate the way in which the textbooks want Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro to be remembered. Examining these three points reveals that although Columbus receives a much greater deal of coverage than the other two across nearly every textbook, textbook authors are much more selective on what parts of
Columbus’ story they discuss, while Cortés and Pizarro’s stories remain largely unchanged throughout the last hundred years.
Coverage
When reading the story of Columbus in textbooks, the focus is on his attempts at procuring funding for his voyages and his first voyage to the Americas. Columbus’ later voyages are either left out of the narrative, or summarized in a short paragraph. Rather than detail all four of
Columbus’ voyages, textbook authors focus their energies talking about Columbus’ early life, of which we know very little for certain. The presentation of this story is filled with the dreams of a young man who loved the sea, a man who had an idea and persisted in the face of all opposition to achieve his goals. The story culminates with the first landing of Columbus in the Americas, followed by a brief epilogue of his later life and death. This, selective portrayal, allows
Columbus do be remembered as an explorer rather than a conqueror. Inversely, conquest remains the primary focus of the lives of Cortés and Pizarro. History textbooks limit their coverage of these two to their respective domination of the Aztec and Inca empires, covering the tales in a few lines or paragraphs. We can surmise that Columbus’ status as a national hero, who embodied the values of America, protects him from being associated with conquerors like Cortés and 92
Pizarro, who are relegated to the events of Central and South America, thus not critical to the rise of the United States.
Evidence of this attitude may be glimpsed in the coverage each of them receives in U.S. history textbooks. to do this, I took the average comparison of Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro, and compared them to one another for each set of years in which I have reviewed textbook material. Table 17 in the appendix shows the results of the comparison of coverage between
Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro. To summarize these results, Columbus on average received over at least one page of coverage and claimed the most coverage between the three men in all textbooks used in this study. In all but one set of years, 1962 to 1984, Columbus vastly outstripped Cortés and Pizarro in terms of average coverage. In textbooks used from 1962 to
1984 Columbus earned the most coverage but Cortés received a slightly lower but similar amount of coverage in textbooks. Pizarro consistently received less coverage than both
Columbus and Cortés, receiving less than a half of a page on average in all textbooks.
These results reveal much about the connection between U.S. history and Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro. Columbus has been directly linked with the rise of the United States, while Cortés and Pizarro are only connected with Central and South American history. Because of this, U.S. history textbooks allow much more space to cover Columbus’ story and essentially turn Cortés and Pizarro into footnotes in the overall narrative.
Greatest Achievement
What is Columbus’ greatest achievement? As stated at the beginning of the chapter, many would say Columbus discovered America, this statement sounds clear cut and reasonable. The reality is much more complicated and it appears that textbooks cannot agree on what Columbus should be credited with doing. According to some textbooks, Columbus is considered to be the 93
“discoverer” of America, in others, he is seen as the “rediscoverer” of America, and in some cases, Columbus is credited with simply connecting the two worlds in permanent contact. The line between Columbus as “discoverer” and as “rediscoverer” often blur together in the textbooks, particularly when the voyages of the Vikings come into play. Some textbooks acknowledge the fact that the Vikings reached the Americas nearly 500 years before Columbus did, yet they still credit Columbus with being the discoverer of the Americas, making statement such as: “The stories of Eric and Leif remained hidden in the sagas. The real discoverer of
America was Columbus, whose voyage of 1492 linked it with the awakened Europe…the credit for the daring act which first tested the theory that the Indies could be reached by a westward route belongs to Columbus.”122 Here we see Columbus being credited with all three versions of his story. First, the Vikings are acknowledged as having reached the Americas before Columbus, second, Columbus is still credited with being the discoverer of America, and third, Columbus’ voyages linked Europe with the Americas.
While there is a seemingly ever persisting debate over the achievements of Columbus, the same cannot be said for the lives of Cortés and Pizarro. Cortés and Pizarro have maintained the role of the two greatest conquistadores in the history of the Spanish Empire. Cortés, whose guile and cunning led him to outsmart an empire who vastly outnumbered his own forces, bringing down the most powerful native empire in the Americas at the time, claiming vast wealth and glory. Pizarro, looking to repeat the success of Cortés, set out in search of a great civilization to the south. Pizarro found the Inca empire in modern day Peru amid a civil war and, like Cortés,
Pizarro used his cunning to wipe out the severely weakened Inca empire. This is the basic story presented in history textbooks. Some accounts go into more detail, citing technological
122 Muzzey, History of Our Country, 14. 94 superiority, disease, and other factors that led to the downfall of these two civilizations. Others, actually provide less detail, providing only a sentence or two, to convey the conquest of two of the most powerful empires to ever exist in the Americas. While Columbus may be kept separate form what, may reasonably be called, the first American gold rush, Cortés and Pizarro are the poster children of this goal. Textbooks attribute the conquests led by Cortés and Pizarro to the desire to obtain untold riches of mythical proportion, as one textbook puts it: “The Spaniards tore down Aztec temples where human sacrifices had been made to the Aztec gods, and carried off untold wealth…Pizarro treated the Indians and their leaders, the Incas, in the same way that
Cortez had treated the Aztecs. He had no interest in their fine civilization. He was interested only in the booty he could strip from their temples, tombs, and palaces.”123 This presentation of Cortés and Pizarro exhibits that students will remember them as greedy, destructive, and indifferent towards native populations. Aside from this description of greedy men conquering two great empires, several instances exist where the actions of Cortés and Pizarro are presented in a positive, or even commemorative light. Some of Columbus’ glorification, rub off on Cortés and
Pizarro in statements such as: “Hernando Cortés, one of the greatest of all Spanish conquistadores, was busy conquering Mexico for Spain…Stories of the rich kingdom of the
Incas in Peru led another bold conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, to launch an enterprise every bit as daring as that of Cortés.”124 Descriptions such as these have the ability to leave an impression on young readers who inadvertently glorify such deeds as conquest, destruction, and atrocity.
123 Leon H. Canfield and Howard B. Wilder, The Making of Modern America (Boston: Mifflin Company, 1950), 31. 124 Paul F. Boller and E. Jean Tilford, This is Our Nation (St. Louis: Webster Publishing Company, 1961), 36. 95
Impact on Native Americans
Columbus’ settlement and conquest of Hispaniola, along with the conquest of the Aztecs by
Cortés and the Inca by Pizarro, had lasting impact on Native Americans. Despite this knowledge, textbooks tend to only cover the impact made by Cortés and Pizarro in most textbook accounts.
As mentioned previously, Columbus’ story in textbooks usually glosses over his second, third, and fourth voyages, preferring to focus on the legend of his first voyage. With this limited perspective, many students fail to learn that during Columbus’ ensuing three voyages, he established a colony on Hispaniola, bound the Taino people to Spanish settlers in an early attempt at the encomienda system, and demanded a certain amount of gold from the natives which resulted in disastrous consequences for those who could not meet the quota. One textbook from the 1960s sums up Columbus’ last three voyages in less than six lines of text, stating:
“Columbus made three later voyages across the Atlantic, wandered among the West Indian
Islands and touched the shores of South and Central America. But he never knew that he had found a new World.”125 The fact that the authors of this textbook chose to spend only six of its allotted seventy-five lines of Columbus coverage on his last three voyages shows how selective the account is and how it avoids some of the most controversial points in Columbus’ life. This style of presentation is near universal for most of the textbooks before the 1980s when it comes to Columbus and only in the most recent textbook accounts is there substantial inclusion of some of these details on Columbus’ later voyages. At the turn of the twenty-first century there are examples of Columbus’ life that directly contradict his glorified image in textbooks. For example, one textbook from 2003 states that “Although Columbus was the governor of these new Spanish territories, he spent time exploring. The living conditions in the colonies grew poor,
125 Avert Craven and Walter Johnson, American History (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1961), 23. 96 partly because the Spaniards had difficulty growing crops in the tropical climate. Columbus fought many small battles with the Taino. He enslaved the Taino he defeated despite Isabella’s instructions not to do so.”126 The inclusion of these details concerning Columbus’ voyages serves to improve historical accuracy in this account of Columbus, of that there is no doubt. Despite this statement by the textbook authors, two paragraphs later, they reassert Columbus’ greatness. “In
1506 he died “unnoticed and unsung” according to one modern historian. It would be years before Europeans realized the impact of Columbus on their world.”127 This statement may appear unassuming at first, however, the reference to an anonymous historian, whose identity remains hidden from the reader, claiming Columbus to be “unnoticed and unsung” implies the image of a tragic hero who went underappreciated in life. This impression sticks with students thus contributing to Columbus’ enduring legacy as the great explorer, erasing the comments two paragraphs prior about Columbus’ enslavement of natives from the reader’s mind.
Returning to the question of what makes Columbus’ the great explorer and what makes
Cortés and Pizarro the great conquerors. They shared similar characteristics, motives, and actions, yet one remains undeniably separated from the other. No matter, how detailed the presentation of Columbus has been in these textbooks, whether his actions against the natives or cruel treatment are included or not, Columbus is always labeled an explorer or navigator, never a conqueror. When it comes to Cortés and Pizarro, the opposite occurs, never once, in the sixty textbooks reviewed for this project, are Cortés or Pizarro labeled exclusively as explorers. The source of this distinction, as it turns out, has little to do with who they were or what they did, rather, where they were is what is most important to their enduring legacy in the United States.
126 Sterling Stuckey and Linda Kerrigan Salvucci, Call to Freedom: Beginnings to 1877 (Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2003), 43. 127 Stuckey, Call to Freedom, 43. 97
Cortés and Pizarro not only arrived thirty and forty years after Columbus, their actions are seen as having little to no impact on the eventual development of the United States thus relatively unimportant. In Central and South America, Cortés and Pizarro are not considered national heroes, they remain very controversial and despised in many respects for their conquests.
Columbus’ legacy does not fare much better than Cortés and Pizarro in these areas of the
Americas, as his voyages label him as the harbinger of death in that part of the Americas. The
United States is a completely different animal when it comes to the image of Columbus. Though more controversial today, Until the 1990s, Columbus remained a national hero, without whom, we may not be here in the manner we are today. His status as a national hero has largely protected him in the United States until very recently. Why has Columbus’ legacy endured so long in the United States but not in South America? Perhaps it is because Columbus never set foot in North America and by association, any cruel deeds conducted as a result of him remain secluded in the southern areas of the Americas, allowing the United States to separate Columbus from the devastation of native populations and focus instead, on the “discovery” of America.
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CONCLUSION: A TIME FOR REFLECTION
Examining the manner in which Christopher Columbus has been portrayed in U.S. history textbooks over the past one hundred years has allowed for a unique look into how Texas textbooks portray prominent historical figures like Columbus. This study focuses on the most immediate phase of the Columbus legend, the century leading up to the present day. Columbus’ legend did not begin during the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, rather, the celebrations mark the beginning of a golden age for the legacy of Columbus. The arrival of the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the Americas may be described as the beginning of a
Columbus civil war, where the legacy of the navigator falls into turmoil with supporters and critics locked in fierce debate trying to reach a new consensus on the Columbian legacy. What better period could there be to study the portrayal of Columbus in history textbooks?
Throughout the past hundred years, changes in the academic community and public opinion on prominent historical figures have made only minor impacts on these textbooks, while the traditional narrative remains largely unchanged with the inclusion of a few minor alterations.
Results of the analysis of Columbus’ representation in junior high and high school U.S. history textbooks in Texas are boiled down into three key points. First, the glorified image of Columbus’ life dominated his coverage in these textbooks during the twentieth century. Second, waves of
Columbus criticisms during the end of the twentieth century netted mixed results on subsequent textbooks. Third, the debate over Columbus’ legacy is misrepresented in textbooks used in Texas after the 500-year anniversary, showing either a delayed response or a reluctance to change traditional stories in order to protect American heroes in history education. Chapter I established the traditional and positive narrative of Columbus which dominated both the American public and historians of the time. This narrative of the brave, genius, and persistent Columbus was 99 rarely deviated from during this time. Chapter II exhibited the strengthening of the Columbus’ legacy as reinforced by historians of the 1940s and 1950s. Despite the inclusion of European voyages to the Americas 500 years before the arrival of Columbus, these textbooks maintained that Columbus discovered, or “rediscovered” the Americas, going as far as to dismiss the Viking voyages as unimportant. Chapter III marked the first signs of true controversy surrounding the
Columbus mythos. On the one hand, Native American movements, vehemently protested the continued glorification of Columbus. On the other hand, the legend of Columbus was used to sell the American space program and the astronauts who would soon land on the Moon were often compared to Columbus. U.S. history textbooks typically stuck to their guns on the traditional
Columbus narrative, despite the revelation of long lost Viking settlements in Newfoundland during the early 1960s. Chapter IV focused on the 500-year anniversary of the Columbus voyages as well as the subsequent war for the Columbus legacy as his heroic status was being undermined. In the wake of such a drastic upending of the traditional coverage of Columbus,
Texas textbooks provided either a delayed response to criticisms or a veiled response designed to hide details of this debate in the corners of textbook pages, so that the traditional Columbus story remained the primary narrative.
After the analysis of Columbus’ presentation in textbooks, Chapter V explored the differences between textbook coverage for Columbus the navigator and Cortés and Pizarro, the conquerors. Although these three men possessed similar characteristics and committed similar acts during their respective time in the Americas, the United States history textbooks continually made a clear distinction between the three of them. Columbus always remained the great navigator who opened the Americas to the rest of the world, while Cortés and Pizarro went down 100 in history as two of the greatest conquerors in the Spanish Empire, wiping out two civilizations and gaining vast wealth in the process.
The war for Columbus’ legacy rages on today, with neither side backing down from their position. The problem remains that junior high and high school students in Texas are not aware of this debate; their textbooks do not show that the field of history is an ever-changing landscape of debates sparked by new found evidence and new interpretations of old evidence. The U.S. history textbooks reviewed here present history as a fixed, unchanging narrative, written in stone, perpetuating the falsehood that history never changes. With the future of Columbus’ legacy very much in doubt for the first time in 500 years, this project offers a timely critique of how
American heroes are viewed, and consequently, protected in the United States. Aside from
Columbus, it is clear that changes must be made in the textbook adoption system as well as in updating history textbooks in the United States to match current historical debates, allowing students the opportunity to understand that history is not set in stone and that many interpretations are available for any given historical topic.
This study represents the analysis of one specific historical topic in textbooks used in the state of Texas over one particular hundred-year period. The results apply only to the Texas education system. Even so, there is a broad and bright future for projects such as this. Columbus’ representation in textbooks from another state, such as California, another state adoption state would provide a marked contrast with the Texas analysis in this study. Columbus coverage could be reviewed by selecting textbooks across several textbooks publishers, which would allow for the coverage of multiple states, with both state and local adoption policies. What about
Columbus’ representation in history textbooks from other countries, how do textbooks in Spain or Italy, teach Columbus? What is even more intriguing still, this methodology is not limited to 101 how Columbus is portrayed in these textbooks. How about other American heroes, like
Washington or Lincoln? The possibilities are far-reaching as nearly every conceivable topic in a textbook may be examined in this way.
The idea for this project grew out of my own experience with school textbooks. I found myself nodding my head when reading Loewen’s words about textbook cramming and the cycle of “memorization/, test taking/, forgetting/, and repeating.” The truth of the matter is that I remember very little about what was contained in my textbooks. I do not remember exactly when our class covered Columbus, but I imagine it would have been during junior high school for me, sometime between 2004 and 2006. When I think back, the traditional story of Columbus sticks: out in my head, he discovered America and today we honor him for this achievement. I cannot confidently recall any details from the textbook to attest to what was covered and what was not.
This experience is a true testament to the cycle of “learn/, repeat/, forget” described by Loewen. I would invite anyone to pick any major historical figure or topic that was covered in their early education to see if any specific details linger.
My examination of textbooks and their coverage of Columbus in conjunction with his status as an American hero has made it abundantly clear to me how this system of textbooks has protected the legacy of Columbus. This protection has allowed him to remain a heroic figure in much of the United States. Despite the fact that his image is currently in turmoil, with the debate amongst historians still raging twenty-five years after the 500-year anniversary, Columbus Day remains a federal holiday and groups like the Knights of Columbus celebrate his glory with thousands of others in parades each year. I did not become aware of how much debate there was in the historical field while I was in high school, and I did not become aware of the debate over
Columbus’ life and legacy until I became an undergraduate in college. 102
There are many reasons why textbooks have continued to protect Columbus’ legacy over the years. The story of Columbus has been used as an example of what it means to be an ideal
American. For example, his brave journey in the face of great unknowns and criticism from his peers resulted in the modern world as we know it today. Being lauded for such an achievement made Columbus a man to look up to. A constantly reinforced idea is that through perseverance and hard work anyone can achieve the American Dream and Columbus’ story can be viewed as an example of great achievements through these characteristics.
Columbus has also been protected because his is directly linked to the rise of the United
States and is an essential part of the national creation story. Many textbooks begin American history with Columbus’ arrival. Some have asserted that without Columbus there would not be a
United States. Such attitudes place Columbus on a level with the Revolutionary founders and encourage people to protect the legacy of Columbus as they protect the legacy of George
Washington.
The notion of Manifest Destiny is also linked to the Columbian Legacy. Americans have always looked to venture into the “unknown” from the wild frontier to the moon. The United
States has adopted a policy of being the first to make great achievements, the first modern democracy or the first to the moon. This desire to be the “first”, encourages the legacy of
Columbus as the first to reach America. These factors have contributed to the glorification of
Columbus, which makes the debate over his legacy all the more controversial. We protect our heroes in our master narrative to instill pride and inspiration in young students while shielding them from the greatest part of historical study, the debate. The important question to take away from this is not, how we should view Columbus, but what do we expect from our textbooks? As long as textbooks continue to present a fixed, unchanging narrative designed around one specific 103 interpretation, historical figures like Columbus will always be stripped of controversy and protected as national heroes.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources: Textbooks
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Beard, Charles A. and Mary R. Beard. History of the United States. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926.
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Bragdon, Henry W. and Samuel P. McCutchen. History of a Free People. New York: The Macmillon Company, 1954.
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Brown, Richard C., Wilhemena S. Robinson and John T. Cunningham. Let Freedom Ring: A United States History. Dallas: Silver Burdett Company, 1977.
Canfield, Leon H. and Howard B. Wilder. The Making of Modern America. Edited by Howard R. Anderson, Ellis Merton Coulter, John D. Hicks and Nelson P. Mead. Boston: Mifflin Company, 1950.
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Carman, Harry J., William G. Kimmel and Mabel G. Walker. Historic Currents in Changing America. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company, 1938.
Chapin, June R., Raymond J. McHugh and Richard E. Gross. Quest for Liberty: Investigating United States History. San Francisco: Field Educational Publications, 1971.
Cousins, R. B. and J. A. Hill. American History for Schools. Boston: D. C. Heath & Company, 1913. 105
Craven, Avery O. and Walter Johnson. American History. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1961.
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Davidson, James West. American Journey: The Quest for Liberty to 1877. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1992.
Davidson, James West and John E. Batchelor. The American Nation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1986.
Davidson, James West and Mark H. Lytle. The United States: A History of the Republic. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentic-Hall Inc., 1986.
Davidson, James West, Michael B. Stoff and Herman J. Viola. The American Nation: Beginnings Through 1877. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 2003.
Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, R. Hal Williams. America: The People and the Dream. Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1991.
Eibling, Harold H., Carlton Jackson and Vito Perrone. Foundations of Freedom: United States History to 1877. Dallas: Laidlaw Brothers, 1973.
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Emerson, David Fite. History of the United States. 2nd ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1919.
Estill, Harry F. The Beginner’s History of Our Country. Dallas: The Southern Publishing Company, 1901.
Estill, Harry F. The Beginner’s History of Our Country. Dallas: The Southern Publishing Company, 1925.
Faulkner, Harold Underwood and Tyler Kepner. America: Its History and People. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1934.
Faulkner, Harold Underwood and Tyler Kepner. America: Its History and People. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1938.
Fish, Carl Russell and Howard E. Wilson. History of the United States. New York: American Book Company, 1934.
Garcia, Jesus, Donna M. Ogle, C. Frederick Risinger, Joyce Stevos and Winthrop D. Jordan. Creating America: A History of the United States 106
Graff, Henry F. America The Glorious Republic: Beginning to 1877. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986.
Graff, Henry F. and Paul Bohannan. The Call of Freedom. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1978.
Graff, Henry F. The Free and the Brave: The Story of the American People to 1876 Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1973.
Graff, Henry F. and John A. Krout. The Adventure of the American People. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1970.
Hall, R. G., Harriet Smither and Clarence Ousley. A History of the United States: For the Grammar Grades. Dallas: The Southern Publishing Company, 1920.
Hall, R. G., Harriet Smither and Clarence Ousley. The Student’s History of Our Country: For Grammar Grades. Dallas: The Southern Publishing Company, 1917.
Hamm, William A, Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton. A Unit History of the United States. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1932.
Harlow, Ralph Volney. Story of America. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1941.
Latanè, John Holladay. A History of the United States. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1921.
Link Arthur S., Stanley Coben, Robert V. Remini, Douglas Greenberg and Robert C. McMath Jr. The American People: A History Volume 1 to 1877. Ill: AHM Publishing Corporation, 1981.
Mason, Lorna C., William Jay Jacobs, Robert P. Ludlum. History of the United States: Volume 1 Beginnings to 1877. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992.
Muzzey, David Saville. A History of Our Country. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1950.
Muzzey, David Saville. A History of Our Country. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1955.
Muzzey, David Saville. History of the American People. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1927.
Risjord, Norman K. and Terry L. Haywoode. A History of the United States to 1877. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978.
Southworth, John Van Duyn. Our Own United States. New York: Iroquois Publishing Company, 1948.
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Stuckey, Sterling and Linda Kerrigan Salvucci. Call to Freedom. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Wilson, 2003.
Todd, Paul Todd and Merle Curti. Rise of the American Nation. New York: Harcourt, Bracy & World, 1961.
Todd, Lewis Paul and Merle Curti. Rise of the American Nation. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.
Ver Steeg, Clarence L. The American People: Their History. Evanston: Row, Peterson & Company, 1961.
Wirth, Fremont P. The Development of America. Boston: American Book Company, 1936.
Wirth, Fremont P. United States History. New York: American Book Company, 1949.
With, Fremont P. United States History. New York: American Book Company, 1955.
Primary Sources: Columbus in Public Sphere
An Act To provide a suitable memorial to the memory of Christopher Columbus. Pub. L. No. 267. 2932, 1907.
Art and Picture Collection and The New York Public Library. "Columbus Day parade, Union Square." New York Public Library Digital Collections. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e3-b92f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
Barron, James. “What Did Columbus Do To Deserve a Big Parade.” New York Times, October 15, 1991.
Benchley, Peter. “Red Power: Although Indians Have Long Way To Go Before Catching Blacks, New Militancy Erupts.” The Anderson Herald, November 27, 1969.
“Child Stirs Senate.” Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 18, 1961.
Finney, John W. “Astronauts-Adventurers of Space, Elites of Their Age.” New York Times, October 8, 1961.
French, Howard W. “Pope’s Mass at Dominican Monument to Columbus.” New York Times, October 12, 1992.
Gansberg, Martin. “5th Avenue Columbus Parade Draws Crows and Candidates.” New York Times, October, 13, 1970.
Guardia, Fiorello La. “Columbus Rallies End in Clash Here.” New York Times. October 13, 1935.
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H.R. 10. 73rd Cong., 1934.
Harris and Ewing. Columbus Memorial Unveiling, General View. Photograph. Washington D.C.: Harris & Ewing. From Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/hec2008000779/.
“Indian Group Stakes a Claim to Alcatraz.” New York Times. November 21, 1969.
“Indian Power Protesters Discover Columbus Day.” Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. October 12, 1970. “Italy Claimed by Indian Chief.” Post Star and Times. September 25, 1973.
Kennedy, John F. “Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs.” May 25, 1961. The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8151.
Lord, Alice E. A Vision’s Quest: A Drama in Five Acts. Baltimore: Cushing & Company, 1899.
Means, Philip Ainsworth. “Columbus and His Four Voyages: Samuel Eliot Morison’s Fine Biography Carries the Tang of the Sea.” Review of Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, by Samuel Eliot Morison. New York Times, March 1, 1942.
Means, Philip Ainsworth. “Madariaga’s Life of Columbus: His Illuminating Biography Is a Masterpiece of Historical Writing.” Review of Christopher Columbus: Being the Life of the Very Magnificent Lord Don Cristòbal Colòn by Salvador De Madariaga. New York Times, January 28, 1940.
Miner, A. A. “Dr. Miner Spoke of Achievements of the Discoverer.” The Boston Globe. October 17, 1892.
“Proclaims Columbus Day.” New York Times. September 23, 1937.
Robertson, Nan. “Viking Ruins Found in North Newfoundland.” New York Times, November 6, 1963.
Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Statement on Columbus Day.” October 12, 1942. The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16177.
“Splendid Columbus Memorial to be Unveiled in Washington on Saturday.” New York Times. June 2, 1912.
“St. Christopher Columbus.” New York Times, June 29, 1892.
“Thousands Hail Kennedy in Columbus Parade.” New York Times. October 13,1962. Walker, Alice Johnstone. La Fayette, Christopher Columbus, The Long Knives in Illinois: Brief Plays for the Young. New York: H. Holt and Company, 1919.
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Watters, Philip. “Columbus ‘no great man’.” Madison Wisconsin State Journal, October 17, 1988.
Secondary Sources: used as Primary Sources: Historical Scholarship on Columbus
Brooks, Elbridge S. The True Story of Christopher Columbus: Called the Great Admiral. Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1892.
Byne, Mildred Stapley. Christopher Columbus. New York: Macmillan Company, 1915.
Duff, Charles. The Truth about Columbus and the Discovery of America. New York: Random House, 1936.
Irving, Washington. Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. New York: Thomas D. Crowell & Co., 1904.
Johnson, Rossiter, ed. A History of the World’s Columbian Exposition Held in Chicago in 1893. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897.
Madariaga, Salvador De. Christopher Columbus: Being the Life of the Very Magnificent Lord Don Cristòbal Colòn. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940.
McCarthy, Charles H. Columbus and His Predecessors: A Study in the Beginnings of American History. Philadelphia: J. J. McVey, 1912.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1942.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. “It all Boils Down to What We Knew Before.” New York Times, November 7, 1965.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. Review of Christopher Columbus: Being the Life of the Very Magnificent Lord Don Cristòbal Colòn. By Salvador De Madariaga. American Historical Review 40 (Apr., 1940): 653-655.
Ober, Frederick A. Columbus: The Discoverer. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1906.
Rupp, Albert J. In Christopher Columbus: In Poetry, History and Art, edited by Sara Agnes Ryan, 110. Chicago: The Mayer and Miller Company, 1917.
Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy. New York: Plume, 1990.
Vaugh, Theodore S. Satan in Arms Against Columbus. Chicago: J. S. Hyland & Company, 1892.
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Walker, Alice Johnstone. La Fayette, Christopher Columbus, The Long Knives in Illinois: Brief Plays for the Young. New York: H. Holt and Company, 1919.
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Webster, Noah. “The Career of Columbus.” In Columbian Selections: American Patriotism, edited by Henry B. Carrington, 9-16. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1896.
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Secondary Sources: Scholarship on Textbooks
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Crawford, Keith. “The Manufacture of Official Knowledge: The Texas Textbook Adoption Process.” Internationale Schulbuchforschung 25 (2003): 7-25. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.bgsu.edu:8080/stable/43056528.
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La Vere, David. The Texas Indians. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004.
Lillejord, Jebadiah S. “Christopher Columbus, Hernando Cortés, and Francisco Pizarro: A Qualitative Content Analysis Examining Cultural Bias in World History Textbooks” PhD diss., Seattle Pacific University, 2013.
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APPENDIX A. TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS: 1919-1939
Considering the vast scale of analysis required for this project, the following tables layout the overall spreadsheet of each textbook analyzed to provide a convenient way in which to view my results in one location. Appendix A, on the following pages, shows the analysis of all textbooks used from Chapter I through several tables dedicated to certain categories. With so many categories, it is impossible to present all results in one table, which has led me to breaking up my spreadsheet assigning certain categories to each table in the interest of convenience and readability. To make sense of the various data entries, a Table Key is located underneath each table.
Table A.1 shows how Columbus is portrayed in each textbook used in Texas from 1919 to
1939. The table also includes the specific contract period assigned to the textbooks and whether or not the textbook attributes a chapter or section title to Columbus or his “discovery” of the
Americas. Table A.2 looks at whether the Viking expeditions are included in the narrative presented by the textbook, as well as the amount of coverage given to the Vikings and who is credited with the discovery of the Americas in each textbook. Table A.3 shows results from the comparison between Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro in each textbook and the term used to describe Cortés and Pizarro from 1919 to 1929 and Table A.4 shows the same results from 1929 to 1939.
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Table A.1: Columbus Portrayal in Textbooks: 1919-1939 Textbook/Author Contract Term Chapter/Section Title Portrayal Publication Year The Beginner's 1919-1929 YES T/P History of Our Country Estill (1901) The Student's History 1919-1920 NO T/P/R of Our Country Hall (1917) American History for 1919-1920 NO T/P Schools Cousins (1913) History of the United 1925-1929 NO T/P/R States Hall (1920) History of the United 1925-1929 NO T/P States Latanè (1921) The Beginner's 1929-1933 YES T/P History of Our Country Estill (1925) History of the United 1929-1935 NO T/P States Fite (1919) History of the 1929-1939 NO T/P/N American People Muzzey (1927) History of the United 1929-1935 NO N/A States Beard (1926) Our Nation's 1935-1939 YES T/P Development Barker (1934) America Its History 1935-1939 NO T/P/R and People Faulkner (1934) History of the United 1935-1939 YES T/P/R States Fish (1934) A Unit History of the 1935-1939 NO Ne United States Hamm (1932) Table Key: T= Traditional Portrayal P= Positive Portrayal R= Revisionist Portrayal N= Negative Portrayal Ne= Neutral Portrayal N/A= Not Applicable 114
Table A.2: Analysis of Viking Portrayal in Textbooks: 1919-1939 Textbook/Author Viking Credit for Discovery Lines Per Pages (Vikings) Publication Year Expedition Page The Beginner's History of Our Country Estill NO COLUMBUS 31 0 (1901) The Student's History of Our Country Hall NO COLUMBUS 36 0 (1917) American History for Schools Cousins (1913) YES COLUMBUS 36 13 LINES/.36 PAGES History of the United States Hall (1920) NO COLUMBUS 33 0 History of the United States Latanè (1921) NO COLUMBUS 35 0 The Beginner's History of Our Country Estill NO COLUMBUS 31 0 (1925) History of the United States Fite (1919) YES COLUMBUS 42 25 LINES/.59 PAGES History of the American People Muzzey YES COLUMBUS 37 8 LINES/.21 (1927) PAGES History of the United States Beard (1926) N/A N/A 43 0 Our Nation's Development Barker (1934) NO COLUMBUS 39 0 America Its History and People Faulkner YES VIKINGS/COLUMBUS 44 8 LINES/.18 (1934) (RD) PAGES History of the United States Fish (1934) YES COLUMBUS 37 10 LINES/.27 PAGES A Unit History of the United States Hamm NO COLUMBUS 37 0 (1932) Table Key: N/A= Not Applicable (RD)= Rediscovery
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Table A.3: Comparison of Coverage Between Columbus, Cortés & Pizarro in Textbooks: 1919-1929 Textbook/ Author Cortés/Pizarro Lines Pages Pages Pages Pages Publication Year Conquerors/ Per Page Columbus/ (Columbus) (Cortés) (Pizarro) Explorers128 Cortés/ Pizarro The Beginner's History of Our N/A 31 327 327 0 0 Country Estill (1901) LINES/10.5 LINES/10.5 PAGES PAGES The Student's History of Our Conquerors 36 192 LINES/5.3 180 LINES/5 12 LINES/.33 0 Country Hall (1917) PAGES PAGES PAGES American History for Schools Conquerors 36 108 LINES/3 104 LINES/2.8 3 LINES/.O8 1 LINE/.02 Cousins (1913) PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES History of the United States Hall Conquerors 33 191 LINES/5.7 182 LINES/5.5 6 LINES/.18 3 LINES/.09 (1920) PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES History of the United States Conquerors 35 161 LINES/4.6 149 LINES/ 12 LINES/ 0 Latanè (1921) PAGES 4.2 PAGES .34 PAGES Table Key: N/A: Not Applicable
128 This category shows how each textbook depicts Cortés and/or Pizarro as either a “Conqueror” or an “Explorer”. 116
Table A.4: Comparison of Coverage Between Columbus, Cortés & Pizarro in Textbooks: 1929-1939 Textbook/ Author Cortés/Pizarro Lines Pages Pages Pages (Cortés) Pages Publication Year Conquerors/ Per Page Columbus/ (Columbus) (Pizarro) Explorers129 Cortés/ Pizarro The Beginner's History of N/A 31 325 LINES/10.4 325 LINES/10.4 0 0 Our Country Estill (1925) PAGES PAGES History of the United N/A 42 110 LINES/2.6 104 LINES/2.4 4 LINES/.09 2 LINES/.04 States Fite (1919) PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES History of the American Conquerors 37 208 LINES/5.6 147 LINES/3.9 36 LINES/.97 25 LINES/.67 People Muzzey (1927) PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES History of the United N/A 43 0 0 0 0 States Beard (1926) Our Nation's Development N/A 39 106 LINES/2.7 106 LINES/2.7 0 0 Barker (1934) PAGES PAGES America Its History and Conquerors 44 52 LINES/1.1 46 LINES/ 1.04 3 LINES/.06 3 LINES/.06 People Faulkner (1934) PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES History of the United Conquerors 37 72 LINES/1.9 60 LINES/1.6 6 LINES/.16 6 LINES/ .16 States Fish (1934) PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES A Unit History of the Conquerors 37 5 LINES/.13 3 LINES/.08 1 LINE/.02 1 LINE/.02 United States Hamm PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES (1932) Table Key: N/A= Not Applicable
129 This category shows how each textbook depicts Cortés and/or Pizarro as either a “Conqueror” or an “Explorer”. 117
APPENDIX B. TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS: 1939-1962 Table A.5 shows how Columbus is portrayed in each textbook used in Texas from 1939 to
1962. The table also includes the specific contract period assigned to the textbooks and whether or not the textbook attributes a chapter or section title to Columbus or his “discovery” of the
Americas. Table A.6 looks at whether the Viking expeditions are included in the narrative presented by the textbook, as well as the amount of coverage given to the Vikings and who is credited with the discovery of the Americas in each textbook. Table A.7 shows results from the comparison between Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro in each textbook, and the term used to describe Cortés and Pizarro, from 1939 to 1956. Table A.8 also compares the coverage of
Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro in all textbooks from 1956 to 1962. 118
Table A.5: Columbus Portrayal in Textbooks: 1939-1962 Textbook/Author Contract Term Chapter/Section Title Portrayal Publication Year America Its History 1939-1945 YES T/P and People Faulkner (1938) The Record of 1939-1945 YES T/P America Adams (1937) Historic Currents in 1939-1945 YES T/P Changing America Carman (1938) The Development of 1939-1945 YES T/P America Wirth (1936) Story of America 1941-1945 NO T/P Harlow (1941) United States History 1950-1956 YES T Wirth (1949) A History of Our 1950-1956 YES T/P/R/N Country Muzzey (1950) The Making of 1950-1956 YES T/P Modern America Canfield (1950) Our Own United 1950-1956 NO T/P States Southworth (1948) Our Nation Barker 1950-1956 YES T (1949) Our Nation's Story 1956-1962 YES T/P Augspurger (1954) The Making of 1956-1962 YES T/P Modern America Canfield (1954) History of A Free 1956-1962 NO N People Bragdon (1956) A History of Our 1956-1962 YES T/P/R/N Country Muzzey (1955) United States History 1956-1962 YES(IMAGE) T/P Wirth (1955) Table Key: T= Traditional P= Positive R= Revisionist N= Negative Ne= Neutral 119
Table A.6: Analysis of Viking Portrayal in Textbooks: 1939-1962 Textbook/Author Viking Credit for Lines Pages Publication Year Expedition Discovery Per Page (Vikings) America Its History and People YES Vikings/Colu 44 8 LINES/.18 Faulkner (1938) mbus(RD) PAGES The Record of America Adams YES COLUMBUS 40 37 LINES/.92 (1937) (RD) PAGES Historic Currents in Changing YES COLUMBUS 44 3 LINES/.06 America Carman (1938)130 PAGES The Development of America YES COLUMBUS 40 25 LINES/.62 Wirth (1938) PAGES Story of America Harlow (1941) NO COLUMBUS 45 0 United States History Wirth (1949) NO COLUMBUS 46 0 A History of Our Country Muzzey YES COLUMBUS 42 22 LINES/.52 (1950) PAGES The Making of Modern America YES COLUMBUS 53 5 LINES/.09 Canfield (1950) PAGES Our Own United States Southworth YES COLUMBUS 38 8 LINES/.21 (1948) PAGES Our Nation Barker (1949) NO COLUMBUS 39 0 Our Nation's Story Augspurger YES Vikings/ 48 18 LINES/.37 (1954) Columbus PAGES The Making of Modern America YES COLUMBUS 52 5 LINES/.09 Canfield (1954)131 PAGES History of A Free People Bragdon N/A COLUMBUS 48 0 (1956)132 A History of Our Country Muzzey YES COLUMBUS 43 24 LINES/.55 (1955) PAGES United States History Wirth (1955) YES COLUMBUS 46 32 LINES/.69 PAGES Table Key: (RD)= Rediscovery
130 1936 edition analyzed 131 1952 edition analyzed 132 1954 edition analyzed 120
Table A.7: Comparison of Coverage Between Columbus, Cortés & Pizarro in Textbooks: 1939-1956 Textbook/Author Cortés/Pizarro Lines Pages Pages Pages Pages Publication Year Conquerors Per Columbus/Cortés/ (Columbus) (Cortés) (Pizarro) Explorers Page Pizarro America Its History and People Conquerors 44 53 LINES/1.2 47 3 3 LINES/.06 Faulkner (1938) PAGES LINES/1.06 LINES/.06 PAGES PAGES PAGES The Record of America Adams Conquerors 40 24 LINES/.6 20 LINES/.5 2 2 LINES/.05 (1937) PAGES PAGES LINES/.05 PAGES PAGES Historic Currents in Changing N/A 44 20 LINES/.45 20 LINES/.45 0 0 America Carman (1938) PAGES PAGES The Development of America Conquerors 40 134 LINES/3.35 111 12 11 Wirth (1938) PAGES LINES/2.77 LINES/.3 LINES/.27 PAGES PAGES PAGES Story of America Harlow Conquerors 45 57 LINES/1.2 43 LINES/.95 9 LINES/.2 5 LINES/.11 (1941) PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES United States History Wirth Conquerors 46 57 LINEES/1.23 39 LINES/.84 9 9 LINES/.19 (1949) Explorers PAGES PAGES LINES/.19 PAGES PAGES A History of Our Country Conquerors 42 149 LINES/3.5 100 42 LINES/1 7 LINES/.16 Muzzey (1950) PAGES LINES/2.3 PAGE PAGES PAGES The Making of Modern Conquerors 53 87 LINES/1.6 53 LINES/1 11 23 LINES/.4 America Canfield (1950) PAGES PAGE LINES/.2 PAGES PAGES Our Own United States Conquerors 38 88 LINES/2.3 76 LINES/2 8 4 LINES/.10 Southworth (1948) PAGES PAGES LINES/.21 PAGES PAGES Our Nation Barker (1949) Conquerors 39 77 LINES/1.9 71 LINES/1.8 6 0 PAGES PAGES LINES/.15 PAGES Table Key: N/A= Not applicable 121
Table A.8: Comparison of Coverage Between Columbus, Cortés & Pizarro in Textbooks: 1956-1962 Textbook/Author Cortés/Pizarro Lines Pages Pages Pages Pages Publication Year Conquerors Per Page Columbus/Cortés/ (Columbus) (Cortés) (Pizarro) Explorers Pizarro Our Nation's Story Conquerors 48 65 LINES/1.3 45 LINES/.91 9 LINES/.18 11 Augspurger (1954) PAGES PAGES PAGES LINES/.22 PAGES The Making of Modern Conquerors 52 99 LINES/1.9 53 24 22 America Canfield (1954) Explorers PAGES LINES/1.01 LINES/.46 LINES/.42 PAGES PAGES PAGES History of A Free People N/A 48 4 LINES/.08 4 LINES/.08 N/A N/A Bragdon (1956) PAGES PAGES A History of Our Country Conquerors 43 152 LINES/3.5 99 LINES/2.3 43 LINES/1 10 Muzzey (1955) Explorers PAGES PAGES PAGE LINES/.23 PAGES United States History Wirth Conquerors 46 69 LINES/1.5 46 LINES/1 13 10 (1955) Explorers PAGES PAGE LINES/.28 LINES/.21 PAGES PAGES Table Key: N/A= Not Applicable
122
APPENDIX C. TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS: 1962-1984
Table A.9 shows how Columbus is portrayed in each textbook used in Texas from 1962 to
1984. The table also includes the specific contract period assigned to the textbooks and whether or not the textbook attributes a chapter or section title to Columbus or his “discovery” of the
Americas. Table A.10 looks at whether the Viking expeditions are included in the narrative presented by the textbook, as well as the amount of coverage given to the Vikings and who is credited with the discovery of the Americas in each textbook from 1962 to 1973. Table A.11 shows coverage of the Vikings in textbooks from 1973 to 1984. Table A.12 shows results from the comparison between Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro in each textbook, and the term used to describe Cortés and Pizarro from 1962 to 1973. Table A.13 also shows the comparison between
Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro in textbooks from 1973 to 1984.
123
Table A.9: Columbus Portrayal in Textbooks: 1962-1984 Textbook/Author Contract Term Chapter/Section Portrayal Publication Year Title This is Our Nation Boller (1961) 1962-1968 YES T/P History of A Free People Bragdon (1961) 1962-1968 NO NE American History Craven (1961) 1962-1968 YES T/P Rise of the American Nation Todd (1961) 1962-1968 YES T/P The American People, 1962-1968 YES T/P Their History Ver steeg (1961) United States History Current (1967) 1970-1973 NO T/P A New History of the United States 1970-1973 Bartlett (1969)133 Rise of the American Nation Todd (1968) 1970-1977 The Adventure of the American People 1970-1973 YES T Graff (1970) Quest for Liberty Chapin (1972)134 1973-1977 NO T/R Foundations of Freedom Eibling (1973) 1973-1977 YES T The Free and the Brave Graff (1973) 1973-1977 YES T/P/R The People Make a Nation Sandler 1973-1977 (1971) Foundations of Freedom Eibling (1977) 1979-1984 YES T/P A History of the United States to 1877 1979-1984 Norman (1979) Rise of the American Nation Todd (1977) 1979-1984 NO T/P Let Freedom Ring Brown (1977) 1979-1984 YES T/P The Call of Freedom Graff (1978) 1979-1984 NO T/P/R/N Table Key: T= Traditional P= Positive R= Revisionist N= Negative Ne= Neutral
133 Sixty textbooks have been contracted by the state of Texas from 1919 to 2017. Of those sixty I was able to actually review fifty-three of them. The other seven are represented in these tables as being highlighted in red. This way, they are on display as a list even though they were not an actual part of the study. 134 1971 edition analyzed. 124
Table A.10: Analysis of Viking Portrayal in Textbooks: 1962-1973 Textbook/ Viking Credit for Discovery Lines Per Page Pages Author Expedition (Vikings) Publication Year This is Our YES COLUMBUS 47 28 LINES/.59 Nation Boller PAGES (1961) History of A NO COLUMBUS 44 0 Free People Bragdon (1961) American NO COLUMBUS 45 0 History Craven (1961) Rise of the YES VIKINGS/ 53 37 LINES/.69 American COLUMBUS(RD) PAGES Nation Todd (1961) The American YES VIKINGS/COLUMBUS 46 36 LINES/.78 People, Their PAGES History Ver Steeg (1961) United States YES COLUMBUS 44 12 LINES/.27 History PAGES Current (1967) A New History of the United States Bartlett (1969) The Adventure YES COLUMBUS 46 11 LINES/.23 of the PAGES American People Graff (1970) Table Key: (RD)= Rediscovery
125
Table A.11: Analysis of Viking Portrayal in Textbooks: 1973-1984 Textbook/Author Viking Credit for Discovery Lines Per Pages (Vikings) Publication Year Expedition Page Rise of the American Nation Todd (1968) Quest for Liberty YES NA/ 43 65 LINES/1.5 Chapin (1972) COLUMBUS(RD)/ PAGES VIKINGS(RD) Foundations of YES VIKINGS/ 40 18 LINES/.45 Freedom Eibling COLUMBUS(RD) PAGES (1973) The Free and the YES UNCLEAR135 47 128 LINES/2.7 Brave Graff (1973) PAGES The People Make a Nation Sandler (1971) Foundations of YES VIKINGS/ 40 18 LINES/.45 Freedom Eibling COLUMBUS(RD) PAGES (1977) A History of the United States to 1877 Norman (1979) Rise of the American YES NA/COLUMBUS 56 20 LINES/.35 Nation Todd (1977) PAGES Let Freedom Ring YES UNCLEAR 39 21 LINES/.53 Brown (1977) PAGES The Call of Freedom YES UNCLEAR 41 159 LINES/3.8 Graff (1978) PAGES Table Key: NA= Native Americans (RD)= Rediscovery
135 In several cases, textbooks do not definitively credit one person or group of people with the discovery of the Americas, thus they are labeled as unclear in this table. 126
Table A.12: Comparison of Coverage Between Columbus, Cortés & Pizarro in Textbooks: 1962-1973 Textbook/Author Cortés/Pizarro Lines Pages Pages Pages Pages Publication Year Conquerors Per Columbus/Cortés/ (Columbus) (Cortés) (Pizarro) Explorers Page Pizarro This is Our Nation Boller Conquerors 47 199 LINES/4.23 128 35 36 (1961) PAGES LINES/2.7 LINES/.74 LINES/.76 PAGES PAGES PAGES History of A Free People Conquerors 44 6 LINES/.13 2 LINES/.04 2 LINES/.04 2 LINES/.04 Bragdon (1961) PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES American History Craven Conquerors 45 114 LINES/2.5 75 21 18 LINES/.4 (1961) PAGES LINES/1.6 LINES/.46 PAGES PAGES PAGES Rise of the American Nation Conquerors 53 116 LINES/2.1 75 18 23 Todd (1961) PAGES LINES/1.4 LINES/.33 LINES/.43 PAGES PAGES PAGES The American People, Their Conquerors 46 112 LINES/2.4 66 46 LINES/1 0 History Ver steeg (1961) PAGES LINES/1.4 PAGE PAGES United States History Current N/A 44 81 LINES/1.8 81 0 0 (1967) PAGES LINES/1.8 PAGES A New History of the United States Bartlett (1969) The Adventure of the Conquerors 46 141 LINES/3.06 114 17 10 American People Graff (1970) PAGES LINES/2.4 LINES/.36 LINES/.21 PAGES PAGES PAGES Table Key: N/A= Not Applicable
127
Table A.13: Comparison of Coverage Between Columbus, Cortés & Pizarro in Textbooks: 1973-1984 Textbook/Author Cortés/Pizarro Lines Pages Pages Pages Pages Publication Year Explorers Per Page Columbus/Cortés/ (Columbus) (Cortés) (Pizarro) Pizarro Rise of the American Nation Todd (1968) Quest for Liberty Chapin (1971) Conquerors/ 43 40 LINES/.93 20 LINES/.46 20 LINES/.46 0 (72) Explorers PAGES PAGES PAGES Foundations of Freedom Eibling Conquerors 40 36 LINES/.9 31 LINES/.77 5 LINES/.12 0 (1973) PAGE PAGES PAGES The Free and the Brave Graff Conquerors 47 334 LINES/7.1 146 110 78 (1973) PAGES LINES/3.1 LINES/2.3 LINES/1.5 PAGES PAGES PAGES The People Make a Nation Sandler (1971) Foundations of Freedom Eibling Conquerors 40 36 LINES/.9 31 LINES/.77 5 LINES/.12 0 (1977) PAGE PAGES PAGES A History of the United States to 1877 Norman (1979) Rise of the American Nation Conquerors 56 73 LINES/1.3 40 LINES/.71 14 LINES/.25 19 Todd (1977) PAGES PAGES PAGES LINES/.33 PAGES Let Freedom Ring Brown (1977) Conquerors 39 55 LINES/1.4 49 LINES/1.2 4 LINES/.1 2 LINES/.05 PAGES PAGES PAGES PAGES The Call of Freedom Graff Conquerors 41 474 LINES/11.5 200 186 88 (1978) PAGES LINES/4.8 LINES/4.5 LINES/2.1 PAGES PAGES PAGES
128
APPENDIX D. TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS: 1986-2017 Table A.14 shows how Columbus is portrayed in each textbook used in Texas from 1986 to
2017. The table also includes the specific contract period assigned to the textbooks and whether or not the textbook attributes a chapter or section title to Columbus or his “discovery” of the
Americas. Table A.15 looks at whether the Viking expeditions are included in the narrative presented by the textbook, as well as the amount of coverage given to the Vikings and who is credited with the discovery of the Americas in each textbook. Table A.16 shows results from the comparison between Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro in each textbook, and the term used to describe Cortés and Pizarro from 1986 to 1992. Table A.17 compares the coverage of Columbus,
Cortés and Pizarro in textbooks from 1992 to 2017. 129
Table A.14: Columbus Portrayal in Textbooks: 1984-2017 Textbook/Author Contract Term Chapter/Section Title Portrayal Publication Year America: The 1986-1992 NO T/R Glorious Republic Graff (1986) Land of Promise 1986-1992 YES T/P Berkin (1986) The American People 1986-1992 YES T Link (1986)136 The American Nation 1986-1992 NO T/P Davidson (1986) The United States: 1986-1992 YES T/P History of the Republic Davidson (1986) The Story of America 1992-1998 Garraty (1992) History of the United 1992-1998 YES T/P/R/N States Mason (1992) American Journey 1992-1998 YES (IMAGE) T/P Davidson (1992) America: The People 1992-1998 YES T/P and the Dream Divine (1992) Call to Freedom 2003-2017 YES T/P/R/N Stuckey (2003) The American 2003-2017 Republic Brownson (2003) The American Nation 2003-2017 YES T/P/R/N Davidson (2003) Creating America 2003-2017 YES T/R/N Garcia (2003) History Alive! Hart 2003-2017 (2003) Table Key: T= Traditional P= Positive R= Revisionist N= Negative
136 1981 edition analyzed. 130
Table A.15: Analysis of Viking Portrayal in Textbooks: 1986-2017 Textbook/Author Viking Credit for Lines Pages Publication Year Expedition Discovery Per Page (Vikings) America: The Glorious Republic YES VIKINGS 51 55 Graff (1986) LINES/1.07 PAGES Land of Promise Berkin (1986) YES COLUMBUS 51 13 LINES/.25 PAGES The American People Link (1986) YES UNCLEAR 50 3 LINES/.06 PAGES The American Nation Davidson YES COLUMBUS 51 38 LINES/.74 (1986) PAGES The United States: History of the YES COLUMBUS 57 36 LINES/.63 Republic Davidson (1986) PAGES The Story of America Garraty (1992) History of the United States Mason NO COLUMBUS 48 0 (1992) American Journey Davidson (1992) YES VIKINGS 49 37 LINES/.75 PAGES America: The People and the YES COLUMBUS 48 31 LINES/.64 Dream Divine (1992) PAGES Call to Freedom Stuckey (2003) NO UNCLEAR 45 0 The American Republic Brownson (2003) The American Nation Davidson YES NATIVE 50 19 LINES/.38 (2003) AMERICANS PAGES COLUMBUS Creating America Garcia (2003) NO UNCLEAR 47 0 History Alive! Hart (2003) Not a textbook 131
Table A.16: Comparison of Coverage Between Columbus, Cortés & Pizarro in Textbooks: 1986-1992 Textbook Author Cortés/ Pizarro Lines Pages Pages Pages Pages Publication Year Explorers/ Per Columbus/Cortés (Columbus) (Cortés) (Pizarro) Conquerors Page / Pizarro America: The Glorious Republic Conquerors 51 416 LINES/8.1 267 130 19 Graff (1986) PAGES LINES/5.2 LINES/2.5 LINES/.37 PAGES PAGES PAGES Land of Promise Berkin (1986) Conquerors 51 212 LINES/4.1 200 7 LINES/.13 5 PAGES LINES/3.9 PAGES LINES/.09 PAGES PAGES The American People Link Conquerors 50 144 LINES/2.8 30 LINES/.6 114 0 (1986) PAGES PAGES LINES/2.2 PAGES The American Nation Davidson Conquerors 51 221 LINES/4.3 109 81 31 (1986) PAGES LINES/2.1 LINES/1.58 LINES/.6 PAGES PAGES PAGES The United States: History of the Conquerors 57 200 LINES/3.5 139 50 11 Republic Davidson (1986) PAGES LINES/2.4 LINES.87 LINES/.19 PAGES PAGES PAGES
132
Table A.17: Comparison of Coverage Between Columbus, Cortés & Pizarro in Textbooks: 1992-2017 Textbook/Author Cortés/ Pizarro Lines Pages Pages Pages Pages Publication Year Conquerors Per Columbus/Cortés/ (Columbus) (Cortés) (Pizarro) Explorers Page Pizarro The Story of America Garraty (1992) History of the United States Conquerors 48 409 LINES/8.5 231 134 44 Mason (1992) PAGES LINES/4.8 LINES/2.7 LINES/.91 PAGES PAGES PAGES American Journey Davidson Conquerors 49 158 LINES/3.2 89 57 12 (1992) PAGES LINES/1.8 LINES/1.1 LINES/.24 PAGES PAGES PAGES America: The People and the Conquerors 48 156 LINES/3.2 73 65 18 Dream Divine (1992) PAGES LINES/1.5 LINES/1.3 LINES/.37 PAGES PAGES PAGES Call to Freedom Stuckey Conquerors 45 239 LINES/5.3 158 52 29 (2003) PAGES LINES/3.5 LINES/1.1 LINES/.64 PAGES PAGES PAGES The American Republic Brownson (2003) The American Nation Conquerors 50 115 LINES/2.3 77 31 7 LINES/.14 Davidson (2003) PAGES LINES/1.54 LINES/.62 PAGES PAGES PAGES Creating America Garcia Conquerors 47 160 LINES/3.4 126 19 LINES/.4 15 (2003) PAGES LINES/2.6 PAGES LINES/.31 PAGES PAGES History Alive! Hart (2003) Not a textbook
133
APPENDIX E. AVERAGE COVERAGE: COLUMBUS, CORTES, PIZARRO, 1919-2017
Table 18 shows the average amount of coverage Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro receive in each of the 53 textbooks analyzed from 1919 to 2017. Averages were determined by taking the average coverage each of them receives in each textbook for a set of years, then dividing that average by the total number of textbooks analyzed in that set.
134
Table A.18: Average Textbook Coverage: Columbus, Cortés, Pizarro, 1919-2017 Years Average Columbus Average Cortés Average Pizarro Most Coverage Coverage Coverage Coverage 1919- 4.3 Pages .25 Pages .15 Pages Columbus 1939 1939- 1.2 Pages .21 Pages .18 Pages Columbus 1962 1962- 1.6 Pages 1.5 Pages .43 Pages Columbus 1984 1986- 2.7 Pages 1.37 Pages .35 Pages Columbus 2017