stands out among the most unpardonable.
and mankind and this trade (Indian slaves) as.
one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them.".
-Bartolome de las Casas.
If you look back at the most important and influential figures of Euro-American history Christopher Columbus is sure to stand out. He is treated as a hero and the United States honors him with a holiday named after him to celebrate his "discovery" of the New World. He is treated especially well in most American history textbooks in which many details are fabricated to make the reader sympathize or identify with him. He is made out to be a charismatic hero who championed European expansion into the New World. Columbus is given this treatment because the authors of these textbooks want to present the students with a proud and honorable past instead of the less-desirable truth.
The textbooks often claim that Columbus was the first to discover North America or that he was the first to take advantage of this discovery. The truth is that Vikings reached and even settled lands in the northeastern coast (or islands off the coast) of North America. Leif Ericson discovered what was likely to be Baffin Land, Labrador, Newfoundland, and possibly New England. The Viking exploration is looked over or minimized as in the textbook Land of Promise, "They merely touched the shore briefly, and sailed away." While glorifying Columbus and his voyage to the Americas many textbooks and sources leave out any information on other groups that may have preceded Columbus and his discovery. The Afro-Phoenicians were overlooked but claim that their expedition launched from Morocco reached the Atlantic coast of Mexico in 750 B.C. and the evidence of this is found in organic material, associated with stone heads that bear a striking resemblance to West Africans, that dates to around 750 B.C. The anthropologist Alexander von Wuthenau said, "It is contradictory to elementary logic and to all artistic experience that an Indian could depict in a masterly way the head of a Negro or of a white person without missing a single racial characteristic, unless he had seen such a person.