Celebrating Columbus Day
Sermon by Steve Edington
October 11, 2009
If one were looking for an example of how the currents of the present affect or determine how history gets told, you'd need look no further than the federal holiday that will be observed tomorrow. What to call it has even become a point of debate. Is it "Columbus Day" wherein we celebrate the voyages of the courageous Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, who under the sponsorship of Spanish monarchs found his way to what are now called the North American shores in 1492 and the years that followed? Or is it "Indigenous People's Day," wherein the decimation - if not near genocide - of the original inhabitants of this continent, which came about in the wake of the voyages of Columbus, is mourned and some kind of atonement called for?
This conundrum serves to reinforce my view that history is at least as much about how we assess, understand, and try to come to terms with the present as it is about events in the past. The events themselves do not change. Once a bell is rung it cannot be un-rung. How we view those events, how we hear that bell is continually changing, however. We keep putting on new and different sets of lenses though which we view the past. This is why history is such a fluid, and not a static, kind of thing. As one historian has put it, "The past actually happened, but history is only what someone wrote down." A similar sentiment was expressed by Winston Churchill, who gave it his own twist of wry British humor when he noted, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
The last time I did a sermon about Columbus Day and how it might be rightfully observed was on the second Sunday of October in 1992 - which was the 500th anniversary of the first of Columbus' voyages. I guess 17 years is enough time to let go by before taking up the topic again. And a comparison of the observances of this holiday between 1892 and 1992 is a pretty good place to start as they bear out quite well what I just led off with here about the telling and re-telling of history.
In 1892, the 400th Anniversary of the voyages of Columbus, President Benjamin Harrison issued a Proclamation that marked the first officially proclaimed Columbus Day for all of America at the national level - although the event itself had been celebrated well before then in many parts of the country. By all accounts the President got a very enthusiastic public response with school programs, plays, community festivities and even the composition of an opera called Columbus and the Discovery of America. The holiday was also used to herald and promote the upcoming World's Fair that would take place in Chicago the following summer, which - invoking the explorer's name - was called The World's Columbian Exposition.
All in all it was a good balm for a country that was just a generation removed from the Civil War, and still feeling its wounds. And since the American nation had nearly reached its present borders by then, the celebration also served as a validation and an affirmation of the country we had become, as we were well on our way even then to becoming a world power. To have mentioned, in 1892, any kind of a down-side to the arrival of Mr. Columbus on these shores - as it affected, say, the native peoples - would have surely made one the proverbial skunk at the garden party.
Cut to 100 years later and the Holiday was an occasion for a big argument. One of the best selling books that year was one by the historian Kirkpatrick Sale called The Conquest of Paradise in which he reliably documented how the social, cultural, and religious assumptions Columbus brought with him on his voyages resulted, in time, in the near destruction, the near genocide, of the native population. Factor in also that near the latter part of that 100 year time span, between 1892 and 1992, we'd had a civil rights movement in which the descendents of former slaves claimed, in often hard fought ways, their full rights in American society. We were at least beginning to better understand and appreciate the cultures - and some of the religious and spiritual practices - of this continent's indigenous peoples whose lives and times here had well preceded the arrival of the Europeans. And we had waged a war against a non-white, Asian population without prevailing over them, without having our way with them, in the manner to which we'd become accustomed. We had gone from conquering the Japanese - with the help of an atom bomb - in the 1940s to being essentially outlasted by the Vietnamese in the 1960s and 70s.
We were, then, in 1992 and in the years that followed, looking back over 500 years through a different set of lenses than the ones we'd been using 100 years earlier. It was the same set of events, but seen through very different lenses. In 1992 the big argument was, as it still is, over how the Columbus narrative should be told: Is it the story of a brave explorer or of a mass murderer?
My short answer is that it's some of both but not completely either one. The longer answer is the next chunk of this sermon. While the personality of Columbus - with its reputed elements of his vanity and arrogance - gets a fair amount of play in this argument, I really think it's off the point. What happened in 1492 and the centuries that followed was at least as much about a horrible clash of two radically different cultures as it was about the doings of any one individual or set of individuals. On one side of an ocean you had Europe which had kind of gotten old and tired with its wars and its religious conflicts and its social stratifications and the like. Perhaps without even knowing it, Europe was a continent that needed to break out in some way after centuries of churning around on itself. And there were also some new and challenging ideas - under the general banner of something called The Enlightenment - were coming to the fore and needed some growing ground.
On this side of the ocean you had a radically different kind of population. The people here were not "un-civilized;" they just did civilization in a different way. The term "un-civilized" was a term the Europeans used to justify their treatment of the people who'd long been here, and who had developed ways of life that served them well. But it is a romanticization, I feel, to call the pre-1492 state of this continent a "paradise." This, too, is a misuse of language and that was my argument with Mr. Sale when his book The Conquest of Paradise first came out. I don't question his facts - horribly troubling facts in many cases. But he framed his case in a very polemical way; as if there were a completely pure and unblemished land and people on the western side of the Atlantic, with these really evil Europeans coming after them from the other side of the ocean.
Well, not exactly. Not too much further from where Columbus first landed was the Aztec Empire. It was, in many respects, as sophisticated a civilization as any in Europe; and the remnants of that civilization are a source of fascination to this day. And it was a civilization that was established on conquest, that amassed wealth and power in the hands of a few, that practiced human slavery, and engaged in human sacrifice in their religious ceremonies. Among the tribal peoples who lived in what is now North America, some of them were generally peaceful persons who lived their lives in peaceful ways, while others were decidedly more warlike. Tribal warfare, and conquest and the killing that goes with it, did not begin after the arrival of Columbus. In sum, on both sides of the Atlantic you had human beings and human civilizations, with all the great glories and the terrible follies that go with human life and human civilization everywhere and in every age.
But even if we grant all that, as I am willing to do, it was the arrival of not just the Europeans on these shores, but the cultural assumptions they brought with them that did mean the end, the near genocide in fact, of the very different kind of civilization, or civilizations, that existed here. The most deadly of those assumptions was an unquestioned superiority, supposedly blessed by God, that any land and its inhabitants that one encountered could simply be claimed as one's own. And it was in keeping with this very assumption that allowed Columbus to "claim" the land he found for a country, Spain in his case, that none of its inhabitants had ever heard of - and to enslave those same inhabitants.
From Columbus' own hand, as he wrote back to the King and Queen of Spain he reported, "It is possible, in the name of the Holy Trinity, to sell all the slaves which it is possible to sell...that although they are living things [living things note] they are as good as gold." And it wasn't just slaves for labor Columbus was interested in, but for sex as well. Again, from his writing after one of his later voyages in 1500, "A hundred castellanoes (Spanish currency at the time) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm...and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls, those from nine to ten are now in demand."
The terrible object lesson here that has been and continues to be tragically repeated throughout human history is that once you've managed to dehumanize a people - to make of them "living things" you are then freed from having to regard them as human beings; or as human beings on your level anyway. Columbus was neither the first nor the last human being in human history to think and act in such a way.
Also, by his account, the first people Columbus encountered were very peaceful in an almost child-like way. The kind of treatment they in time came to receive, however, did move them to fight back. And as for the resistance that Columbus and all those who came after him did encounter from the native people, well if you really believe you've claimed a piece of land in the name of God - or in Columbus's case the "Holy Trinity" - then those who are resisting you are also resisting the will of God, and you in turn are doing God's work by fighting, and often killing, them off. Furthermore, if the diseases you brought with you - to which the native people had never been exposed and were completely vulnerable - wipe out a significant portion of the indigenous population, well that is just so much collateral damage that goes with the territory of rightful and Godly conquest.
In the end, however, this is all really not about a man named Christopher Columbus. I'm convinced that if it hadn't been him, it would, in time, have been some other European explorer who found his way here; and there mostly likely would have been the same eventual and tragic results. What happened after 1492 had a pronounced air of tragic historical inevitability about it. No, it was not the conquest of "paradise," but it was an invasion, and a horribly executed conquest, of one cultural mindset over another - with a devastating outcome for those who did, after all, get here first.
I said earlier that you can't un-ring a bell. I also think the words of the 11th century Persian poet, Omar Khayyam in his Rubiayat are worth recalling here: "The moving finger writes; and having writ moves on; Nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line; Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it." So if we dispense, then, with Piety and Wit and Tears, what do we make of such an historical legacy? [For those of you who are keeping score in your pews, we are now at the point of a "Major Sermon Transition."]
My suggestion is that, while we do need to look back, we would best observe this Holiday by looking forward. And I mean looking ahead to a specific year; in this case to the year 2042, which will be exactly 550 years after the first of Columbus' voyages. This is the year, 2042, that the United States Census Bureau has determined as the date when our country will no longer have a white majority population. This means, among other things, that Patrick Buchanan's worst nightmare is actually going to come true.
The link to Columbus Day, as I see it, is that 2042 (or whatever year it actually turns out to be) will represent the completion of a cycle that his voyages began. If 1492 began an epoch of white European domination of this continent; that domination will have run its course after a run of 550 years. No one race will be a majority race; we will in fact be a polyglot of White, African-American, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American peoples. Unless I can keep my ticker and my lungs going until I'm 97 years old I'm not going to see the completion of this cycle; and I don't expect to. But some of you in this room probably will. More to the point - those children in the building over next to this one will in all likelihood see that day come.
The matter we would do well to ponder on this and future Columbus Days - or whatever other term you may wish to use - is how we, as an American people, will live; and what we will teach our children over the next generational or two in the coming 30 to 40 years. We're mostly white folks here - and even with the hard-felt economic struggles some of us are facing at the moment - we're mostly white folks of privilege. I admit to overdrawing this a little, but I would still say that from our vantage point we can treat the next 30 plus years as a time to be fearful or as a time to anticipate and prepare for the hope and promise of a different kind of America; and a different looking America.
I would offer that the election of Mr. Obama as President is, among many other things, a "leading edge indicator" of the completion of the "Columbus Cycle" - to coin a phrase. I know that practically every President this country has ever elected has had to deal with sharp differences of opinion - both with the elected officials with whom he has to govern and with the population at large - when it come to the policies and programs, domestic and foreign, he puts forth as he seeks leads our nation. That's how democracy works. Mr. Obama, in this respect, is no different from any other President we've ever put in office; nor should he be.
But there is an element, of vitriol and hatred being directed at him right now that goes well beyond the usual rough and tumble and hard edges of politics, and the making of legislation. Whether it's his proposed health care policy or his urging kids to study hard and stay in school, that element of vitriol and hatred has little if anything to do with differences of opinion on matters of national policy. And while that vitriol cannot be reduced to a matter of race, and I do not believe it can, and neither does the President; the racial factor, nonetheless, cannot be ignored. There is a decided element within our population - a minority to be sure, but a minority that does have its ways of gaining a public voice - that on some visceral level is unable to accept a President who is not a Caucasian.
If you're looking for an example of that "public voice" to which I just referred, you need look no further than Fox News commentator Glenn Beck. In his broadcast on this past July 28th he referred to President of the United States as "a racist...who has a deep seated hatred for white people and white culture." The fact that he was in no way reprimanded for such a scurrilous statement tells me all I need to know about the supposed "news" network that shamelessly continues to give Mr. Beck a national forum.
Moving on, the next 30 plus years, to say the least, will be interesting. What kind of a transition will it be as we move into what could well be termed the "Post Columbus Era" in our country? My suggestion, noted earlier, is that in the immediate upcoming years we would best put this Holiday observance to good use by creating ways to anticipate and meet this challenge. That would be one way to make of this Holiday a truly Holy Day.
What voices will be heard and heeded as another generation of American inherits a country that will indeed be multi-racial and multi-cultural? Will they be the voices and actions of fear and resistance and retrenchment and demonization; or will they be voices of hope and new anticipation? Change is rarely ever smooth or easy - especially when racial and cultural tectonic plates shift in the way they are doing now, and will continue to do so. The question I want to leave before you on this Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day weekend, in the hope of our having a conversation about it, is what role do we as persons of a liberal religious faith play as those tectonic plates continue to shift?
Speaking of persons of a liberal religious faith - particularly the one that goes by the name of Unitarian Universalism - I'll finish this up by bringing it close to home. What kind of a Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations do we want to be and become over the next 30-35 years? If we allow ourselves to get into a position where the demographics of the population are moving in one direction while we stay more-or-less in the same place; well, that's not good. Not good for us; not good for what we seek to offer. If we remain a predominantly white denomination, and remain largely fixed in the socio-economic class bracket where we, in good measure, find ourselves, then even with all of our good intentions, and good causes, and good social justice energies, we'll be increasingly moving in the opposite direction of that of the populace at large.
In two weeks we will observe, in our Sunday service, our UU Association's annual Association Sunday in which our national Association asks for support from its member congregations for a particular initiative designed to grow our faith. This year the focus is on promoting greater levels of racial, cultural, and class diversity in our congregations. Some of the funds raised in this effort for this year will be used for grants to congregations who are creating growth outreach programs specifically designed to increase their diversity along the line just mentioned. Some of the fund will be used to help give us a more racially and culturally diverse ministry. More information on this year's Association Sunday - as we'll observe it on October 25 - will be made available on that day.
I know I've touched a lot of bases this morning. The underlying point to all of it is about how we use an honest appraisal of our history to plan for and anticipate a more hopeful future. Along with the tragedies already cited, one of the gifts I took note of that came across the Atlantic with the arrival of the Europeans were the values of a movement called The Enlightenment, which was a precursor of Western humanism and Western democracy. Among those Enlightenment values is the idea that we human beings possess within ourselves the resources to shape a humane present, and prepare for an even more humane and enlightened future. No, we cannot re-write or re-create what is past; we can, however create a present and a future that plays to and holds up what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." Whether or not those better angels take wing is in our hands here on this day and the days ahead.
Stephen Edington
October 11, 2009
