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ENGL2045 Travel Writing
Notes, Reading and Exercises for Weeks 3
Voyages of Exploration and Discovery From Columbus to Captain
Cook
The Age of Discovery
The Early Modern Period in Europe (also referred to as the Age
of Discovery) can be said to
begin with Columbus's 'discovery' of the Americas in 1492.
Although it was Vasco da Gama in
1497-99 who fulfilled the medieval dream of finding a direct
trade route to the riches of the
Orient. Columbus, Vasco Da Gama and other western explorers were
greatly assisted by the work
of Henry the Navigator of Portugal (d. 1460). Henry began
the modern development of navigational method that would
enable European maritime powers to cross the oceans,
circumnavigate the world and eventually dominate the globe.
The Caravel was the generic design of boat that came to be
identified with this period of exploration, and although a
western product, it combined and improved on features from
the Chinese Junk and the Arab Dhow, both of which had
proven ocean-going capabilities.
Columbus's discovery of what was to become known as the New
World, was a breakthrough in
European geography and mapmaking. It also marked a shift towards
a more secular, more
scientific and more 'modern' society. The Old World of religious
certainties and Classical
knowledge gradually gave way to new systems of knowledge based
on the witnessing and
measurement of empirical data, the construction of charts,
tables, taxonomies: science and
rationalism, as the basis for a system of knowledge about the
world. Columbus was hardly a man
of science, and in his Journals we find considerable reference
to God, providence and destiny, but
he is a useful marker for the beginning of the early modern
period.
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the quest for knowledge
and spirit of modern enterprise
often led to greed, patriotic fervour and a will to power
manifesting itself in five hundred years of
European expansion and colonialism. In the 16th century,
European explorers continued to
explore and colonise North and South America, and to press
further East along the sea routes
charted by the Portuguese around Africa to Goa, Malacca and
Macao. By 1600, Portuguese
colonies were strung out along the sea routes around Africa, to
the Middle East, India and China.
This empire of islands and coastal enclaves was were trading
posts and Christian missions in
equal measure were established the beachheads of
colonialism.
In South America, the Portuguese and Spanish colonists ventured
further inland, destroying most
of the indigenous population (see De Las Casass account below).
Here, as later in North America,
the Europeans swept away local resistance, claiming the whole
continent for Christendom. There
was fierce competition between Spain and Portugal, and later
France and Britain for these
possessions which often changed hands between European
powers.
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Where Polo and Mandeville saw wonder and marvels in
the Indies and the Orient, post-Columbian colonialists
promoted the New World, as a virgin land, peopled by
'primitive savages' generally depicted as cannibals, or
living in wretched poverty, or childlike and in need of
protection and education. In the first phase of colonialism,
the new Christian rulers were mostly concerned with
finding gold and pressing forced labour from indigenous
peoples (and brutally crushing resistance) there would of
course be exceptions, but this was the general rule.
Between 1500 and 1600, much of the East (East Indies, India,
China) and the West (West Indies,
North and South America) was opened up to European shipping.
Maps and charts (often jealously
guarded) were produced to enable shortest routes to be plotted
between Europe and her colonies.
Only the Great Southern Land - Australia and New Zealand had not
yet been fully mapped,
although the Portuguese had certainly 'discovered' the North
coast of the Australian continent in
the 17th century by sailing south from their colonies in the
East Indies. But it was Captain Cook's
expeditions in the 1770's that really put the South Sea Islands,
New Zealand and Australia on the
map. Cooks maps and charts were the state-of-the-art
representations of the world, especially of
the Southern Hemisphere, a good deal of which ha had sailed
across. Cooks mission was not, in
the first instance one of colonization, but of mapping and
establishing bases where the English
maritime fleet could stop for provisions and refitting. Cook was
very critical of the colonization
of the Americas and saw no advantage in subjecting the people of
Australia and the South Seas to
a similar fate.
The Discourse of Discovery and Exploration
In the writings of Columbus and Cook (see also e.g. Ralegh and
Barbosa below) we can see the
development of a particular kind of travel writing - the
supposedly factual accounts of discovery
by Europeans of hitherto unknown lands (Terra Incognita). As new
lands were discovered, they
would inevitably fall under the imperial gaze of European
travellers at least this is how
postcolonial discourse has come to view the whole body of
exploration narratives during the
colonial period. The general argument is that exploration is the
outward manifestation of a will to
power, and the knowledge gained through such travel is the
pathway to achieving domination
over the territory surveyed. Accepting this general argument, we
need to look then at the
variations and the exceptions within the discourse of travel,
and at the different ways in which
that discourse has been subsequently construed.
In looking at the writings of Columbus and Cook, we are looking
across several hundred years of
colonialism, and the considerable shift in style, tone, and
language we find can be related to the
shifting history of empire, especially the accumulation of
scientific knowledge and the evolution
of modern ideas, aesthetics and philosophies that shaped western
modernity.
Discovery and Wonder:
For Columbus, the description of the Indies presents a huge
problem. Although these lands and people have never before been
represented in the West, Columbus has convinced himself that he
has reached the Earthly Paradise in the East, and is close to
Cathay. He is deluded, and for some
critics, Columbus is not a modern explorer because his
rationalism and empiricism is often
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overtaken by preconceptions and stubborn faith. Rather than
describing simply what he sees,
Columbus appears to embellish his accounts, turning the Indies
into a new Earthly Paradise, or
Garden of Eden. It was common for artists and writers to
represent the Indies as a new and
unfallen world. Columbus sometimes evokes romantic images of
Spain to describe the Indies, and
there is an unreal, dreamlike quality to his vision of the
Indies within the context of Spanish
empire. Columbus seems quite capable of self-delusion as his
search for Cathay and the Kublai
Khan (and his gold) becomes an increasingly hopeless quest.
Although he will always be
associated with the discovery of America, his actual
achievements were limited to a few landings
in the West Indies and South America. He never set foot in North
America, and although he
names places in his Journal, these names were superseded by
later explorers who produced more
accurate charts, and little practical information was ever
derived from his voyages.
Columbus's accomplishments are principally those of discovery
and conveying wonder then, and
his language and style tend towards this narrative mode (note
that the more matter-of-fact parts of
the log are not written by Columbus, whose narrative begins when
land is finally discovered). We
can think of Columbus as a medieval traveller more than a modern
explorer, because although he
may have stumbled into America, he seems incapable of
translating his findings into a modern
modern worldview. He didnt so much discover America as fulfill
his dream of reaching the half-
imagined world of Cathay.
Exploration and Knowledge.
Columbus never has the chance to capitalise on his discoveries
as did later explorers and opportunists such as Sir Walter Ralegh
who presses on into the interior of South America,
describing and quantifying the land and its peoples. Ralegh's
description of his journey up the
Orinoco seems well-informed and life-like. Where Columbus seems
overawed by the beauty of
the landscape and overwhelmed emotionally by what he has
achieved, Ralegh enters the
landscape, heroically but with a level head, rowing up the
Orinoco river, communicating with the
natives (compare with Columbus who tries to 'read' the signs of
the natives, but in a kind of dumb
show, open to mistranslation and misunderstanding) and gaining
practical knowledge about the
place and its people. Ralegh's exploration is not, however,
innocent, nor is it written in plain
scientific language. Ralegh uses his considerable literary
skills to impress the court of Elizabeth I,
where literary prowess could still be the mark of a
Soldier/Knight. Literariness is turned to
propaganda here to incite British colonisation of the Indies.
(e.g. p. 163)
Science and Surveying.
Cook is a prime example of the modern scientific explorer. Of
course, his voyages come nearly three hundred years after Columbus,
and his motives are not primarily political or financial gain,
but the accumulation of scientific knowledge. Such knowledge is
still part of imperialist thinking,
and the Royal Society and the Admiralty in England, sponsored
many scientific expeditions, at
least in part for political and military reasons. Given the
geopolitics of the time, (American War
of Independence and war with France), it is difficult to
separate Cooks explorations with
England's imperialist ambitions. The maps, charts and other
scientific data on currents, weather
systems as well as flora and fauna would provide invaluable
practical information for
colonization. Even the project of mapping, charting and
classifying the world, its people, and
wildlife, can be construed as essentially that of an imperialist
mindset and worldview. The first
British settlement in Australia was called Botany Bay,
indicating how important was the business
of 'botanising'. Note Cook's great disappointment when the goats
and sheep he has brought all the
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way from England die almost immediately from eating poisoned
plants, so dashing his attempts
to bring English farming to the South Seas.
Christopher Columbus
Who was Christopher Columbus? Most scholars believe that
Columbus was originally from Genoa (in present day Italy), probably
the son of a weaver. His family background is sketchy,
however, and he never revealed much information about his
origins, possibly because of some
scandal, possibly he did not really know. Like Venice, Genoa was
a major commercial centre for
trade with the East and North Africa. Columbus took part in
several trading expeditions across the
Mediterranean, and later, when he moved to Portugal, Columbus
sailed with the Portuguese down
the African coast, and later sailed to Britain and Iceland. He
spent ten years studying the problem
of getting to the Indies (the East via the Western passage).
After much effort, he persuaded Queen
Isabella of Spain to sponsor him.
What was Columbus searching for? - Cathay. He was convinced of a
Western Route to the Indies and China. The main goal of Columbus's
expedition was to discover, and then presumably
to claim by force, the East for his Spanish sponsors. The main
prizes were gold (Europe needed
more gold currency) and spices (highly lucrative trade) also
silks, pearls, jewels etc. The
commodities were known to exist in the East as they had been
traded for some time overland
(along the Silk Route) and via sea routes between Arabia and
India.
The land route to the East, via present day Turkey, Iran and
Afghanistan was closed by a curtain
drawn between East and West by the Ottoman Turks (1345), and
China closed its borders as the
Mongol Empire retracted after Chinese nationalism expelled the
descendants of the Grand Khan
in 1368 (rise of Ming dynasty). Sea routes to India and the East
were still used, but there was no
direct sea passage for Europeans - goods had to be carried
overland between the Mediterranean
and the Arabian port of Hormuz. The direct sea route via Africa
was forged by the Portuguese
(see above), while Columbus was still floundering in the West
Indies and the coast of South
America.
So there were a number of reasons that made taking a western sea
route to China attractive.
Columbus became obsessed with the idea, persuading himself and
others, against the weight of
contemporary geographical evidence that such a voyage was
feasible.
Columbus and Geography Columbus believed in the spherical earth
(as did most geographers, since the Greeks (Aristotle noticed the
earth made a circular shadow on the moon - Pythagoreans
believed that only a perfect spherical figure could encompass
the world - Ptolemy first attempts to
map the globe, but without accurate longitudes, with
insufficient trig points, and too small a
spheroid).
Columbus took an incorrect measurement of the circumference of
the earth (18,000 miles instead
of the 25,000 plus miles that Eratosthenes (276-194 BC) had
calculated. He also over-estimated
the land mass of Asia as it extended eastwards, calculating that
there were only 3,500 miles
between the Canaries and Kinsai (Hang chow) (6-8 weeks
journey?).
Columbus and the Pull of the East Columbus was so determined to
prove his theory that he seems to have deliberately overlooked or
ignored contemporary science. His estimate of the
distance from Spain to China was hopelessly inaccurate,
depending on a false estimate of the size
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of the earth, a false estimate of the land mass of Asia, PLUS
some further reductions. It is just
possible that Columbus knew that it was not possible to sail to
China, but guessed (rightly) that
there was another land mass before China. But in order to sell
the expedition, Columbus had to
capture the imagination of his sponsors with promises of
grabbing the treasures of the East. It is
also just possible that Isabella knew that Columbus was wrong,
but was nevertheless prepared to
back the possibility of finding new lands to colonise. The
Spanish expelled the Moors (Muslims)
from Granada (in southern Spain) in 1492, the last stronghold in
their own land, and were seeking
to emulate the Portuguese who had taken the fight against the
Muslims to North Africa and had
already begun to expand their territories abroad.
There can be little doubt that the pictures of the East
presented by Polo and Mandeville had some
impact on the imagination of explorers and sea adventurers like
Columbus. The prize of
eventually finding the legendary Cathay exerted a considerable
pull.
The Journeys
First expedition:
Columbus set off with three boats from Spain on 3
August 1492. These were the Nina, Pinta and Santa
Maria. Pintas rudder broke after three days. Stopped
at Canaries for three weeks. Left on Sept. 6th - saw
land on Oct. 12th. The land was probably San
Salvador (Watling Island) in the Bahamas. He
explored several islands and moved on to Cuba,
thinking he had reached an island off China. He sent messengers
to the Grand Khan. Santa Maria
was wrecked off Hispaniola and the captain of the Pinta went off
on his own, leaving the small
Nina this forced Columbus to leave 39 of the crew behind to form
the first Spanish colony,
which was later wiped out by Indians. He later caught up with
the Pinta, was attacked by hostile
Indians and set off with leaky boats to Spain.
Second expedition: 25 Sept 1493 - 17 ships 1500 men.
Third expedition: 1 Aug 1498, Columbus reached Trinidad and the
shores of Venezuela - still
apparently convinced he had discovered the East, Columbus wrote
that he believed the Orinoco to
be the river that flows from the Earthly Paradise.
Clinging desperately to his original theory that the islands he
had discovered were part of Marco
Polos world, Columbus set off on a fourth voyage.
The High Voyage (1502-04):
The king and queen of Spain made it clear this time that
Columbus was to search for gold and
silver, precious stones, spices and other riches. Columbus fleet
set sail from Cadiz on 9 May
1502 in what was to be Another voyage in the name of the Holy
Trinity, as he stated in a letter
to the Pope. His son Fernando, age 14, and brother Bartolomeo
accompanied Columbus on this
fourth and final voyage. Because of ill health and poor
eyesight, Columbus could not captain his
fleet. What began with exhilaration over the fastest crossing
yet, just 20 days, ended with the loss
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of the entire fleet on the coast of Jamaica.
Columbus headed for the Spanish colony of Hispaniola where he
dropped anchor at Santa
Domingo on June 29. Following a hurricane, in which 24 ships
were lost and over 500 people
were killed, Columbus sailed southwest, past Cuba, until he
reached Central America. Skirmishes
with the Indians, intense storms, and damaged ships meant that
he had to head back to Hispaniola
in December, 1502. Losing two ships, 130 men were crowded onto
the remaining, barely sea-
worthy, ships. Realizing that Hispaniola was too far to reach,
Columbus turned north to Jamaica
which he had discovered on his second voyage. The ships were in
such bad condition that they
were beached. Columbus would remain marooned here with his men
for over a year. One half of
the men mutinied when Columbus tried to instill order and
discipline, and tired of dealing with
the Spaniards, the Indians decided to stop supplying food. One
loyal sailor, Diego Mndez de
Salcedo, agreed to cross the open channel by canoe to reach
Hispaniola. The island was over 100
miles away but in five days Mndez and one other sailor made it
to Hispaniola in two canoes
paddled by natives. At the end of July the rescue ship arrived,
and on August 13 the shipwrecked
sailors arrived in Santo Domingo. Not feeling welcome in the
city, on 12 Sept 1504, Columbus
took his last voyage across the ocean, this time as a passenger.
On November 7, 1504 he, his son,
and his brother arrived in Spain.
The Journal as Travel Writing:
Travel Writing, History and Literature It has been said that
Columbus's journals tell us more about the European imagination
than they do about the actual events of history. In other
words,
these 'historical records' are not accurate records of events,
but posthumous reworkings of events
into a momentous narrative, a mythology about the origins of
America.
In the writings of Columbus, and later, Amerigo Vespucci and Sir
Walter Ralegh, certain literary
techniques are at work, and literary references can be detected,
which connect these writings to a
literary tradition.
It is the careful analysis of such writings that reveals not
just what happened, but how the
imagination of a whole readership operated, and how that
imagination might be fed and
manipulated.
Authorship and authenticity
The letters and journal of Columbus are highly dubious
documents. The journal was not released
by the Spanish until the 19th century as they considered it
contained strategic information
valuable to Spain. Authorship of the journal is clearly, like
Polo's Travels, a collaborative effort,
and we can assume that what we read today in a modern English
translation has been much
altered since the words actually written and spoken in 1492.
If we look closely at the 'Journal' we find that there are at
least two 'voices' - that of an
unidentified narrator/historian, who seems to be interpreting
the actual ship's log; and that of the
Admiral, Columbus himself, narrating events in the first
person.
The Journal Form The journal as a form purports to be a much
more objective report of a journey, than the prose writings of Polo
and Mandeville. The day-by-day form seems to offer the
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direct witnessing of events as they happen. The sea log is
intended as a scientific document
supplementing maps and charts.
The journal of Columbus offers a fairly matter of fact
day-to-day account until the momentous
discovery of land. This moment has been retrospectively built
into the 'beginnings' of America - a
myth of origins (a myth, because the land America was already
there of course, so were its people
- 1492 marked the beginning of the European settlement of the
Americas and the virtual
annihilation of its indigenous people. It has now been
appropriated as the defining moment in the
creation of America (note Columbus day on 8th October). Given
the controversy surrounding the
subsequent genocide of the Indians (see Las Casas below),
American history might have chosen a
more auspicious starting point.
The Structure and 'narration' of 'The Journal of Christopher
Columbus'
The supposedly objective day-by-day form here looks very
constructed. (Note that the extract we
are using has missing days marked by asterisks - there should
usually be an entry for each day). It
was common for ship's logs to be 'polished up' for publication,
but this one seems to have been
greatly altered and embellished. The journal begins with a
foreword by the Admiral addressed to
his sponsors the King and Queen of Spain. The foreword
anticipates the voyage, but it is almost
certainly written after the voyage, and so it maintains a
fiction (that the voyage is yet to come).
There are then short entries from the beginning of the voyage to
first (real) sight of land. These
entries record the distance covered and the direction sailed,
but even here there are discrepancies,
as the 'narrator' sometimes seems to assume the voice of the
Admiral and at other times refers to
him in the third person. (see for example, 30 Sept. to 8
Oct).
When land is discovered (11 Oct) long narrative passages are
introduced 'in the words of the
Admiral' himself. The journal then opens out into what we can
describe as 'discovery narrative' or
'first encounter narrative'. Such narratives were to become
extremely popular among European
audiences who were captivated by stories of island paradises,
exotic fruits and birds, naked or
near naked Indians, and thrilled by tales of cannibals.
Discovery Narratives
In common with all 'first encounter' or discovery narratives,
the encounter or discovery is all one-way - i.e. it is entirely as
seen by the Europeans. There is little evidence that the
Europeans
concerned themselves with what the Indians might want or expect
from the encounter. The
Indians were regarded as curiosities first and then as providers
of food, gold and labour.
For Columbus, the 'discovery' narrative is complicated by the
fact that he desperately wants to 're-
discover' Cathay and meet the Great Khan. The justification for
the voyage was to return with
riches from the East. His 'bag' of a few Indians, and a little
gold and cotton from America must
have been a great disappointment.
Although the journal is important as the first story of European
beginnings in America, for
Columbus this is not America, it is the Indies (Spain continued
to call the New World the West
Indies until the 18th century). His eyes see America, but his
mind sees the East of Mandeville
and Polo.
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The Dumb-Show and the Silent 'Other'
We can see Columbuss disappointment at seeing the tiny primitive
villages being slowly
displaced by an increasingly delusory idea of lost cities as he
frantically searches for gold mines
and evidence of the Great Khans empire. The place of the natives
in all of this is increasingly
secondary as the greed of the Europeans reduces them firstly to
the insignificant helpers of the
heroic Columbus - their sole function being to point towards the
place the gold comes from (or to
send the foreigners off on a wild goose chase just to get them
out of their village), secondly they
become childlike objects of interest (sexual?), and are
translated into the noble savage, or the
inhabitants of an Earthly Paradise. But at the same time, the
presence of the grotesque and
monstrous East as described by Mandeville becomes evident, as
stories of natives that eat the
flesh of other men begin to circulate and the cannibal is
located here.
So, this well-documented first encounter of Europeans and native
Indians, which has become
the narrative of discovery, finds the European imagination
assimilating what they see of native
people with expectations largely informed by myth and fantasy
(the grotesque and monstrous
natives of Greek mythology via Mandeville).
BUT unlike Mandevilles narrative, there is no dialogue with the
natives, and certainly no attempt
to understand the natives on their own terms. Clearly the
natives, without any voice (there can
be no dialogue as none of the Europeans can speak their
language) are continually shaped by the
Europeans. From potential helpers, pointing the way to an Exotic
East, full of promised gold and
riches, they become the irritating savages hiding their gold
from the Europeans. From helpers to
hinderers from noble savages to cannibals, the Indians are
shaped according to the desires and
aspirations of the Europeans.
Columbus as the Hero of his own Fable
We can see some influence from Polo and Mandeville and their
literary heritage in Columbus's story of discovery. Columbus
believes he has entered the Eastern extremities of the Indies
described by Mandeville, and this is a veil obscuring the
evidence of his eyes. Literary heritage
also alters the telling of the story. The journal is not an
objective account at all, but the story of a
hero, Columbus - a latter-day Odysseus, Jason or Sinbad. The
author is the hero of his own fable
and what we read is often the subjective account of Columbus,
telling us something about his
state of mind as well as what he might have actually seen. What
is discovered is shaped by
Columbuss imagination, and as we have already seen, this is an
imagination capable of
considerable self-deception (the size of the earth, also not
believing the actual readings of his
actual position and sailing off in the opposite direction on a
whim). And it is an imagination very
much influenced by literature, for a medieval explorer, this is
perhaps not so surprising.
Columbus in Paradise
It seems that Columbus's voyage becomes wrapped up with his
destiny. There is self-
representation in the Journal, and we find out about the man
directly and indirectly through his
writing (assuming it is his writing). We sense that Columbus is
emotionally involved in the
journey and the discovery of Paradise, as seen in his
descriptions of landscapes. In the writings of
Mandeville and Polo, descriptions of landscape rarely suggest
aesthetic response to the beauty of
the landscape, but Columbus describes an Arcadian Paradise (an
idyllic rural utopia from the
place and poetry of Classical Greece, but a strong theme in late
15th and 16
th century European
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literature). The literary referents as well as mention of the
countryside of Spain shift the imagery
to Europe and suggest an aesthetic appropriation of the New
World. This shift in register is
sometimes read as a kind of romanticism in which Columbuss own
state of mind, (the euphoria
of arrival) is projected onto the natural scenery.
Apart from actually being the first European to sail directly
from the European mainland to the
Americas and record the voyage (and repeat it), Columbus has
little to do with the 'reality' that the
New World was to become. It was another explorer, Amerigo
Vespucci, who can be said to have
discovered America as an actuality. It was his name (feminised)
- Amerigo/America - that was
chosen by European geographers for the New World (although the
Spanish continued to refer to
the West Indies, a name now reserved for the islands that were
indeed the first to be explored by
Columbus and his contemporaries). Vespucci re-captured the
imagination in his writings by
describing the New World as a new beginning, a real and
visitable Earthly Paradise, not the
mythical paradise of the East described by Mandeville (although
of course in a sense it is the
same idea, re-mythologised and re-located).
New World Reality
In this New World of Vespuccis, the natives are problematic. The
New World seems to be a place for new beginnings almost entirely of
a monetary nature, backed by official religion. It is
not in the first instance a place for new beginnings of a moral
or humanist nature (although this
would come in time as various persecuted religious groups and
utopians would try to establish
communities in America). Mandevilles veiled critique of the West
through his representations of
the East as a plural and religiously tolerant realm, and his
delight in the variety and difference
within the human race, entirely devoid of racism and prejudice
is blown away in the European,
militaristic Christian grab for land. Almost immediately the
natives of the West Indies and South
America, who, for Columbus were the same natives Mandeville
describes so affectionately, were
represented as savage cannibals and subject to systematic
genocide.
In the New World, the European imagination is freed to wander at
will, redefining nature and
people in terms of their use-value first, and their monetary
value second. Travel writing of the
time is generally imperialist in that it erases existing native
places, projects new geographies on
them, and incorporates them into European-centred History and
systems of knowledge. In the
Americas, more so than in other colonies, the imperial project
is followed up by the brutal reality
of imperial genocide. So the 'fabulous reality' of diverse
peoples reported by Mandeville is
incorporated into this imperialist singularity.
Unlike medieval pilgrims, merchants and missionaries, Columbus
took heavily armed soldiers on
his voyages. His main intent might have been the challenge of
crossing the ocean, and proving his
theory that China could be reached by a Western route (a theory
which was rather flawed) - he
may have been primarily an ambitious and professional sailor,
but he also acted for and on behalf
of the Spanish King and Queen who sponsored him, and as such, he
worked to their orders and
design, which were expansionist and imperialist. Columbus acts
for and helps realise the
imperialist ambitions of Spain, and his main concern after
finding land is to assess the
possibilities for exploiting it and imposing colonial power over
the native population. This
interpretation is supported by the letters and journals,
although we have to recognize that these
may not be altogether authentic or reliable (but then what
is?).
The Texts:
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The Letter to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain (c.
1494)
The letter shows Columbus's intent to claim the island of
'Espanola' (Hispaniola, Cuba) as a
Spanish colony. He outlines how the colony might be administered
and how arrangements should
be made for exploitation of the island, specifically the
handling of gold. Convinced he has
reached China, he mentions travelling on to 'Guisay' (Kinsai -
Hang Chau), and sending letters to
the 'Great Can'.
The Journal
Note the form of this travel writing - the ship's log, a daily
account of events which suggests
accurate observation and recording of events, as they occur.
Actually these logs were always
rewritten afterwards to reflect what happened (or what the
captain wanted us to think happened)
rather then events as they unfolded.
Columbus uses scientific observation and reads and interprets
nature as it presents itself (e.g. 16-
17 Sep), but in 'reading' the signs of land, the captain is
perhaps turning empirical evidence into
what he wishes to see. In fact, when land is first sighted, the
ships are still two weeks away from
landfall.
Some examples to consider in class:
Columbus as the 'hero' of the journey (23 Sept). Columbus sees
himself as the biblical character
Moses, leading Europeans to a new promised land. Note the
sinister undertones: naked as
subjugation (sexual and imperial?). The representation of the
natives shows an intent to dominate
them. Natives are firstly naked and childlike, lacking authority
and (patriarchal) command. But
later they are represented as savages and cannibals, so
'justifying' the genocide that is to come
when they refuse to cooperate with the colonialist invaders.
Possession (11 Oct) - Columbus renames local places, so
incorporating them into European space
and time. Local places, culture and history are swept aside as
European history appropriates them.
Self-delusion (9 Sept) - Columbus deliberately falsifies
scientific measurements.
Aesthetics and profit (19 Oct) - beauty in nature, but also in
exploitation
To find Cathay (China) (21 Oct) - Columbus still expects to find
the world of the Great Khan that
he has read about in Polo and Mandeville.
Further Reading:
For the full texts of the letters and journals check the
internet these are widely available.
See also Mary B Campbell, The Witness and the Other World.
Bartolome de Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief
Account
-
Published in Spain in 1552, Las Casas's account of the Spanish
mistreatment of American Indians
provides evidence of the brutal facts of colonization, and this
makes a sobering postscript to
Columbus's triumphalist and imperialist accounts of
discovery.
Las Casas was born in 1484. His father accompanied Columbus on
his second voyage in 1493,
and in 1502 he went to the West Indies himself where he was
initially involved in the Spanish
conquests there. But by 1514, he had become so disillusioned
with colonialism and so concerned
for the well-being of the native population that he began to
preach against slavery, and released
those slaves formerly given to him. By questioning Christian
morality in the Spanish colonies, he
introduces a counter discourse against imperialism, and in 1520
he explained his views to Charles
I of Spain. Although he persuaded the king that mistreatment of
the native population was not
ultimately in the interests of Spain, and that the devastation
of the Indies was lessening humanity
rather than promoting Christian and humane values, the process
of devastation continued.
Publication of The Devastation of the Indies caused controversy
in Spain. Its accounts of
genocide portray an evil empire intent on greed, masked by the
signs of Christian faith, but
without the fundamental principles of Christianity. This is a
criticism that echoes Mandeville.
According to Las Casas, some fifteen million of the native
population of South America and the
West Indies were killed by the Spaniards in the forty nine years
following Columbus's voyage.
Note the language used by Las Casas - the natives are like
sheep, humble, patient, most devoid of
wickedness and have no desire to possess worldly goods - they
are indeed, perfect candidates for
conversion to the Christian faith, Las Casas suggests. The
Spaniards, on the other hand, behave
like "ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions ...
killing, terrorizing, afflicting and destroying
native peoples" (29). And the reason for this behaviour among
the Spanish Christians? - greed for
gold. For this, the Spanish slaughtered and enslaved the native
peoples.
James Cook (1728 - 1779) - The Journals of Captain Cook (extract
from the 2nd voyage 1772-
1775)
James Cook led three famous expeditions to the Pacific Ocean:
the first
from 1768 to 1771 (around the world, Tahiti, New Zealand and
Botany
Bay and up the Eastern Australian coast), the second from 1772
to
1775 and the third from 1776 to his death in Hawaii in 1779.
These
three voyages capped centuries of European exploration in the
Pacific.
Since Magellan's voyage round South America to the
Phillipines
(1519-21), the Great South Land (Terra Australis Incognita) was
the
focus of attention. The continent was originally thought to
extend from
South Africa to South America. The Dutch were probably the first
to
reach Australia in the early 17th century. They reached Tasmania
and
the south island of New Zealand.
Cook is perhaps remembered most for his 'discovery' of New
Zealand and his exploration of the
east coast of Australia, which led to the founding of a British
settlement at Botany Bay. But his
claim to fame lies not so much in his 'discoveries' as in his
brilliant scientific mapping of the
South Seas. His sponsors were not kings and queens, or even
merchants, eager for gold, but rather
the Royal Society and the Admiralty, who issued Cook with
instructions to make astronomical
measurements in Tahiti and to find, if it existed, the Great
Southern Continent. Cook was a
thoroughly 'modern' explorer - rational, scientific and (on the
surface at least) humanist. However,
the history of modernity is not only one of science and
enlightenment, it is also one of
colonisation and imperialism, and looking back at Cook's writing
through the glass of
postcolonial criticism we are bound to see imperialist intent in
Cook's seemingly objective and
-
scientific reports.
Cook was killed by natives on his return to Hawaii on his third
voyage. On his first voyage, he
was treated as a God, arriving at a time and in a manner which
appeared to fit the predictions of
the island's priests who proclaimed him the deity 'Lono' they
had been expecting. Although Cook
was a celebrated figure at home and in the South Seas, he
appears from his journals to be a rather
serious, detached and down-to-earth character. Historians have
usually regarded him as a
humanist and a tolerant man who took good care of his men and
treated the natives fairly. But as
with Columbus, when characters are involved in such epic
voyages, which seem to stand for so
much more than the journey itself, the main character is to some
extent shaped by the ensuing
legend. There is some evidence to suggest that the story of
Captain James Cook is not quite as
straightforward as the historical caricature usually
presented.
The Journals
Cook wrote up his journals for the first two voyages in England
in the year or so between voyages, which also gave him opportunity
to extend his family before setting off again. The
journals for the first and second voyages were written up by
Cook himself in England, taking
advice from his editors. But to Cooks chagrin, other journals
and part-fictionalised accounts of
the voyages were written up and published by other officers on
the voyages and by professional
authors. These proved highly popular, but Cook was incensed by
their inaccuracies.
But even Cooks journals, which we are examining here, were
written after the event, and the
original manuscripts show much editing, erasing and rewriting.
For the journal of the first voyage,
Cook appears to have borrowed from the log of Joseph Banks, a
scientist on the voyage, whose
own account was also published (and rather better received by
the public). In the journals of the
first two voyages, Cook appears to have taken care to preserve
the day-to-day accuracy of his log
books from which they derive. On the third voyage on which he
was killed, the log breaks off
abruptly on 17th January 1779 where Cook begins to describe the
ceremony during, or after
which, he was probably killed. The journal of this third voyage
is more novelistic in form,
describing episodes stretching across several days at a time. It
appears that Cook was attempting
to turn this voyage into a book.
But there is a sense in which Cook's accounts are frustratingly
incomplete. His contact with the
native people is so often in passing. Time and again, the
natives disappear into the interior,
perhaps to appear later in another place (e.g. p. 262). For
Cook, the contact zone is a narrow strip
at the foreshore where the Europeans come to repair and supply
their ships and to take away
scientific samples (pp. 262-3). Even when Cook does have the
natives in his company, he seems
rather incurious about their lives, politics and customs, and
rarely refers to them by name. He
discusses the natives 'on reflection' rather than in direct
conversation (pp. 274-5), as though he is
for some reason holding off direct contact with them. Perhaps
this is in part due to Cook's nature,
as a rather serious, detached, professional seaman. Perhaps it
is partly due to the fact that he was
censoring what he wrote, for his audience, firstly, the
Admiralty, and then the members of the
Royal Society, and the public, among whom there was a growing
market for stories of all kinds
about the South Seas. It appears that Cook did not wish to
sensationalise his accounts (his reports
are in some respects a response to the many travel fictions of
the South Seas, and may have
deliberately under-reported what really went on between himself,
his men and the native people.
It appears he wanted to give the impression of being a highly
moral, correct and disciplined
officer.
-
Further Reading:
'The Journals of Captain James Cook' - three (rather old
editions in the library). We are using the modern Penguin Edition.
For background on the representation of the South Seas in travel
writing and literature, see:
Neil Rennie, Far-fetched facts: the literature of travel and the
idea of the South, (1995) in HKU
library.
Bernard Smith, European Vision and the South Pacific (1985)
Nicholas Thomas, The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook
(2003)
TUTORIAL QUESTIONS FOR COLUMBUS AND COOK
On 11th February, 2011. NB your presentation should last only
5-6 mins.
1. Find examples of Cooks scientific approach in his travel
writing.
2. What evidence can you find to support the idea that Columbus
was a medieval traveler more
than a modern, scientific explorer like Cook?
3. Taking an example of first contact (meeting the natives for
the first time) in either Cook or
Columbus, consider the representation of otherness.
Paul Smethurst 16.9.2009