ASK DR. BOLI. — Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine.

Dear Dr. Boli: I was having an argument with this friend of mine. He said Columbus discovered America, and I said no, he didn’t, because it was already discovered by the Norse, and it wasn’t their fault if southern Europeans were totally ignorant of the basic facts of geography. But he wouldn’t stop arguing with me, so I slugged him. What do you think? —Sincerely, Sarah Bjornson, Mrs. Post’s Eighth-Grade World Cultures Class.

Dear Miss: Dr. Boli is not sure that he agrees with either of you, although he is quite certain that he does not wish to be slugged.

No matter how thoroughly established it is that the Norse came to America first, they did very little with the place. Apart from establishing a sickly colony on Greenland that straggled on for a few centuries before winking out with a whisper, they made no permanent impression on the Americas at all. It was Columbus who opened the way for the round of conquests and exterminations that marked the first truly successful European discovery of America.

There are, however, those who say that perhaps Columbus gets a little too much credit for discovering America. He did, after all, set out toward the Indies by going west from Europe. Under those circumstances, it would have been a much greater feat to miss America. In years to come, one explorer after another, looking for the fabled Northwest Passage, would attempt to miss America and fail completely. Sooner or later, no matter how hard they tried, they all ran smack into America. So it would really have been something if Columbus had failed to discover America. The place is just always underfoot.

On the other hand, Columbus would never have come to America if he had not set out for the Indies; and he would not have set out for the Indies if he had not made the pigheaded assumption that he knew the size of the earth better than the best scientific minds of his day. Columbus does deserve that much credit: he was a stubborn old coot, and his stubbornness made him immortal.

What Dr. Boli wonders is why no one gives credit to the anonymous Asians who first discovered America by stumbling drunkenly across the Bering land bridge. Their descendants built sprawling cities, caused environmental catastrophes, hunted whole species to extinction, and did all the other things we normally expect from truly successful discoverers of a new world. Why do we not give them the credit they deserve, or at least a holiday with a parade?

Comments

Martin the Mess says:

May 22, 2014 at 6:35 am

And now I can’t wait for Columbus to make his appearance in your History of the World series. Truly, he is an inspiration to all well-misinformed people, for he demonstrates just what can be accomplished by someone who doggedly pursues his goals no matter how clearly wrong-headed your basic assumptions may be.

Oh, and “Columbus would never have come to America is he had not set out for the Indies”. Feel free to delete this line in fine Orwellian fashion once you make the requisite correction.

- Dr. Boli says:
  
  May 22, 2014 at 7:52 am
  
  Well, now that it has been commented on, the mistake probably ought to be enshrined forever. Or at least until the identical text shows up in the History of the World, with slight adaptations to account for the changes in Dr. Boli’s opinions between now and then. However, as a service to readers who never read comments, he will make the correction anyway. Thank you for pointing it out.
  
Horace Jeffery Hodges says:

May 22, 2014 at 5:27 pm

Columbus is important because if not for him, we wouldn’t have realized that pre-Columbian civilizations were pre-Columbian.

Jeffery Hodges

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Captain DaFt says:

May 23, 2014 at 2:07 pm

As Dr. Boli points out, The Americas are hard to miss.
Viking settlements have been identified in Canada, Roman coins have been found in American Archeological sites, the ancient Greeks have writings alluding to the New World, Alexander The Great met Asian tribes that tried to point him toward the Americas via the Bering Straits, Ancient Egyptian mummies have been found with tobacco residues in them, and it is not uncommon for Neolithic artifacts from Europe and Asia to be found in the Americas, and vice versa.

Columbus gets the credit solely because he was adamant that he hadn’t discovered a new World, but had been to the Indies.
This caused every scholar to point out that that was simply impossible, and pester their Kings to send ships to debunk him.
This led to The New World being mapped, and gold being found in the possession of the natives, leading to a land grab that was unprecedented in History.

Had Columbus realised that he had, in fact, discovered a New World, the powers that be would have simply shrugged and asked, “So you didn’t find a new route to Asia?”, written the whole thing off as a failure, and went back to warring with their neighbors.