Columbus Day

In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.
He sailed by night; he sailed by day;
He used the stars to find his way.
A compass also helped him know
How to find the way to go.
Day after day they looked for land;
They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand.
October 12 their dream came true,
You never saw a happier crew!

Today is Columbus Day here in the US. This year it was observed on the 9th so folks could have a 3-day weekend, but it really is today. That may not be the case much longer.

Every year people try to out-do each other in their rejection and hatred of Columbus. You see, according to the modern narrative, Spain sent Columbus with the express purpose of keeping people of color under the thumb; that Columbus himself invented murder, rape, slavery, rapine, greed, and led the invasion and illegal occupation of the Americas.

I know, I embellish. But the ignorance and hypocrisy of those protesting Columbus Day is irritating and frustrating.

What???

Ignorance
They are either willingly ignorant of or too lazy to read a little history. Let’s just summarize:

Christopher or Leif or Brendan? There are stories of Leif Eriksson coming to Vinland (L'Anse aux Meadows) in 1001. I accept them. I am persuaded that Columbus was aware of them and planned his trip using this information. There is also the Journey of St. Brendan, an Irish monk, who is said to have sailed to North America 500 years before Leif. I’m also inclined to accept this story. It is known that Columbus knew of and believed it. So why have a Columbus Day and not a St. Brendan’s Day? Simply because nobody followed either Leif or Brendan. But, as is well documented, millions have followed Columbus to the New World. Columbus Day is a memorial of the opening of this new world.

Discovered? Really?? Many people like to sarcastically ask, “How do you ‘discover’ a world people are already living in?” Of course, Columbus wasn’t the first human to lay eyes on America (strictly speaking, the Caribbean). Nor were Eriksson or Brendan. There were people already here. Captain Cook wasn’t the first person to see Hawai’i either. But Europeans didn’t know they were there, and to them it was a discovery.

Invasion/Greed/Slavery/War and all that  I am just amazed that people seem to think Columbus invented all these. Yes, Columbus was a good sailor and a bad governor – in fact he was called on the carpet (as in arrested) for being a bad governor. And Yes, the history of contact between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the Americas is not a pretty tale. But you know what? this is the story of mankind. Since Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him people have been invading and enslaving, robbing and mobbing, stealing and dirty dealing. Take Rome. They felt compelled to introduce civilization to all the barbarians around them. Julius Caesar invaded Gaul unprovoked. When he had conquered Gaul he invaded the Celts in Britain. When the Romans abandoned Britain, the Angles and Saxons and Jutes invaded. And it wasn’t pretty. Then came the Vikings. After the Vikings had settled down in their new lands, they became known as the Normans, and in 1066 William of Orange invaded England. And on and on the story goes.

You may say, “That’s white people for you - just a violent race.” Let’s move east. Chinggis Khan. Attila the Hun. Terrors in their conquering. Every nation has its story of conquering or being conquered. Even the Indians, excuse me, Native Americans, were constantly fighting, conquering, enslaving each other before 1492.

Statue of King Kamehameha

I love Hawai’i. Nearly everyone has heard of King Kamehameha, even if they can’t tell you anything about him. (He was King when Cook landed in the islands.) He is the one who united the Hawaiian Islands. Any idea how he did that? He literally killed everyone who objected to him being King of all Hawai’i. And they celebrate him in Hawai’i because it was a good thing in the long run.

Battle of Nu'uanu Pali where Kamehameha drove the opposition over edge

My point is this – this is the story of mankind. It’s sad, it’s not pretty, but it’s not new. Should we wipe out all history because we don’t like it?

Hypocrisy
What gets me the most is the utter hypocrisy of these protesters. Hypocrisy? Yes. They scream “invasion”, “injustice”, “illegal occupation” but they do nothing. Oh yeah, they feel guilty, they cry white privilege, they protest, they persuade towns and cities to rename Columbus Day Indigenous Peoples Day, they tear down statues of Columbus, but that’s it. If they’re really convinced they are illegally occupying land, shouldn’t they give it back? Shouldn’t they find a Native American family and give them their land and house? Otherwise, aren’t they perpetuating this terrible injustice? Anything less is just talk.

Columbus Day is a commemoration of the opening of the new world. What about the sad consequences? I’ve read a fair amount of the history of the Indians. It is a heartbreaking story. Nevertheless, it is a common one. This day is not a celebration of the demise of one culture, it is rather the marker of the beginning of a new one.

I don’t believe Columbus was an evil man. By all accounts he was a terrible governor. And on his heels came the Spanish, the English, the French, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Russians. Thus a new culture was born and Western Civilization was expanded. A culture and civilization whose benefits even the protesters enjoy. But he didn’t set out to destroy a culture or nation. He wasn’t a Hitler or a Mao Zedong or a Stalin. He was a navigator, an explorer who was seeking a better route to the Indies. "Columbus's claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."

As I was wrapping this up I came across a video posted on Facebook by my brother. It is 12 minutes and 40 seconds long but it’s pretty good. In defense of Columbus

Happy Columbus Day!