#91 Sidebar: Considering Columbus Counterfactuals! (Encore presentation)
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 10 October 2022
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is an encore presentation of our special Columbus Day episode, which originally dropped on October 12, 2021. It remains one of the most popular episodes of the History of the Americans. Last year I released it on the actual day, rather than on the Monday holiday, but this year I’ll go with the flow. One of the reasons is that all the popular and social media discourse on Columbus happens on the government holiday, rather than the anniversary itself.
This episode is not actually about the culture war over Columbus Day, except in passing. Instead, we consider the larger consequences of Columbus’s “Great Enterprise,” and various counterfactuals — “what if” moments that might have made it all go quite differently, and the possible long-term consequences. Along the way we say some challenging things that will irritate almost everybody, but we know you are only listening because of your resolutely open minds!
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Selected references for this episode
Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus
Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, 30th Anniversary Edition
Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650
Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian, “The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 42. |
| 0:10.4 | I am your host, Jack Heneman, and this episode is a sidebar special for the old school |
| 0:16.1 | Columbus Day, October 12, 2021. |
| 0:20.1 | If you are new to the podcast, we are telling the history of the lands now |
| 0:23.7 | encompassed by the United States from the beginning without presentism. We believe there's |
| 0:30.1 | dignity in our national story, along with tragedy, triumph, brilliance, hypocrisy, magnificence, depravity, corruption, venality, genius, defeat, and glory. |
| 0:46.1 | Also, for those of you new to the podcast, sidebar is our term for an episode off the timeline, which I do occasionally when I come across something |
| 0:54.5 | interesting, or in recognition of a holiday, that sort of thing. |
| 0:58.9 | Sidebars often pop up outside of our regular time in the week for putting out a timeline |
| 1:03.4 | episode, which in our case is Lucy Goosey between Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning. |
| 1:10.2 | So it is with this episode, which we are recording |
| 1:12.6 | on the fake Columbus Day, otherwise known as Canadian Thanksgiving, Monday, October 11th, |
| 1:19.9 | 2021, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Let me say up front that this episode is probably going to irritate almost everybody. |
| 1:30.0 | My only request is that you keep your mind open, because as it goes along, I'm going to say some pretty outrageous things that might actually be true. |
| 1:40.0 | If all goes according to plan, this episode will be available on October 12, 2021, more or less, |
| 1:46.4 | the 529th anniversary of the arrival of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria at Watlings |
| 1:53.8 | Island in the Bahamas. If you ignore the change in the calendar in 1582, that is. If you take that into account, as President |
| 2:03.1 | Benjamin Harrison did when he proclaimed the first American Columbus Day on October 21, 1892, |
| 2:10.2 | pursuant to an act of Congress. President Harrison and the Congress declared Columbus Day |
| 2:15.7 | following the lynching of 11 Italian immigrants |
| 2:18.5 | right here in New Orleans. And what some will regard is curiously ironic, social justice was the |
| 2:25.6 | motivating consideration for the first federal Columbus Day. We report, you decide. |
... |
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