Christopher Columbus Statue
The Christopher Columbus Statue was erected in Central Park on May 12th, 1892, to commemorate the 15th Century individual. Demona's Henchmen drove past it while trying to escape Elisa Maza and Jason Conover during a high-speed chase. ("Hunter's Moon" Part One)
Real World Background
Sculpted by Jeronimo Suñol, and modeled after a similar statue of his in Madrid, Spain, the monument was criticized at its debut for its religious and imperialist imagery, which depicts Christopher Columbus standing by a globe of the Earth with a Spanish flag atop it, which itself is topped with a cross finial. [1]
But of course, the criticisms hardly stop at the monument. According to a story (that is neither true, nor accurate); Christopher Columbus (Cristoffa Corombo in his native Genoese; Cristóbal Colón in Spanish) sailed from Spain in 1492 to prove that the world was round by finding another sea route to India.
In addition to the fact that navigating the seas necessitates working knowledge of a spherical Earth, most of the scientific world agreed that the Earth was round centuries before Christopher Columbus. Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth within a range of 24,000 miles to 29,000 miles in 250 BC. Columbus, however, on his first voyage used Ptolemy's calculations which, while the preferred calculations in Columbus's time, were still off by 18,000-odd miles. As a result, Columbus massively underestimated both the size of the ocean and the length of his journey. [2]
Beside that, it is impossible to "discover" a land that is populated far and wide by a multitude of indigenous societies – and if one must, the Vikings reached North America as early as 1021 in modern-day Newfoundland, Canada long before Columbus. However it's accounted, Columbus did crash into the island of Guanahaní, proceeded to call it India, and, over the course of four separate voyages, proceeded to rape the land for natural resources, in particular enslaving and committing genocide on the Taíno people. Up to his death in 1506, Columbus never conceded that the islands in the Caribbean he set foot on weren't part of Asia. [3] By 1501, Amerigo Vespucci understood that the western hemisphere's lands were separate from Europe, Africa, and Asia and, ultimately, the "Mundus Novus" was named after him. [4]
It was in 1792 that the inaccuracies regarding Columbus began to flourish, with suggestions that Columbus was somehow keenly aware that sailing westward would reveal the "new world" to the ignorant. Massachusetts Historical Society founder Jeremy Belknap even insisted that the continents were misnamed and should have been called "Columbia". Moreover, the United States' growing reverence for Columbus also stemmed from a desire for founding figures without ties to the United Kingdom, and so his background as a non-English explorer was viewed favorably on the former British colonies. Washington Irving's A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) also further embedded the Admiral into the American canon. As the demographics in the nation continued to evolve, Columbus in time became a patriotic symbol for Italian-Americans and Catholics, both groups which endured discrimination from a largely Protestant America in the 19th Century. By 1992, Columbus's exploitation and founding role in the slave trade entered more prominently in the national discourse and has continued to impact his reputation ever since. [5]
Ultimately, the scant achievements and many failures of a deified man will not be ignored on a wiki that recognizes one of Gargoyles' central themes is the continued fight for equality and justice.
