Italians Deserve Better Than Columbus
Italian-Americans cling to Christopher Columbus as a source of heritage pride. Ironically, he may not even be Italian. A growing body of scholars and researchers think he was Portuguese. Whether or not he is Portuguese or Italian, Italians deserve better than Columbus.
FOR STARTERS, ITALIANS ARE SMART. In fact, they are the smartest Western country on the planet and fourth smartest in the world trailing behind only Singapore, South Korea and Japan. That is according to a study that tests 113 countries. Columbus wasn’t smart. He couldn’t find investors in Genoa, Venice, England, Portugal, or France because folks doubted his calculations. Columbus needed repeated attempts to get financing from Spain.
Columbus sought to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to reach Asia. He believed the world was far smaller than this contemporaries. He underestimated the size by 25%. If not for the Americas between Spain and Asia, his ships would have fallen apart or he would have run out of supplies. We only know of Columbus because of dumb luck.
Not only that, Columbus actually believed he reached Asia and that Cuba was China and Hispaniola was Japan. About a decade after Columbus’ landing in the Bahamas, Amerigo Vespucci told of a new continent in the Atlantic. Columbus died a few years after Vespucci’s tale of a new continent still believing he had found a new route to Asia. He’s like the Mr. Magoo of explorers.
He also never reached North America. So why is he associated with the US?
This is because the early United States was fighting with England, not Spain. John Cabot (a.k.a. Giovanni Caboto, another Italian) “discovered” Newfoundland in England’s name around 1497 and paved the way for England’s colonization of most of North America. So the American colonialists instead turned to Columbus as their hero, not England’s Cabot. Hence we have the capital, Washington, D.C. — that’s District of Columbia, not District of Cabot. (via Live Science)
ITALIANS ARE CIVILIZED, MOST OF THE TIME.
We are pioneers in food, culture, and art. Even in crime, Italians are civilized—organized, perhaps. They weren’t willy-nilly with their violence. They weren’t shooting up innocent people not involved in their underworld.
That’s not how Christopher Columbus rolled. He encountered indigenous people on the islands, particularly the Taino people of Hispaniola. Unarmed and seeking friendship, Columbus pounced on their vulnerability. This is an account from Columbus’ actual log that Columbus himself wrote:
They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… . They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
He abused, slaughtered, and enslaved the Taino people, decimating their population. He cut the hands off of any slaves who failed to reach their gold collecting quota and left them to bleed to death.
That’s not the Italian that I grew up knowing.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, ITALIANS ARE RESPECTFUL.
If you treat Italians with respect, you will get respect and find some of the most generous, loving people on the planet. Italians welcome you into their homes, hopefully not onto plastic-covered furniture, and share food with you. They always want to feed you.
The indigenous people welcomed Columbus and his crew to their island, brought them gifts, and shared their food. No decent Italian that I know would rape and pillage those same people. This is from Columbus’ own journal log:
“The Indians are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone….”
Only a monster would enslave, rape, and decimate people. It takes a special kind of monster to enslave, rape, and decimate people, who treat you with such generosity and respect. Christopher Columbus was that special kind of monster that Christopher Columbus and that doesn’t resemble the Italian that I know.
LASTLY, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, ITALIANS ARE FASHIONABLE.
Have you seen the outfits Columbus wore? No self-respecting Italian would be caught dead dressing like Columbus. His hats were awkward with these weird, flared, half-brims. His attire more closely resembled that of my Great-Grandmother from France than a world conqueror.
He was definitely no Marco Polo, no matter how hard he tried to be. Polo, unlike Columbus, actually reached China and was far more dapper.
The moral of the story is that Columbus did nothing to be a source of pride for Italians. Inaccurate textbooks and a poor education system have created a false narrative of the Columbus folk-hero. Leif Erikson hit North America 500 years earlier. Chinese may have arrived in North America almost fifty years earlier than Columbus.
Italians are a civilized culture that pushed society forward in food, science, math, physics, music, automobiles, art, and fashion. Columbus, on the other hand, was a carpetbagging hack explorer of average to below-average intellect and a cruel monster with minimal redeeming qualities.
Philadelphia Italians deserve better Italian heroes than Columbus such as Dante, DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Fellini, Galileo, Maria Montessori, or Marco Polo to name a few.
If we want to keep it local the list is aplenty. Al Alberts, Frankie Avalon, Jerry Blavat, Pat Croce, Mario Lanza, Guitarist Pat Martino, Guitarist Eddie Lang (Salvatore Massaro), pool shark Willie Mosconi, or lawyer Vincent Salandrio, who was active in the ACLU and one of the first to criticize the Warren Commission Report.
Pat Croce and Jerry Blavat seem like slamdunks, although they are only half Italian.
I have a ton of Italian pride and feelings of heritage, but it has nothing to do with any statues. My pride comes from the Italian culture of love, family, and a joy of life.
Speaking of Italian pride, I leave you with this. One of my favorite Italian songs by Adriano Celentano called Prisencolinensinainciusol. The song is total gibberish but reflects what English sounded like to Celentano and his hips are crazy.