Aug. 3 marks an important date in the history of the Americas. On that day, 531 years ago, Christopher Columbus set sail for a New World. When I was a kid, the story of Columbus' voyages and discoveries were inspiring and heroic. Today, he sparks controversy. For those who possibly don't know, Columbus (among a…
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Aug. 3 marks an important date in the history of the Americas. On that day, 531 years ago, Christopher Columbus set sail for a New World.
When I was a kid, the story of Columbus' voyages and discoveries were inspiring and heroic. Today, he sparks controversy.
For those who possibly don't know, Columbus (among a myriad of historical figures) has been a target of cancel culture the past few years because of his corralling and enslaving indigenous people, many of whom died in captivity or were abused by Columbus' crew.
As Pew Research defined, "Cancel culture is a movement to remove celebrity status or esteem from a person, place, or thing based on offensive behavior or transgression."
The cancel culture movement has sought to remove the influence of historical figures like Columbus by toppling statues, tearing up textbooks and removing curricula.
Over these last few years, here's what a few headlines looked like:
But today, those same communities are struggling with how (or if at all) to teach about or recognize Columbus' contributions without condoning all of his actions toward indigenous people.
Case in point, Columbus, Ohio, a city named after the discoverer, is in a particular pickle, having taken down his enormous (22 foot, 3 ½ ton) 1955 statue in front of City Hall in July 2020 in response to Black Lives Matter protests.
Today, the mayor, Andrew J. Ginther, is pushing for a $3.5 million program to "reimagine Columbus," while "transform[ing] the city's commemorative landscape to more fully celebrate the diversity and multiplicity of our city."
But is "reimagining" historical figures (while appeasing cultural diversity crowds) the new way America is going to have to display or teach history? Is it possible to engage in "reimagining" without "reinterpreting" or avoiding the truths of history? Does Columbus need a "new form"?
I'm mentioning it here because Columbus' anniversary launch date (Aug. 3) is this week, and schools will be starting up classes again soon. If Columbus made any contributions, they all are being swiftly wiped away and whitewashed from U.S. culture, classrooms and textbooks. But should they? Should he?
As I'll point out in a moment, there is no justification for any human's mistreatment by others. Period.
However, one problem often results when standing up for certain ethnic groups by, for example, bringing down statues: such actions often denigrate other people groups at the same time.
That is why in 2021, Italian Americans also held a rally in Chicago appealing to the mayor not to to take down three Columbus statues. They said such actions would utterly denigrate and annihilate Italy's contributions to the discoveries of the New World.
Actually, in August 2022, a commissioned Chicago City Committee concluded a two-year survey and is now recommending 13 statues (including the three of Columbus) come down as a part of "a racial healing and historical reckoning project."
Ron Onesti, president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, said the committee's recommendations are "literally preposterous."
One of Onesti's T-shirts he wears to pro-Italian rallies has the image of Columbus that reads, "Christopher Columbus, the first Italian American."
It's difficult for those of my generation to understand how we can omit so many pivotal figures in U.S. history because they lived centuries before ours when slavery was entrenched in global culture.
History is still history, and huge accomplishments are made all the time by imperfect men and women. In fact, we're all imperfect, including me.
If faults, even big ones, are the criteria for eliminating someone's influence, I guess you have to throw away all my world championships, 20-plus action films and over 200 episodes of "Walker, Texas Ranger."
George Washington said it well: "Perfection falls not to the lot of humanity."
Unbeknown to most today, broken and sinful behavior was also included among the different Indigenous communities Columbus enslaved and tried to convert and civilize under the Spanish Crown.
New York anthropologist Krystal D'Costa wrote a 2018 piece in Scientific American, titled, "Who are the Indigenous People That Columbus Met?"
She wrote about "tensions that likely existed between and among the different Indigenous communities [of the Caribbean], all of which likely practiced some degree of ritualized cannibalism."
"Cannibalism" isn't exactly humane, is it?
Nevertheless, one man's evil is no remedy for another's evil.
As D'Costa again explained, because of the conquests of Columbus and others after him: "Many of the Indigenous people of the Caribbean were eradicated by disease, starvation, and the hardships of the work they were made to do in the mines, as divers, and on plantations. By the middle of the 16th-century, their numbers were so low that the import of Africans as slaves was necessary to continue to colonial conquest. We know how that story goes."
That is why I state for the record: I abhor and feel terrible about the cruelties Columbus and his crew eventually brought on the Arawaks on the Caribbean Islands. I equally feel bad that Francisco Pizarro did the same to the Incas in Peru. I am also sickened by what Hernan Cortes did to the Aztecs of Mexico. And I also condemn how the English treated the Native Americans of Virginia and other regions. And we are all aware of the hideous slave trade of Blacks.
But do we omit or whitewash English and European leaders' contributions and only discuss their sins? Can we no longer recognize any good that came from early American colonialists and founders?
It's true that Columbus, the Pilgrims and even the first English Colony in America at the Jamestown were colonizers. But that doesn't take away from the fact that they all led the way for us to be here. Do I agree with all they did? Of course not. But am I thankful their landings led to my family and me experiencing the American dream? Yes, I am.
Cruelty doesn't erase or change history. Even Germans don't refrain from teaching about Hitler because of the Holocaust. They remind themselves and others around the world of his cruelty upon humanity, and then learn from history's lessons. Why can't we at least do the same?
To put a 15th century explorer under a 21st century moral microscope for the purpose of altering the way we see and teach him and history seems askew, especially when scholarly sources like Britannica still refer to Columbus as "a brilliant navigator and explorer" in an article titled, "Christopher Columbus's Achievements."
Just because Columbus left Spain not knowing where he was going, doesn't mean we can't credit his voyages and expeditions for their vision, sacrifices and contributions.
Just because Columbus and his crew were riddled with pro-Spaniard prejudice and domination over native peoples, as heinous as they could be, didn't make his adventures and discoveries invalid.
Just because Columbus shared "discovery" credit with countryman Amerigo Vespucci (hence "America"), both of whom came along 400 years after Norse explorer Leif Erikson, and all of whom arrived about 10,000 years after humans crossed the Bering Strait from modern Russia into what is now Alaska to begin populating the New World, doesn't mean Columbus didn't help to found modern America.
The Smithsonian Magazine spoke repeatedly about Columbus' "founding" various places and countries despite indigenous people lived there:
Columbus sailed from Palos de la Frontera on Friday, August 3, 1492, reached the Canary Islands six days later and stayed there for a month to finish outfitting his ships. He left on September 6, and five weeks later, in about the place he expected, he found the Indies. What else could it be but the Indies? There on the shore were the naked people. With hawk's bells and beads he made their acquaintance and found some of them wearing gold nose plugs. It all added up. He had found the Indies. And not only that. He had found a land over which he would have no difficulty in establishing Spanish dominion, for the people showed him an immediate veneration. He had been there only two days, coasting along the shores of the islands, when he was able to hear the natives crying in loud voices, "Come and see the men who have come from heaven; bring them food and drink." If Columbus thought he was able to translate the language in two days' time, it is not surprising that what he heard in it was what he wanted to hear or that what he saw was what he wanted to see – namely, the Indies, filled with people eager to submit to their new admiral and viceroy.
The Smithsonian even commended Columbus' compliments of some Caribbean peoples: "The Arawak Indians of Española were the handsomest people that Columbus had encountered in the New World and so attractive in character that he found it hard to praise them enough. 'They are the best people in the world,' he said, 'and beyond all the mildest.' To Columbus the Arawaks seemed like relics of the golden age. …"
And consider this brief positive treatise of Columbus at history.com in "This Day in History" on Aug. 2, 1792:
From the Spanish port of Palos, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets sail in command of three ships – the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina – on a journey to find a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia.
On October 12, the expedition sighted land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas, and went ashore the same day, claiming it for Spain. Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus thought might be Japan. He established a small colony there with 39 of his men. The explorer returned to Spain with gold, spices, and "Indian" captives in March 1493 and was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court. He was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century.
During his lifetime, Columbus led a total of four expeditions to the New World, discovering various Caribbean islands, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South and Central American mainland, but never accomplished his original goal – a western ocean route to the great cities of Asia. Columbus died in Spain in 1506 without realizing the great scope of what he did achieve: He had discovered for Europe the New World, whose riches over the next century would help make Spain the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.
And later, such prosperous blessing would do the same for the United States of America. All because, as the Smithsonian noted, "When [Columbus] set out, he carried with him a commission from the king and queen of Spain, empowering him 'to discover and acquire certain islands and mainland in the ocean sea' and to be 'Admiral and Viceroy and Governor therein.'"
The Smithsonian concluded about Christopher Columbus' contributions: "The discovery of America opened a new world, full of new things and new possibilities for those with eyes to see them. But the New World did not erase the Old. Rather, the Old World determined what men saw in the New and what they did with it. What America became after 1492 depended both on what men found there and on what they expected to find, both on what America actually was and on what old writers and old experience led men to think it was, or ought to be or could be made to be."
If Britannica, the Smithsonian or History.com can commend and talk about the contributions of Columbus, why can't the rest of us?
We don't have to endorse everything about an explorer to be grateful for his expeditions.
And, yes, we can supersede their depravity and build on their accomplishments.
That is exactly what America's founders did. And that's the reason we're here and can experience the American dream.
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