Tomorrow is Columbus Day

Tomorrow is Columbus Day. Or is it? The other day, The Daily Signal reported:

On Tuesday, the Washington D.C. City Council approved a measure to abolish the celebration of “Columbus Day,” set to take place on Oct. 14. The holiday will be replaced by “Indigenous People’s Day.” The legislation was fast-tracked by the calling of an emergency session.

The District of Columbia was named after Christopher Columbus and bears numerous monuments and tributes to his legacy, including a large statue in front of Union Station, a famous train hub in the heart of the city. 

The report quotes an article by Jarrett Stepman, author of the new book “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.” Some highlights:

It is unfortunate to see what was once a uniting figure—who represented American courage, optimism, and even immigrants—is suddenly in the cross-hairs for destruction. We owe it to Columbus and ourselves to be more respectful of the man who made the existence of our country possible.

A few historians and activists began to attack Columbus’ legacy in the late 20th century. They concocted a new narrative of Columbus as a rapacious pillager and a genocidal maniac.

Far-left historian Howard Zinn, in particular, had a huge impact on changing the minds of a generation of Americans about the Columbus legacy. Zinn not only maligned Columbus, but attacked the larger migration from the Old World to the new that he ushered in.

It wasn’t just Columbus who was a monster, according to Zinn, it was the driving ethos of the civilization that ultimately developed in the wake of his discovery: the United States.

“Behind the English invasion of North America,” Zinn wrote, “behind their massacre of Indians, their deception, their brutality, was that special powerful drive born in civilizations based on private profit.”

So many errors in that sentence. Among them: The Virginia Declaration of Rights, which influenced the Declaration of Independence, specified the right to life, liberty, and “the means of acquiring and possessing [private] property” – not private profit. And as the profit motive relates to Columbus:

The truth is that Columbus set out for the New World thinking he would spread Christianity to regions where it didn’t exist. While Columbus, and certainly his Spanish benefactors, had an interest in the goods and gold he could return from what they thought would be Asia, the explorer’s primary motivation was religious.

Read the rest here. And Happy Columbus Day!

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