As a child in grade school, I was taught "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue" to prove the world was round, and he discovered America, to continue to recite this myth is to discount other maritime traditions and to discredit the intelligence of educated Europeans of the time...
While Gavin Menzie's book 1421 has been widely discredited, it did shed some light on forgotten maritime history. Western Europeans weren't the only ones with ocean-worthy vessels. So I'll start tonight recognizing other oceanic voyages which certainly merit our respect and can help contextualize European voyages.
One of the greatest maritime cultures can be found in the Pacific. The islands of the Pacific were populated by Polynesian voyagers. These explorers settled Hawaii before the Norse made their way to Canada. Making the Polynesians the first people in United States after the Native Americans. The Polynesians sailed vast expanses of the Pacific on outrigger canoes, and ongoing research appears to suggest that the Polynesians may have had contact with the Native American peoples of South America, bringing the Sweet Potato back to the islands one thousand years ago.
There is also solid evidence that the Norse established a colony in Canada 400 years before Columbus set sail. The Norse ventured all over the world, raiding most of Europe, while colonizing Iceland and Greenland. Their ships had a shallow draft and were able to sail both the ocean and the rivers. It does not appear that the Norse made their way to the current United States and ultimately their colony in Canada appears to have been abandoned.
Meanwhile in the 15th Century, the Chinese constructed ocean-going ships like the world had not seen. Admiral Zheng He commanded the mighty treasure fleet of Chinese junks which sailed around Indonesia, India and Eastern Africa. While widely discredited, Menzie's book 1421 suggests the Chinese sailed around the world. Evidence does not support this claim, but their vessels and endeavors are certainly impressive and worthy of further study. The Chinese junks were cruising around the Indian Ocean while Arab dhows were also used to visit Africa and India. My point being that by the time of Columbus' voyages, humanity was traversing the oceans in a variety of different kinds of vessels.
The other maritime tradition I will visit is that of the European fisherman. There is archaeological evidence of Basque fisherman visiting Canada just after Columbus' voyages, and some quick internet searches will reveal that there's at least some discussion that some of these fishermen may have sailed before Columbus. Again, my point being that Columbus is part of a bigger maritime happening, and circling back to the idea that humans are by their nature curious and looking for the next horizon.
So at this point, it can be safely stated that the Norse reached the Americas before Columbus and likely that the Polynesians did as well (and if they didn't, they certainly reached Hawaii which is part of the United States before Columbus). And it can be asserted the Columbus' voyage is part of bigger movement of peoples taking to the ocean.
Columbus, an Italian navigator, is part of a European movement to sail the seas. Prince Henry the Navigator established a school for navigators and cartographers in the early 15th Century, and Europeans begin setting sail along the African Coast. In 1487, Bartolomeu Dias sets sail, eventually rounding Africa and reaching India. He returned to Portugal in 1488.
To be clear, Dias' patrons didn't worry about him sailing off the edge of the world. Educated Europeans were aware the world was round. The model of the universe supported by the Roman Catholic Church and ancient Greek studies held that the Earth and planets were perfect spheres with the Earth at the center of the universe. The model is at play in Dante's Paradiso, the final part of the Divine Comedy written in the 1300's. This model of the universe would later be challenged by Copernicus and Galileo. Using Ptolemy's model of the Earth, the big question of the day was not 'if the world was round' but rather 'how far around'. Dias' voyage demonstrated that India could be reached from Western Europe, but was there a shorter route? That was purpose of Columbus' voyage.
Believing the world was smaller around than it is, Columbus set sail westward to find a faster route to India. But why were Europeans so keen on getting to India?
Western Europeans had established the Crusader States as colonies during the Middle Ages and enjoyed lucrative and beneficial trade for goods like spices and silks across the Mediterranean. The Crusader States were eventually reclaimed by the people of the Middle East, and eventually the Ottoman Turks conquer the Middle East and the remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire, taking Constantinople in 1453 CE. Without their colonies in the Middle East, Europeans use the Mongol controlled Silk Road to reach Asia and continue trade, but overland trade is slow, difficult, and risky. By the 15th Century, the Mongol Khanates which kept the silk road going were gone, and this pathway falls into disuse. There is economic competition amongst European nations to establish trading relationships, and oceanic travel could both provide advantage and be the great equalizer.
Columbus sets sail in 1492, less than 20 years after the start of the Spanish Inquisition. His bravery should not be questioned, this first voyage was an incredible risk. Columbus reaches the Americas thinking he is near India. On October 11th, Columbus makes land and meets the Taino, people already living in the Caribbean. He writes, "It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians." By day two, Columbus is looking to make a deal, saying I "strove to learn if they had any gold. Seeing some of them with little bits of this metal hanging at their noses." By the 14th of October, he has taken 7 people as slaves to be brought back to the Queen of Spain and claims he could conquer the whole island with 50 men. Columbus and his crew bring with them: religion, disease, firearms, and a belief that their European culture is superior to the Taino. The Spanish claim these populated islands in the name of Spain. Columbus completes 4 voyages to the Americas and never steps foot in the United States.
Columbus' ultimate legacy isn't that he proved the world was round. He didn't find India either. His voyages did popularize European exploration, looking for a western (later Northwest) passage to Asia. After his voyages, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch, and English sailors explore the Americas, map it, and colonize it. The Spanish return the Americas claiming territory from South America to the American Southwest and Florida. They bring Catholicism, which spreads via Missions; they bring horses and firearms, and they bring diseases unknown to the Americas which spread as epidemics amongst the enslaved Taino. In a matter of 50 years, the Taino civilization is largely wiped out, and Europeans diseases start to spread to other native peoples who had contact with the Taino. Ultimately Columbus is the first in a series of Europeans who enslave and kill native peoples in the name of their home country, monarch, and/or church. It's the root of the later idea of Manifest Destiny.
So if he didn't prove the world was round, and he didn't step foot in the United States, and he wasn't the first European to reach the New World, why do we celebrate Columbus Day? Oddly enough the answer has it's roots in white supremacy, but maybe not in the way you would think. In the late 19th Century, Italian immigrants were not welcomed by white American society; they were the migrant of the day to hate. In New Orleans, in 1891, 11 Italian-Americans were lynched. Columbus, while he sailed for Spain was Italian, and the following year (1892), President Harrison declared Columbus Day as a holiday to honor the victims.
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