The Impact of the Columbian Voyages on Europe

"The Impact of the Columbian Voyages on Europe"

The voyages of Christopher Columbus in the late Fifteenth Century mark a watershed in the history of the world. The tidal wave created by this earthshaking event washed over the entire globe and its aftershocks produced ripples that have not subsided to this day nor does a cessation of their consequences appear imminent. However, for all of the enormity of the effects, most historians view the consequences from a decidedly Euro-centric basis. They see and report the Encounter (as I shall call these voyages and their aftermath) as though Europe (that is, the western third of the Eurasian continent) alone acted on the outside world and mutual interchange did not take place. Granted, they mention what they see as side effects that affected Europe, but, and this holds even for European historians, they do not grant these very high priority in influencing European history.

Most historians seem to believe that the changes in and expansion of Europe had their origins in Europe and that they would have come about in the absence of the Encounter. These historians presume the changes inherent in the Renaissance engendered and precipitated the course Europe took. They treat the consequences of the Encounter on Europe as peripheral or in passing, as if they had little importance for the subsequent history within Europe. I contend that this is an erroneous perspective and that the effects have central significance to the course of European history. Recently, a few historians have given this perspective some additional emphasis, realizing that the changes wrought had far greater magnitude, more lasting duration, and greater significance to the course of European history. Using the works of these historians and the snippets found in various places in the record, this paper will demonstrate that the Encounter had at least as great an importance for Europe as most historians rightly insist it did for the rest of the world.(1)

A salient consequence of the Encounter was its impact on the mind of Europeans. Initially, this was confined, given the educational schema of the time, to the elite; but, in time, the effect was universal. The Earth was simply not as they had conceived it. Overnight their world expanded. The globe was now half again larger than they had believed. There were unanticipated populations of people, unsuspected continents and plants and animals that challenged credence. Moreover, this immediately called into question their sources of knowledge and faith. The intellectual challenge that this posed required a completely revamped or substantially revised cosmological outlook. In contrast, while the route pioneered by da Gama and Diaz around Africa was of great moment, it did not have a similar impact because Africa was a known and knowable quantity. The passage around Africa was, for all practical purposes, anticipated. Moreover, it had at its heart its formation as a commercial enterprise. Granted a large part of the impetus behind Columbus' voyage was of a commercial nature, but once the Europeans understood the significance of what he had stumbled upon they had to integrate a comprehensive knowledge shift into their belief system. This had enormous ramifications for all intellectual endeavors.(2)

In this changed world you could question both traditional beliefs and accepted practices. The realization that the received knowledge of scripture and, significantly, of authority no longer held the key to life not only loosed the demons of uncertainty, but also freed the intellect to investigate. Questions that had long been suppressed came rushing to the fore. Questions of the heresy of heliocentrism, Hus' dual communion, and of the temporal power of the church, among so many others, began anew. Only this time skepticism greeted the answers. With the inability to directly answer the problems posed by the newly uncovered knowledge ecclesiastic authority crumbled. In addition, the abuses and corruption of the church could no longer be explained away or hidden under the blanket of legalistic, Scholastic obfuscation based upon scripture that was accessible only to the initiated. The turn to direct observation and the development of the scientific method gained impetus. The obvious nature of the church's error now gave incentive and free rein to the mind of the Europeans to seek the correct answer without the intercession of the clerics. Copenican, Keplerian, Newtonian and other discoveries followed swiftly, opening the floodgates of modern knowledge.

In historiography the Encounter also had a significance. It boosted the progressive school of historic thought over the cyclic. The cyclic position propounded the 'Cult of Antiquity' through the rediscoveries of the Renaissance; but the Encounter was an accomplishment beyond the ken of the Ancients and argued that humankind was progressing rather than recovering. Meanwhile, the church could only stammer in impotence and do nothing to refute these 'heresies', which it once would have easily suppressed.(3)

Is it merely coincidence that the Reformation began little more than a quarter century after the Encounter, when all attempts at renewal and reform of the church in the preceding two centuries had failed? It strains credulity to believe so. Moreover, the change in circumstances can also account for the hostility that erupted from the Reformation. The betrayal of beliefs exemplified by the incapacity of the church to accommodate, through scripture, the newly acquired knowledge required a response from those misled by the church. The response of the deceived is often extreme, violent or both. Little did Columbus realize when he began his mission to assist 'Their Catholic Majesties' to the wealth of the Orient and to Christianize the heathen that he would preside over the birth of the church's devolution. The knowledge that the church could be wrong, indeed, was wrong, on items of overwhelming significance was part of Columbus' cargo on his return. The apprehension of this anomaly enabled those whose questions would have been answered previously by suasion, suppression, excommunication or execution to garner enough support to resist the church successfully. The failure of previous 'heretics' (e.g., Hus) came, in part, from their inability to point to a specific instance in which the church could be shown to be unequivocally wrong. The Encounter made it plain to everyone that the church was in serious error. That understanding led to the inescapable conclusion that another mistake was not only possible, but probable. Therefore, morality dictated resistance to the edicts of the church when conscience concluded that the church was once again mistaken. Logically, reductionem ad absurdum, this led to the belief