On April 8 our nation finally unified around a cause important to us all: posting pictures of the solar eclipse on social media.
This was a huge event as people planned a year ahead to get hotels that were in the path of totality. Even if you were not able to travel, schools across the nation passed out special glasses and communities celebrated this celestial phenomenon that will not be repeated for another 20 years.
While this eclipse was fun to watch, historically speaking there are at least two eclipses that changed the course of history as we know it today.
The first example deals with Christopher Columbus. While Columbus is controversial for many of his actions, he was also brilliant. It was he who convinced the Spanish that he could sail west and reach Asia. Most of Europe believed such a trip was impossible— not because the world was flat, only people today believe that—but because Earth was too large to sail around. At that time, any voyage of such magnitude would run out of supplies and the crew would die.
Columbus disagreed with the circumference of the globe, wrongly believing the Earth was much smaller. Had it not been for the New World, he and his crew would have died painfully. Instead, Columbus did find the New World and began exploiting it.
On Columbus’ first voyage he landed on San Salvador in the Caribbean where he set up a colony for Spain as he searched for riches. After a year he left a few men behind and took back some gold and natives he thought would make good slaves. The Crown was impressed and later that year sent Columbus back. When he returned to San Salvador, he found his men dead and decided to retaliate against the natives by killing many of them.
It was about this time that natives as well as his own men began to find Columbus’ actions repugnant as he was making himself into a small dictator. He did not stay around long. After conquering and colonizing Hispaniola, Columbus left his brother in charge and returned to Spain again with more wealth.
Columbus returned a third time but found his brother had been overthrown because of his cruelty. Columbus tried to reclaim power but was arrested, chained and sent back to Spain being told he would be killed if he ever returned. Yet threats did not deter him. He received permission to return one more time in an attempt to find a passage to the Pacific Ocean but was told not to return to Hispaniola.
On his fourth journey, he was shipwrecked in Jamaica. Columbus sent some of his crew back to Hispaniola asking to be rescued. Not wanting to help, it took a year for Columbus to be rescued.
While in Jamaica, his knowledge of the stars served him well. Columbus had survived by being fed by the natives, but after some of his men went on a rampage against the locals killing many, the natives decided Columbus should die. However, like all good sailors of his time, Columbus carried an almanac written by Johannes Müller which predicted an upcoming lunar eclipse.
He told the natives that God was upset with them and would show his wrath by blocking the Moon. When the eclipse happened as predicted, the natives feared Columbus’ god and continued to supply his needs until he was finally rescued.
A second grim example from American history deals with an eclipse in 1831 in Southampton, Virginia. A slave and self-proclaimed prophet and preacher named Nat Turner believed the Holy Spirit told him, “The time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first.” He was told there would be a sign given that would signal Turner to throw off his oppressors and begin a slave revolt.
Over the next couple of years Turner plotted with a few trusted conspirators on how best to follow through with their plan. The idea was to start small, with just a few men so as not to arouse suspicion. They would kill their owners with their own weapons then start to move on killing more while gathering more slaves along the way until they grew an army.
The revolt was scheduled for July 4, 1831, but at the last moment Turner backed out, fearful of its success. However, on Aug. 13, 1831, a solar eclipse occurred convincing Turner that it was a sign from God to commence His work. On the night of Aug. 21, 1831, Turner killed his owner’s family and with the few recruits he had would go on to kill 55 white men, women and children.
Turner’s plan failed as most slaves refused to join and some even protected their masters. Eventually the white population raised the alarm, gathered a militia and tracked down the small slave army.
Over the next week more than 30 Blacks were killed over suspicions of their violent intent. Eventually the government cracked down on the indiscriminate killings and began to hold trials. About 30 slaves and some free Blacks were convicted and sentenced to death; about a fourth of those were eventually pardoned by the governor.
Turners’ Rebellion was the largest in American history and an important part of our story. It scared whites so badly that Virginia debated outlawing slavery. It confused slave owners who believed their slaves were happy if treated with kindness. Yet Turner said he had kind owners but killed them anyway because he did not want to be a slave. In both cases, if not for the eclipse, then a major part of history would never have occurred. Columbus would have probably died on his last voyage and Turner may have never started his rebellion.
James Finck is a professor of history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at HistoricallySpeaking1776@ gmail.com.
