In Mexico,
October 12th is a national holiday known as Día de la Raza or
Day of the Race. This date is honored in other countries as Columbus
Day and under other names; but the event it commemorates and the
way in which it is observed have become quite controversial.
In the fifteenth
century, an obscure Italian seafarer named Christopher Columbus
became convinced that it was possible to reach the East from Europe
by sailing westward across the Atlantic and that this route would
be shorter than traveling around Africa; he underestimated the
size of the Earth and overestimated the size and eastward extension
of Asia. After eight years of negotiations, he convinced Queen
Isabella of Spain to support his enterprise. He finally set out
in three small ships and, on October 12th, 1492, he landed on
an island in the Bahamas inhabited by the Taino or Arawak tribe,
thinking that it was India.
A map of the
world published in Cosmographia by the
press of Lienhart Holle of Ulm, Germany, on July 6, 1482.
Although
Christopher Columbus was perhaps not the first to discover America,
as has so often been claimed, he was the one to bring about the
first real contact and interaction between Renaissance Europe
and the American continent with its various civilizations; and
that has shaped and changed world history in countless ways. Over
500 years later, this date is still celebrated, lamented, and
debated.
One
of the main consequences of this contact, was the imminent conquest
of the new world by the old. In writing of his discovery, Columbus
noted how he and his men were greeted with gifts and said: "As
soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found,
I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn
and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts".
And, generally speaking, this was to characterize relations between
the old world and the new: Europeans sought wealth and to impart
(or impose) their culture. The indigenous people befriended them
and were dominated by armies from abroad.
Less
than 30 years later, in 1521, Hernán Cortés landed on the shores
of Mexico. He too was received with gifts, and he proceeded to
conquer the vast Mexica empire which is Mexico today. Relations
between the indigenous population and the conquerors of Mexico
during the 300 year colonial period were complex. Spain sought
riches in the new land, but also converts for Catholicism. Missionaries
traveled with the soldiers. Some of them were greatly impressed
by native cultures and are responsible for the preservation of
many codices and documents regarding the period.
National symbol,
from Fray Diego Duran, Historia Antigua de la Nueva Espana
[19th century manuscript facsimile of the 1585 original)
The
Spanish are perhaps unique among conquerors in their soul-searching
ethical inquiry into the results of their actions throughout the
16th century. "Spain was constantly debating with itself: 'Am
I right, am I wrong? What is it I'm doing with these peoples?'"
notes Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes in "The Buried Mirror: Reflections
on Spain and the New World" (which was published both in book
form and as a television documentary to commemorate the five hundredth
anniversary of Columbus' landing by presenting the wealth of syncretic
cultural manifestations to which it gave rise). Dominican Bishop
Bartolomé de Las Casas worked for 50 years to improve the way
the Spanish treated the Indians; in 1552 he published "A Brief
Account of the Destruction of the Indies". Bernal Díaz, a soldier
in Cortés' army, also wrote a history of the conquest of Mexico,
summing it up in this sentence: "We came here to serve God, and
also to get rich."
Woodrow Borah of the University of California, Berkeley, points
out that "The Spanish made a place for the Indians--as part of
the lowest order, but at least they had a place", whereas, "North
Americans in many cases simply exterminated the Indians." The
native population of Mexico certainly decreased dramatically,
but survived alongside the Spanish conquerors and mingled with
them. According to Mexican poet Homero Aridjis, "The Spanish were
conquered in turn by those they conquered".
When
Mexico celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus'
landing, in 1892, the country was ruled by Porfirio Díaz, who
remained in power for over thirty years and was a great admirer
of European culture, especially the French. At that time, the
government prepared a celebration of "The communion of all peoples
in sentiments of justice and admiration for the past, noble aspirations
and glowing hopes for the future" for October 12, 1892. As in
most of the world, this event praised Columbus for his skill as
navigator, for his Discovery of America and for bringing European
culture to this land, although all of these things have since
been questioned and re-examined.
In
1918, philosopher Antonio Caso took October 12th as an opportunity
to praise the "Mexican mestizo race", La Raza, the rich mixture
of Spanish and indigenous cultures which characterizes us. He
was perhaps the first to coin the term La Raza, which has now
been adopted by Latinos from all across the continent. Ten years
later, the Día de la Raza was declared an official national holiday
by Congress, after only minor debate.
The Huejotzingo
Codex of 1531 has the first known
depiction of the Virgin among indigenous glyphs
In
the United States, after its Independence, Columbus was recreated
as a hero who liberated the new world from the old. Historian
Michael Kammen tells us that, "It is not hard to understand the
appeal of Columbus as a totem for the new republic and the former
subjects of George III. Columbus had found the way of escape from
Old World tyranny. He was the solitary individual who challenged
the unknown sea, as triumphant Americans contemplated the dangers
and promise of their own wilderness frontier...as a consequence
of his vision and audacity, there was now a land free from kings,
a vast continent for new beginnings". Biographies were published
praising him as the model of modern man and everyone seemed to
have forgotten that his voyage and claiming of the new continent
were done in the name of the Queen of Spain, and were intended
to discover a shorter trade route, not a New World.
However,
ethnic groups, historians, sociologists, defenders of human rights
and many others all over the world have since seriously questioned
the prevailing views of yesterday. By the time of the quincentennial,
debate had become so heated that the National Endowment for the
Humanities offered these politically correct topics for projects
participating in their program: "expansion of European civilization
through the efforts of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns", "new
societies and new forms of cultural expression that emerged from
the encounters of native American, European and African peoples",
and "the ideas - political, religious, philosophical, scientific,
technological and aesthetic - that shaped the process of exploration,
settlement and cultural conflict and transformation set into motion
by Columbus' event of epic chance". Columbus' so-called Discovery
of America had come to be seen as a chance event with impressive
repercussions.
Mexico
has long been involved in this controversy; as early as 1836,
Oaxacan historian Don Carlos María de Bustamante began the "first
vitriolic Mexican commentary on the Columbian event". For him,
October 12, 1492 was "the most villainous day there could ever
be in America; the day its slavery was established".
In
1941, Alfonso Reyes, one of Mexico's most distinguished scholars
and men of letters, said that "America was the invention of poets,
the charade of geographers, the boasting of adventurers, the greed
of companies and, in short, an inexplicable appetite and an urge
to transcend limits".
On
October 12, 1946, José Vasconcelos, who was Secretary of Education
during the early 20s and is credited with molding our present
educational system, made a speech celebrating the arrival of Columbus
because it "transformed and enlarged the world". His philosophy,
which he called "aesthetic monism," attempted to deal with the
world as a cosmic unity. In his many writings on the subject,
he called for a synthesis of Mexican life based upon indigenous
culture, which he believed transcended what he saw as the narrow
limits of Western culture. He called this the Cosmic Race, La
Raza Cósmica.
In
1985, Miguel León Portilla, the eminent historian of pre-Hispanic
Mexico published an article called "The Encounter of Two Worlds".
In it, he explains that this was a reciprocal encounter on physical
and conceptual levels, which made possible a full understanding
of the Earth. He presented these views to the National Commission
for the Commemoration of the Quincentennial, thus giving rise
to a great controversy.
Historian
Edmundo O'Gorman, author of La invención de América, (The Invention
of America, 1958), felt so passionately about the issue that he
resigned as Director of the Mexican Academy of History in 1987,
because of his objections to concepts such as the "discovery of
America", "the encounter of two worlds" and "cultural fusion".
To him, the appropriate terms for the historical phenomenon were
"taking over" and "domination". The key to resolving the problem
of the historical appearance of America, in his view, was to consider
this event as the result of an invention of western thought, and
not as a merely physical discovery, which occurred, in addition,
by chance.
The
controversy is far from over. However, it has produced some positive
results. One of them is that it has brought attention to many
of the issues still pending today, such as the plight of the indigenous
populations of America. In 1992, partly in response to the commotion
surrounding the quincentennial, the Latin American Fund for the
Development of the Indigenous People of Latin America and the
Caribbean was formed by all of the governments in the region,
as well as Spain and Portugal. This is one of the many efforts
being made to bring recognition and wellbeing to the native populations.
Mexico
is involved in a broad range of efforts to improve the living
conditions of its indigenous population. Legislation to that effect
is pending before Congress and there is a new culture of respect
for them.
In
the words of President Zedillo: "Mexico's cultural strength, which
is recognized and admired the world over, is the result of the
very rich cultural diversity of our states and regions. Recognizing
that diversity, fomenting and disseminating it, is a task of the
greatest importance."
Whether
one believes that the chance event which took place five hundred
and seven years ago was a blessing or a curse, October 12th is
an excellent opportunity for us to consider the ramifications
it has had on all of our lives.
