They do not carry arms and have no knowledge of them, for when I showed them the swords they took them by the edge and through ignorance cut themselves. They have no iron; their spears consist of staffs without iron, some of them having a fish’s tooth at the end and the others other things.

he believed was breaking into cars

This myth is mostly the blame of the novelist Washington Irving

the Columbus myth is alive and well in the United States

By the time Andrew White wrote his A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) (online here), Columbus’s struggles to overcome a medieval Church that believed in a flat earth had become historical fact.

By the latter 19th-century, the supposed truth of the Columbus story had completely replaced the historical truths. In works like John Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) (online here) we read nothing of the reasoned objections raised by the Council at Salamanca or of Columbus’s errors. Instead we learn that his proposal’s irreligious tendency was pointed out by the Spanish ecclesiastics, and condemned by the Council of Salamanca; its orthodoxy was confuted from the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Prophecies, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the writings of the Fathers—St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, St. Basil, St Ambrose.

The seeds of the Columbus myth seem to grow from Washington Irving’s biography of Columbus, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) (online here). Alexander Everett, Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain, had invited Irving to Madrid in the hopes that Irving would translate a recently published collection of documents on Columbus.

gun crimes

Few who march in Columbus Day parades or recount the tale of Columbus’s voyage from Europe to the New World are aware of how the holiday came about or that President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed it as a one-time national celebration in 1892 — in the wake of a bloody New Orleans lynching that took the lives of 11 Italian immigrants. The proclamation was part of a broader attempt to quiet outrage among Italian-Americans, and a diplomatic blowup over the murders that brought Italy and the United States to the brink of war.

The decision doesn’t change things.  Consistent with its mission, the Foundation operates in a transparent fashion and will continue to do so," said its spokeswoman, Connie Luck, in a written statement.

a division spokesperson said it is working on plans for handling these situations

the belief that citizens should have the right to come together to decide what’s best for their community

Like other informed people of his time, Columbus knew that theworld was round.

They would make ne servants.... With ftymen we could subjugate [overpower] them and make them do whatever we want.

drive to the closest police station

Albert said with Ohio’s permitless carry law, people should now assume that someone could have a firearm in their vehicles.

such as installing permanent lighting

a new alliance

America would have been discovered more gradually

Columbus described them as innocents. “They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor the sins of murder or theft,” he reported to the Spanish crown. “Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people … They love their neighbors as themselves, and their speech is the sweetest and gentlest in the world, and always with a smile.”

extreme of blackness

that I have come to another conclusion respecting the Earth

the inhabitants on discovering us abandoned their houses, and took to flight, carrying of their goods to the mountain.

penetrate

This is so beautiful a place

The Indians on board the ships called this island Saomete. I named it Isabela.

seemed to take great pleasure in serving us.

It appeared to them that we were honest people

where I gave it the name of Santa Maria de la Concepcion

San Salvador

I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased.

if they had any gold

wrought in a wonderful manner considering the country

and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion

Weapons they have none

coarse like that of a horse’s tail

that he before all others took possession (as in fact he did) of that island for the King and Queen his sovereigns, making the requisite declarations, which are more at large set down here in writing.

At two o’clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues’ distance;

a piece of cane

for the Admiral had given orders to that effect.

the needles

Those on board the Nina ascended the rigging, and all declared they saw land. The Admiral also thought it was land,

demanded of the Admiral a reward for his intelligence.

Part of the day saw no weeds, afterwards great plenty of it.

Saw a whale, an indication of land, as they always keep near the coast.

Here the pilots found their places upon the chart: the reckoning of the Nina made her four hundred and forty leagues distant from the Canaries, that of the Pinta four hundred and twenty, that of the Admiral four hundred.

the seamen were terrified

saw a large fragment of the mast of a vessel

that the crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should prove long.

which he affirmed he saw every year, and always of the same appearance

perpetual Viceroy and Governor in all the islands and continents which I might discover and acquire, or which may hereafter he discovered and acquired in the ocean; and that this dignity should be inherited by my eldest son, and thus descend from degree to degree forever

countries of India

the holy Father had never granted his request, whereby great numbers of people were lost, believing in idolatry and doctrines of perdition

The Indian population collapsed. Within a few generations a whole island had been depopulated and a whole people exterminated.

But Columbus underestimated the size of the globe by a full two-thirds and therefore believed it was possible.