About William Brown
My full name is William Weston Brown and I am 31 years old. I am married with 2 children, a daughter who is 4 years old and my son, who just turned 1. I graduated high school in 1999 and started college in the fall immediately following. Having no clue what I wanted to major in or even what I wanted to do with my life, I screwed around, failing virtually every class I ever took and eventually dropped out. I have worked full-time for a major class 1 railroad for the past 7 years. About a year ago, I decided it was time to finish my degree in order to further advance my career, and I am now in my second semester at UNA.
Columbus Didn’t Discover America? Do We Really Care?
By William Weston Brown
So, from my point of view, a 31 year old that is very nearly double the age of the average starting college freshman, this is a big deal. You’ve already taken Pluto away from me as a planet and now you want Christopher Columbus as the discoverer of America too? Is anything from my childhood true? I never really even thought about it logically, but it makes perfect sense. Columbus didn’t discover anything new in the “New World,” it was already there! Not only was it already there, but it was already inhabited and had been for centuries by Native Americans. As a matter of fact, Leif Ericson and a group of Vikings came to North America, yes the actual continent, 500 years before Columbus.1 Wait, who? Is anyone else starting to seriously question the validity of Columbus Day?
Perhaps more important than the argument of what role Columbus played in “finding” the Americas, is the serious harm caused to the Native Americans which he may be directly responsible for. From the very beginning, Columbus brought seven Native Americans back to Spain with him as a sort of show piece of his findings from his first journey to the New World. Did they make the return voyage with Columbus on their own free will, or were they forced to go? Bartolome De Las Casas, a major proponent for Native American rights in that time, suggests that the seizure of those seven Taino Indians was “the first injustice committed in the Indies.”2 De Las Casas further tells of the atrocities the Native Americans suffered at the hands of the Europeans in one of his writings, The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies. After reading his accounts, it frankly makes you sick to your stomach to image the torment that they suffered. Not only was slavery and brutality responsible for countless Native American deaths, but also the diseases which were brought over from foreign lands. Are you still ready to celebrate October 12th as a national holiday?
Reading about the history of the Native Americans in our class has stirred my interest, but I’ll be the first to admit that my knowledge on the subject is lacking. I would venture a guess that most people are the same as I when it comes to the history of Native Americans that may have lived in our area. We are indifferent on the matter, because they are long gone and have no effect on us. It’s sad because in time, it will become universal thought that we were the ones who have always inhabited this land and lived here forever. When the truth of the matter is that we may very well have stolen it! Theft may be too strong a word, but invaded is certainly not out of the question and I’m sure the subject will continue to be debated.
On a side note, one of these subjects we discussed in class that really interested me was the Tom Hendrix Wall. Just as I was saying earlier, things like this are a part of the history in our area and we don’t give them a second thought. While not an artifact itself, Mr. Hendrix’s wall is a memorial to his great-great grandmother who was a member of the Euchee tribe that lived in this area. She was displaced by the forced relocation of Native Americans in this region of the country during the 1830’s. Not knowing exactly how to get to Mr. Hendrix’s memorial wall or exactly what to expect if I did find it, I decided to take a trip this past Saturday and see what it was all about. Surprisingly it’s only about a twenty five minute from Muscle shoals and not that far off the beaten path. When I arrived at Mr. Hendrix’s property, there was the man himself, sitting in his driveway just waiting for people to show up and see his creation. Mr. Hendrix is one of those people who loves to tell stories and has the ability to draw you in with his words. His wall, which has been a work in progress for nearly 30 years, is 1.25 miles in total length and consists of over 8.5 million pounds of stone.3 When you consider that this man handled every one of these stones completely by himself, the gravity of the project really hits you. I have included some pictures and a short video of my day, but I really encourage anyone who reads this to make the trip yourself and check out this local wonder.
1 n.p. “Historical Figures.” Curiosity. Discovery Communications, n.d. Web 2 Sept. 2012
2 Franklin, Wayne, et al. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
3 Hendrix, Tom. Personal interview. 1 Sept. 2012
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