|
(2017
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2017 (index to #2 samples) #2a: Short Essay (Favorite Passage) |
 |
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.
|
|
|
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.
