(2017 midterm assignment)

Sample Student Midterm Answers 2017
(index to #2 samples)

#2a: Short Essay (Favorite Passage)

LITR 4326
Early American Literature
 

Model Assignments 

 

Tanner House

10/24/17

Columbus Bound (Essay 2)

For essay 2, I will be referring to the selected portion of Columbus’s second letter, which describes his fourth voyage:

 [2.7] While I wearily traversed that sea, a delusion came to some that we were bewitched and they still persist in that idea. I found another people who eat men [cannibalism]; their brutal appearance showed this. They say that there are great mines of copper; of it they make hatchets, other worked articles, cast and soldered, and forges with all the tools of a goldsmith, and crucibles. There they go clothed. . . .

[2.8] When I discovered the Indies, I said that they were the richest dominion that there is in the world. I was speaking of the gold, pearls, precious stones and spices, with the trade and markets in them, and because everything did not appear immediately, I was held up to abuse. This punishment leads me now to say only that which I have heard from the natives of the land. . . .

[2.9] Jerusalem and Mount Sion are to be rebuilt by the hand of a Christian*; who this is to be, God declares by the mouth of his prophet in the fourteenth Psalm. Abbot Joachin said that he was to come from Spain. St. Jerome showed the way to it to the holy lady. The emperor of Catayo, some time since, sent for wise men to instruct him in the faith of Christ. Who will offer himself for this work? If our Lord bring me back to Spain, I pledge myself, in the name of God, to bring him there in safety. [*American gold would finance a crusade to retake the Holy Lands from Muslim control.] . . .

[2.10] Of Hispaniola, Paria [Venezuelan province], and the other lands [discovered in the Americas], I never think without weeping. I believed that their example would have been to the profit of others; on the contrary, they are in a languid state although they are not dead; the infirmity is incurable or very extensive . . . . Those who left the Indies, flying from toils and speaking evil of the matter and of me, have returned with official employment. . . . It is an ill example and without profit for the business and for the justice in the world. . . .

[2.11] Seven years I was at your royal court, where all to whom this undertaking [of voyaging west] was mentioned, unanimously declared it to be a delusion. Now all, down to the very tailors, seek permission to make discoveries. It can be believed that they go forth to plunder, and it is granted to them to do so, so that they greatly prejudice my honour and do very great damage to the enterprise. . . . [I] was on the point of securing a very great revenue[;] suddenly, while I was waiting for ships that I might come to your high presence with victory and with great news of gold, being very secure and joyful, I was made a prisoner and with my two brothers was thrown into a ship, laden with fetters [chains], stripped to the skin, very ill-treated, and without being tried or condemned. . . .

[2.12] I came to serve at the age of twenty-eight years, and now I have not a hair on my body that is not grey, and my body is infirm, and whatever remained to me from those years of service has been spent and taken away from me and sold . . . to my great dishonour. It must be believed that this was not done by your royal command. . . .

[2.13] I pray your highnesses to pardon me. I am so ruined as I have said; hitherto I have wept for others; now, Heaven have mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for me. Of worldly goods, I have not even a blanca [coin] for an offering in spiritual things. Here in the Indies I have become careless of the prescribed forms of religion. Alone in my trouble, sick, in daily expectation of death, and encompassed about by a million savages, full of cruelty, and our foes, and so separated from the Blessed Sacraments of Holy Church, my soul will be forgotten if it here leaves my body. Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth and justice.

[2.14] I did not sail upon this voyage to gain honour or wealth; this is certain, for already all hope of that was dead. I came to your highnesses with true devotion and with ready zeal, and I do not lie. I humbly pray your highnesses that if it please God to bring me forth from this place, that you will be pleased to permit me to go to Rome and to other places of pilgrimage. May the Holy Trinity preserve your life and high estate, and grant you increase of prosperity. Done in the Indies, in the island of Jamaica, on the seventh of July, in the year one thousand five hundred and three. [END]

          There is a certain mythology surrounding the history, deeds, and actions of Christopher Columbus, and this mythology often depicts him as a hero on the forefront of discovery and progress, a paragon of the new world and one of the most important figures in the founding of the United States of America. But is he really any of these things? Was he a revolutionary explorer responsible for the discovery and foundation of the new world, or was he a privateer who spent a significant portion of his life not knowing where he actually was, seeking mostly to just fatten his own pockets in the hysteria and exploitation that accompanied Europe’s discovery of the western hemisphere? As a contrarian, I am predisposed to believe the latter, but the truth of the matter is far more complicated than these simple binaries. I have always taken the idea of Columbus as a mythical hero of western innovation and discovery with a grain of salt while still acknowledging the importance of his voyages, but after reading Columbus’s letters I have come to a new and more complete understanding of both the man and his place and importance in the history of the world.

          I find this passage so interesting at it reveals that Columbus left the new world for the final time in chains. His first voyage made him a hero in American history, and his final voyage made him a criminal in European society. His contributions to the discovery and settlement by the Europeans of the western hemisphere are still important and significant, but the fact that Columbus essentially wasted the crowns time and money and returned to Europe shamed and in chains is not something that is often known or taught about him. This idea reinforces one of the most prevalent ideas which must be considered when exploring history and historical literature: the perspective we get is the dominant perspective, the voices we hear are the voices of the victors, and the records which have been left behind are incomplete.

          Further exploring the Columbus letters, fascinating parallels can be made between Columbus’s voyages to and actions in the new world and the Greek myth of Prometheus. The “discovery of the new world” can very easily be interpreted as an origin story for the American continent, and when viewed in this context Columbus himself becomes a Promethean figure, as he provides the native people of America with ideas, resources, and technologies which they otherwise may never have been aware of. Just as Prometheus gave mankind the spark it needed to emerge from darkness, so too did Columbus give the new world a similar spark. And just as Prometheus was punished and imprisoned by a tyrannical monarch, so too was Columbus.

Image result for prometheus in chains

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/ximages/histfigs/ColumbusChains.gif

 

The stories do however have key differences. Whereas Prometheus was defiant in his punishment and imprisonment, Columbus was defeated. This could be reflective of their respective intentions as mythological figures. Prometheus sought to defy and enlighten, and offered mankind a better and more fulfilling existence in which divinity could no longer impose itself upon the human will. Columbus sought fame and fortune, and likely only exposed the native people of America to European customs and technologies for the sake of personal gain. He did not necessarily defy his masters but only their checkbooks, and he is not deserving of the status he holds in American mythology, a conclusion which can only be drawn through close readings and analyses of his own writings.