Cristóbal Colón (aka Christopher Columbus, c1451-1506) - Italian Explorer and Navigator who Initiated New World Colonization

[DonRocks]

If you're reading this, there's a pretty good chance you're sitting in a location that was named not only after George Washington, but also Christopher Columbus. Only Amerigo Vespucci could possibly claim greater unearned namesake posterity in this old-new world.

I'm wondering if folks here would be willing to disclose their ages (I'm 54), and the degree to which they were taught that "Columbus discovered America" when they were children. It is *amazing* how much things stick in the minds of people when they become adults - because I was so thoroughly indoctrinated with lessons of Spanish and Portuguese explorers (Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, Bartholomew Dias, etc.), I find myself having to struggle to accept even something as innocuous as the possibility of a visitation by Leif Erikson, much less being able to fully grasp the obvious fact that Native Americans had been here for at least 13,000 years (!) before "Columbus discovered America."

I still remember dear, sweet, Mrs. Mayberry - my fourth-grade teacher - singing the rhyming song, "In 1492, Columbus dropped his shoe" as a way to get us to remember the year that "America was discovered." It certainly wasn't her fault; she was brainwashed just as I was, only about fifty years beforehand. I vaguely remember Erikson being mentioned, but only as a theory and a possibility; we certainly didn't spend a whole lot of time on "Native American Studies" - we touched on it, but my working knowledge of Native American tribes, with all their rich, complex histories, was formed mainly as an adult, and remains quite weak even to this day: It's pretty pathetic that I couldn't name-and-locate ten tribes on a map, and I certainly couldn't do it without some help from Wikipedia (I could name ten, or fifty, or whatever, but if I had to pinpoint where they were based, it would very quickly become challenging, and most of my correct answers would come from recollecting city names and college mascots).

I don't know enough about Columbus to hold anything against the man, so this is absolutely *not* an anti-Columbus post, but this is an extremely visceral example of how powerful a tool the brainwashing of children is - writing whatever you wish on their tabulae rasae, and having them swallow it like candy, unquestioningly, until they're old (and cynical) enough to realize that this candy often has a bitter finish, and as we've all seen through countless, terrible examples of human behavior, the typical person isn't cynical enough to *ever* rebuke the lies that they've been fed as children, unless they've been repeatedly exposed to other belief systems over a long period of time.

Columbus is only one example - there are many, and it's probably best not to get into the details of what they are, but I think it's safe to say that such teachings have resulted many, many times in the dehumanization of untold numbers of unfortunate people, and groups of people, throughout world history.

So, how old are you, and to what degree were you brainwashed by this?

[Al Dente]

As a newly minted 50 year-old, I can say that I was taught by the good Sisters at Saint Mary's of the Snow, that Columbus was the first. Of course I stopped buying this and many other of their teachings a long time ago. This is a topic that has always interested me given the profound leap of faith it must have taken to sail so far from home. It must have been like taking off for the moon.

Here's a good take on it from NPR:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15040888

We were also taught that folks back then thought the world was flat. Yes, your average serf on the street may have though so, but Columbus and his pals knew otherwise:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/busting-a-myth-about-columbus-and-a-flat-earth/2011/10/10/gIQAXszQaL_blog.html

 

[PollyG]

I am 51 and attended elementary school in Lexington, KY.  We were definitely told that Columbus discovered the Americas, and there was nothing made of the fact that since it was obviously inhabited, they had been "discovered" thousands of years earlier by the native population.  At some point, whether through school or independent reading while I was still in public school, I became aware of the Viking theory as well.   

When I was in 8th grade, our history class had a true-false question along the lines of "Vasco de Gama was the first person to sail from Europe to Asia."  I marked it False, reasoning that people had been sailing from Europe to Asia via the Mediterranean long before Vasco de Gama took the long way around.  It was, of course, marked incorrect, and when I spoke with the teacher about it, he told me I didn't get points for being a smartass.   

At least we were taught that the Union won the Civil War.