Columbus Zet Voet aan Wal

One of my office mates in graduate school at Louisiana State University in 1958 was Robert Fuson. He told me that he was advised by his major professor not to get involved in the Columbus landfall controversy - but he did.  This was in the late 1950s, and even today gallons of ink are used to argue where precisely that event on that fateful day in October 1492 occurred. Now we are not even sure Columbus was an Italian. I mention these for several reasons.  One is that I have never been involved with Columbus other than to spend an inordinate amount of time on him in my course. Another is that as long as there was controversy, I was able to show my students that otherwise brilliant scholars could go crazy trying to prove themselves correct, whereas others were abjectly wrong in their theories. I was at the Columbus, Ohio meeting of SHD in 1980 when John Parker read Commodore Verhoog’s paper on the first landfall, and where the decision was made that SHD would study the issue. And study it we did. Volume 15 of Terrae Incognitae resulted, and then it was published as a book by Wayne State University.  In 2004, we are still trying to ascertain where the first landfall occurred, and I daresay that in 2092, scholars will re-argue the topic, just as they did in 1892.
Het zijn de woorden van Sandford H. Bederman die u hierboven heeft gelezen. Het raadsel op welke plek Columbus voor het eerst voet aan wal zette zal volgens hem in 2092 nog altijd niet zijn opgelost, maar de visie van Pieter Verhoog wordt nog altijd in de beschouwingen gewaardeerd.