Years ago, when my daughter was in the middle of the “Explorers” unit in 3rd grade social studies, she wrote a report about Henry Hudson. Working along side her, I dug up some interesting info on the famous world traveler. It seemed he lacked people skills, with each of his 3 voyages to the New World, he had to take a new crew because no one wanted to sail with him for a second time. On his last expedition in search of a Northwest passage to Asia, his crew had enough: they put Hudson, his son and seven loyal sailors adrift in a small boat, never to be seen again. My daughter illustrated this part of the story and added it to her report. She painted a boat sailing off into the sunset with Henry Hudson left on an island somewhere north of Quebec. She drew a cartoon cloud that said, “Hey guys, come on back! Don’t leave me here to die!”
As today is Columbus Day, I’d like to invite you for a short while to re-think the story of what really happened in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue and afterwards. Is this guy really our original American hero?
1491 by Charles Mann
1493 by Charles Mann
It turns out that back in 1491, things were already hopping on this continent and in Hispaniola (now known as the Dominican Republic) Chris C and his buddies made quite a mess of things. Basically here’s what Columbus did: he got lost, found a place where people lived, claimed it for Europe, tortured and massacred thousands of native people, and paved the way for the slave trade. And for this, the kids get a 3 day weekend.
Charles Mann’s books 1491 and 1493 tell an interesting story that most of us never learned in school, check them out and make sure to share the other side of Columbus’s voyage with your children.
