Left-wingers view Christopher Columbus’s forays to the “New World” as the original sin of imperialist, capitalist exploitation of indigenous peoples living in a heretofore untouched paradise. There are calls to replace “Columbus Day” with “Indigenous Peoples Day.” Statues honoring the intrepid explorer have been vandalized, with the New York City-based Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement threatening more destruction. “For the occasion of Columbus Day, October 9th, one of the most vile ‘holidays’ of the year,” its website warns, “the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement is calling for collectives all over the country to take action against this day and in support of indigenous people in the US and abroad who have been victims of colonialism and genocide.” Ironically, the leftists demonizing Columbus and calling for removal of memorials celebrating his explorations are following in the footsteps of the Ku Klux Klan, who did the same in the 1920’s.
Former President Barack Obama seemed to be onboard the revisionist history train when he used his 2016 Columbus Day proclamation to complain of “the pain and suffering reflected in the stories of Native Americans who had long resided on this land prior to the arrival of European newcomers.” He bemoaned a past “marked by too many broken promises, as well as violence, deprivation, and disease.” He called for Americans to remember the “communities who suffered,” and to “embrace the multiculturalism that defines the American experience.”
In contrast, President Donald Trump proclaimed this Monday as Columbus Day without any of the revisionist, multicultural gibberish that appeared in Barack Obama’s 2016 proclamation. President Trump’s proclamation noted that “the permanent arrival of Europeans … was a transformative event that undeniably and fundamentally changed the course of human history and set the stage for the development of our great Nation.” He called Columbus a “man of faith, whose courageous feat brought together continents and has inspired countless others to pursue their dreams and convictions — even in the face of extreme doubt and tremendous adversity.” In short, President Trump recognized Columbus as an extraordinary man of his time who set in motion a chain of events that would lead ultimately to the creation of the world’s leading beacon of hope, opportunity and freedom.
To recognize Columbus’s accomplishments is not to say that his motives and actions were all heroic. He sought riches and had no hesitation taking back to Spain what he and his men could transport. He believed he was representing a more civilized society, which he thought justified his exercising dominion over the people he encountered in the lands he explored. In such ways, Columbus was very much a man of his times. However, Columbus was believed by some historians to have been ahead of his times with respect to at least one of his reasons for wanting to undertake his risky voyages of exploration.
The year that Columbus set out on his first voyage to what he mistakenly thought was Asia – 1492 – was also the year that his patrons, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, issued their infamous order of expulsion, ordering Jews and Muslims who would not convert to Catholicism to leave Spain. Some Jews risked execution or imprisonment by feigning conversion, while secretly continuing to practice their Jewish faith. These “Marranos” were believed by a number of scholars who have studied Christopher Columbus’s life to have included Columbus himself. They believe that his motivation for undertaking his journey of exploration was at least in part to discover a land to which Jews could safely emigrate.
