Thoughts on Columbus Day
Now that Columbus Day is over, maybe the discussion and debates over its merits and appropriateness will subside for another year.
I think if Columbus Day is more about celebrating Italian Heritage than Columbus, maybe they should use Joe DiMaggio as their face rather than Columbus. He’s far more popular and comes with less baggage.
I do think that those who object to Christopher Columbus miss the whole point of it. It all comes down to whether you think the entire Western Hemisphere would have been better off if it had been left alone rather than settled by Europeans and if the world would have been better off as well.
Two separate questions.
As for the first, when Columbus sailed from Europe to the New World seeking knowledge and new trading routes, he didn’t pass any ships from the Americas traveling east seeking knowledge and new trading routes. In fact, when he arrived, he didn’t find any merchant ships, harbors, or navies.
He found no major cities, roads, or infrastructure. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think he found so much as a written language or native literature. When Columbus came to the New World, Europe had already had major universities for hundreds of years. Libraries had been in existence in the Old World for at least several thousands of years. I don’t think he found any when he arrived here.
I venture to say that if Europeans had not settled in the Americas, life in the Americas today would not have advanced beyond what it was before they arrived. Why would we think it would have? What would have sparked a change?
You can decide if the peoples who lived here before Columbus benefitted by the arrival of Europeans or not.
This is not to say that great evils were not committed by Europeans in their dealing with indigenous populations. And vice versa. And among the indigenous peoples themselves. It is called the human condition. Europeans did not invent scalping, and scalping was not an Indian invention in response to European hostilities. And it is common knowledge that the various Indian tribes did not live here in perfect harmony with each other. They often warred with and enslaved other tribes.
The second question is whether the world benefitted by the arrival of Europeans in the New World. Simply put, there would have been no United States of America if Europeans did not have a New World to move to. Europe and everywhere else was ruled by kings, whatever name you might call them. Emperors. There was no ‘of the people, by the people, for the people.’ It’s not a stretch to say that freedom was born in America.
If Columbus didn’t ‘discover’ America, somebody else would have.
It’s not an accident of history that many of those who came to
America came to escape persecution. They came wanting freedom. Yes, others came for economic opportunity, but the United States was founded more by those who wanted freedom than those who just wanted economic opportunity.
But jump forward to modern times to get the bigger picture.
The United States, despite all the criticism about a racist founding, historical systemic racism, and inherent racism today, is still the hope of millions of people who move here every year seeking a better life.
And if it has not been for the United States, the world today would be run by either fascists, Nazis, or communists. Or all three. There would be no free nations as we know them. Blacks would still be living primarily in Africa. You can ask them yourself where they would rather be living.
Columbus Day this year has been met by protests and marches calling for Indigenous Peoples Day. Particularly as a replacement for Columbus Day.
I believe this movement is more a movement to erase the memory of Christopher Columbus than a promotion of anything that will benefit indigenous people anywhere.
We in the United States take our history and our freedoms for granted. And with that freedom came an incredible standard of living, even when we have people today trying very hard to ruin it. And we take that standard of living for granted as well.
We are indeed blessed to live in the country we do. And if it wasn’t for Christopher Columbus and those who would have followed if he hadn’t first ventured out, we wouldn’t know what freedom is. We do well to remember and honor those who risked all to sail to unknown places not knowing what they would find.
