Talk:Christopher Columbus's journal

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 August 2019 and 13 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Djschorge.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:03, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed Additions and Changes

After evaluating the current state of the "Christopher Columbus's journal" article, I felt as though it is necessary to include a "Reception and Analysis" and "Background" sections to the Wikipedia article. Because "Christopher Columbus's journal" is a combination between a historical artifact and a first hand account written directly from Christopher Columbus, I believe that the Wikipedia article needs more historical context and information regarding how scholars in the field have reviewed its contents. I also plan to add some sentences to the lead and copies and editions sections. I will be renaming the copies and editions section to publication history, because I feel like this new name more accurately describes the timeline of new translations and the history of the original journal. I think the lead section needs a couple more sentences regarding translations of Casas's translation to display how potentially removed the current state of the journal is from when Columbus scribed it.

Because Columbus's journal and las Casas's translation are the only primary source written documents surrounding the first voyage to the Americas, the details and experiences written about the trip are significant. Since the original copy of Columbus's journal has been lost indefinitely, las Casas's translation serves as the only avenue to learn about the voyage from a firsthand perspective. Because of this, there are many different ways to interpret las Casas's word choice and descriptions of the Diario through scholarly reception and analysis of Casas's translation and many more following variations of the journal. I think Columbus's journal shines a light into his true motives and intentions during his first voyage from a rare historical firsthand account, and since Columbus's own words were directly translated into Casas's translation, I believe it is important to hear a broad range of opinions breaking down every aspect of the journal.

Since the journal and its primary translation are historical artifacts and Wikipedia recommends adding a "Background" section to historical events, I believe implementing a "Background" section is necessary in order to provide a context of why and how the historical artifact was created. Especially in the case of Christopher Columbus, this is because there is very little concretely known about his early life before the voyages to the Americas. Therefore, the addition of a biographical early life description of Columbus's life and what led him to a career in exploration and the seas will be monumental. Readers will understand why a sailor like Columbus would have written such a first hand account, and will gain a better understanding of his motivations.

Djschorge (talk) 16:29, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Djschorge, what is "the las Casas translation" ? Into what language did Las Casas "translate" Columbus's diary ? —Jerome Potts (talk) 03:53, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Article is incredibly confusing and convoluted

Why does this article only apply to his first voyage? What happened to the journal from his second and third voyage? None of this makes any sense. Viriditas (talk) 20:39, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Blatant errors

All existing copies of the journal are based on the journal's abstract – a manuscript of 76 folios discovered later in the library of the Duke of the Infantado by Martín Fernández de Navarrete. [...] De las Casas [...] ordered a scribe to make a copy of the journal's abstract discovered by Navarrete.

This is hopelessly wrong and shows a complete misunderstanding of the journal's history. It was Las Casas who wrote the abstract that Navarrete discovered in 1790. As far as we know, this is the only surviving version of the journal, since both the original and the copy made by Queen Isabella have been lost for centuries. I have now taken steps to indicate this in the article. Zacwill (talk) 07:05, 29 September 2024 (UTC)