This Columbus Day, I challenge historians everywhere to
complicate the issues surrounding Columbus. The “Discovery” of
the New World, by Angela Sutton Christopher Columbus, and the
holiday (or holidays, as the US isn’t the only country who
celebrates him) named after him are fantastic opportunities for
teachable moments in virtually any history classroom. In the
past, I’ve asked students to read passages of Christopher
Columbus’s journal or his letters to King Ferdinand and Queen
Isabella of Spain. Together, we’ve reflected on what they have
learned in the past about Columbus, and discussed all the things
you do when teaching with primary sources: we talked about the
reasons sources are generated, and their historical context, and
how and why the source came to be preserved in the present. Then
I’ve show them blogs and opinion articles by historians who
discuss the less palatable facts about Columbus, by historians
like Howard Zinn who highlight how dangerous he was for the
Americas, and by Native American ac