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.
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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