Curtains for Columbus? Is Columbus' place in history deserved?

Graphic by Jeff Broddle | Cadillac News

Con:

By Jonnie “Jay” Sam

Director, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Historical Department

Columbus Day, commemorating the arrival of Christopher Columbus on October 12th in 1492 to the “New World” may have been begun in San Francisco in 1792 by Italian Americans, then became a ‘holiday’ under FDR and became a Monday holiday in 1971.

The day is used to celebrate the brave exploration and defiance of convention exhibited by Columbus, along with his determination that got the voyage funded. Unfortunately, this is based on the myth filled biography written in 1828 by Washington Irving. I guess we should be glad it is not Ichabod Crane or Rip Van Winkle day.

When Columbus made his trip, it was accepted that the world was round. Aristotle, Dante and most navigators referred to the earth as a sphere. The Spanish funding for the trip actually began four years before the voyage as a means to prevent England’s Henry VII from funding his trip. Columbus had promised riches, power by controlling Asian trade by avoiding the lands of the Muslim kingdoms. In his letter to the Spanish monarchs he congratulates them on the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and the power over the Muslim kings the new route would give them.

On the first voyage, a life long pension was offered to whomever sighted land first. Columbus kept it, claiming to have seen lights the night before landfall. Columbus lied about the results of the trip when he returned. He claimed the land had wide rivers containing gold, with great mines of gold and other metals. His journal shows his compulsive interest in gold and moves from sight to sight were based on reports of gold. He then got the Pope to allow “discovery” of these lands, leading to a doctrine that allowed for the bloody conquest of the new world.

What did Columbus do? Columbus invaded inhabited lands, kidnapped and enslaved the inhabitants, killed those who resisted, took what he wanted and lied about what he had found to increase his own position. Columbus is quoted as having said “Gold, with enough one can buy heaven.”

Should he be honored in America? Perhaps…

Pro:

By Thomas A. Bowden

Ayn Rand Institute

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, opening a sea route to vast uncharted territories that awaited the spread of Western civilization. Centuries later, the ensuing cultural migration culminated in the birth and explosive growth of the greatest nation in history: the United States of America.

We need not evade or excuse Columbus’s flaws — his religious zealotry, his enslavement and oppression of natives — to recognize that he made history by finding new territory for a civilization that would soon show mankind how to overcome the age-old scourges of slavery, war, and forced religious conversion.

Columbus Day not only honors the Great Explorer, it celebrates the rational core of Western civilization, which flourished in the New World like a pot-bound plant liberated from its confining shell, demonstrating to the world what greatness is possible to man at his best.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose philosophers and mathematicians, men such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Euclid, displaced otherworldly mysticism by discovering the laws of logic and mathematical relationships, demonstrating to mankind that reality is a single realm accessible to human understanding.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose scientists, men such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, banished primitive superstitions by discovering natural laws through the scientific method, demonstrating to mankind that the universe is both knowable and predictable.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose political geniuses, men such as John Locke and the Founding Fathers, defined the principles on which bloody tribal warfare, religious strife, and, ultimately, slavery could be eradicated by constitutional republics devoted to protecting life, liberty, property, and the rationally selfish pursuit of individual happiness.

On Columbus Day, in sum, we celebrate Western civilization as history’s greatest cultural achievement. What better reason could there be for a holiday?

Your local connection

Columbus Quiz

Test your knowledge on Columbus and his New World Explorations. Information from www.history.com.

1. Which ship did Columbus command on his first voyage to the New World?