Hi Julie, I remember your reviews of your readings a summer ago about this. While these are important questions, I suspect that academic historians are ignoring the context within which these people operated in.

Leaders do not always lead. They must also adapt, bend, fold, supplicate, and embarass themselves. This is particularly true of political leaders. Such leaders oftentimes direct a nation in the same way a conductor directs a train. He or she may be able to speed up or slow down, but short of a derailment, the train will go where it must go.

In the case of Columbus, his men’s abuses of the natives were standard, unquestioned practice at the time. While he did not perform better than the other explorers of his time, he did no worse. While we now know the standards of the time were lacking, he did follow standards.

Lincoln faced a highly segmented public. He did not manage anything close ta a majority of the country’s votes. As it turned out, half the country wasn’t even interested in remaining a country. And yet, in the heat of war, he found the time and the imperative to sign the Emacipation Proclamation. Even if his ultimate priority was to preserve the union of states, he did as much to help end slavery as any other figure of the time.

Context matters.