Why I Will Always Celebrate Columbus Day
Zachary Schroeder
The anti-Columbus Day movement, which has gained momentum in recent years, seeks to reassess the explorer’s heroic legacy. It has been asserted that Columbus does not deserve celebration because he a) didn’t really discover the Americas, b) began the exploitation, enslavement, and colonization, of American Indians, and c) spread European diseases to Native populations. Some go even further, condemning Columbus as “a homicidal tyrant who initiated the . . . Atlantic Slave Trade and the American Indian Genocide,” and those who celebrate the holiday as white supremacists. In the US, the movement to replace Columbus Day with “Indigenous People’s Day” has resulted in eight states and one hundred and thirty cities ceasing to honor the explorer. If the revisionists and iconoclasts are to be believed, and their shouts are deafening, then Columbus is no more of a hero than Hitler, Stalin, or Mussolini.
Columbus was not the first European to discover the Americas (around AD 1000, Leif Erikson and the Vikings explored Newfoundland), nor was he the first modern European to discover North America (that honor belongs to John Cabot in 1497). It is also true that many of the accusations leveled at Columbus and his men, including slavery, warfare, and the spread of disease, are borne out in the primary sources. So, why should we continue to celebrate the man?
Christopher Columbus: A Common Man with Uncommon Vision
Like all human beings, Columbus was, first and foremost, a man of his times.[1] His flaws — of which he, like all of us, had many — were, by the standards of the late Medieval world in which he inhabited, exceedingly ordinary. Yet, his triumphs — his vision, determination, seamanship — were exceedingly rare, both in his time, and our own. The known world at the time consisted of Europe, parts of Africa, and a mythologized Asia. Even the much-celebrated discoveries of Marco Polo — lands of immense riches and untold fascinations in the kingdom of the Khans — remained shrouded in legend and mystery. The balance between known and unknown remained heavily tilted towards the latter.
The Martellus Map, created in 1491, that Columbus likely studied prior to his voyage (Courtesy of Yale University’s Beinecke Library)
This was the world in which Columbus lived. It was also the world in which he chose to challenge dogma, to remove the shroud of ignorance, to literally sail off the map in the pursuit of the glory that accompanies making the unknown known. That an ambitious Genoese sailor, clinging to little more than a vision, could spend a decade petitioning the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain to sponsor what was to all reasonable minds a suicidal endeavor defies imagination. That he could not only convince his patrons, but succeed at his quest — not once, or even twice, but four times — is even more astounding. With three small ships (a nao and two caravels) Columbus and his men navigated by the stars, instinct, and dead reckoning. By rights, they should never have been seen or heard of again, condemned to the age-old grave of sailors claimed by the deepest of the deep, their names known but to God. Instead, they triumphed. The ambitious “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” succeeded against all odds and landed in the Caribbean — all without losing a single man.
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When Columbus arrived in the New World, it was in some ways truly alien, and in others deeply familiar. Much of the criticism leveled at Columbus and his followers focuses on the heinous acts they committed — slavery, conquest, colonization. Yet, to condemn Columbus for these actions while simultaneously celebrating “Indigenous People’s Day” is, at best, historically ignorant, and, at worst, chauvinistically, condescendingly naive. The native residents of the Americas had been slaveholders for thousands of years before Columbus arrived.[2] Columbus’ allegation that the native Carib tribesmen were militant, predatory cannibals — long dismissed as colonialist propaganda — has newfound support in the scientific community.[3] Among the Mesoamerican tribes, human sacrifice was so widespread and horrifying that the Spanish were able to gain the support of subject tribes in their conquest of the Aztecs. Many tribes across the Americas were slaveholding, patriarchal, and warrior societies.[4] By rights, if Columbus Day is to be “canceled” because his achievements do not outweigh his reprehensible acts, then, by the same standards of logic and historical presentism, how can we justly celebrate “Indigenous People’s Day,” when they, too, committed heinous violence?
This is not an argument in favor of abandoning “Indigenous People’s Day” as well as Columbus Day — we should celebrate them both, and each with their own unique day. Those who write off the latter in favor of the former are the worst type of historians — those who uncritically judge the past through the lens of modern sensibilities. The pre-Columbian societies of the Americas are unquestionably worthy of celebration. Immense cities, agricultural networks, and roads are notable achievements,[5] as are the Aztec calendars, Maya mathematical discoveries, and the medical and scientific knowledge of many tribes. Like all humans societies, the incredible achievements of pre-Columbian civilizations were accompanied by the darker impulses of human nature — slavery, conquest, violence. Yet, it is the mark of an educated, thoughtful, and considered person to be able to critically examine the past, based on the totality of circumstances, and celebrate that which should be celebrated — and condemn that which should be condemned — without the simple-minded, puerile impulse to judge and condemn historical figures or civilizations by their darkest acts.
For whatever controversy exists over his actions post-contact, the enormity of Columbus’ journey cannot be overstated. For the first time in history, humanity acquired a truly global presence. Previous explorers had made it to the Americas, but Columbus and his followers were the first to stay. The Columbian exchange revolutionized both worlds — crops, flora, wildlife, and, yes, diseases — traversed the Atlantic divide for the first time. From the Old World to the New traveled wheat, barley, rice, horses, and smallpox. From the New to the Old traveled maize, potatoes, and syphilis.[6] The movement of globalization — of which our species is still embroiled, and which has the potential to raise millions out of poverty, famine, and persecution — can credibly be said to have originated with Columbus.
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Columbus Day: A Unifying Force, and the Bête Noire of Bigots and Nativists
Although the Kafka-esque, ex post facto character assassination of Columbus appears to have gained mainstream prominence over the past decade, the truth is that Columbus’ legacy has been controversial for centuries. And, to borrow the phrase du jour of the “woke” left, the history of the anti-Columbus movement is quite “problematic,” to say the least.
In the years following the founding of our country, the identity of Columbus provided an important metaphor for a young nation casting off the tethers of the Old World and seeking the fortune and favor of newfound independence. Building on the writings of Phyllis Wheatley, Columbia, the feminized personification of the American nation, became an important symbol for American identity. In 1784 King’s College was renamed Columbia University to demonstrate “the rejection of England and the glorification of America.” In the decades after, “Hail Columbia” became the unofficial US national anthem. The American capital was named Washington, District of Columbia, after the founder of our nation and the discoverer of its territory.[7] The metaphorical symbolism of Columbia became an important unifying symbol for the fledgling nation, and a means by which to contrast their newly-won liberty with the decadence and despotism of the Old World.
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Columbus was not just a hero to Anglo-American Protestants looking for a new cultural identity; he was likewise adopted by various immigrant and minority groups during the 20th century. Aside from Italians, the myriad of ethnic groups claiming Columbus as their own included Corsicans, Greeks, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Poles, and Jews.[8] For Catholics in particular, including Irish immigrants, Columbus provided a hero, a namesake (the fraternal Catholic organization Knights of Columbus), and a justification that Catholicism had a place in the American republic.[9] Columbus provided a symbol that immigrants who were neither Anglo-Saxon nor Protestant were an equally valuable piece of the cultural mosaic that made up America; by casting America’s true birth as 1492, as opposed to 1607 or 1620 (the settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth, respectively), the Columbians were creating a more inclusive vision of American identity.
Around the same time that immigrants rallied around Columbus, the American nativist movement was in full swing. Italians in particular were portrayed as swarthy, violent, and pathologically unable to integrate. Likewise, Catholics were depicted as “ignorant and fanatical,” unable to pledge true loyalty to the US, on the belief that their “Popery” meant that their ultimate allegiance lay with Rome and not Washington.[10] In response to immigrant celebrations of the explorer, the elite recoiled, with a 1903 editorial opposing Columbus Day arguing that “nobody but our engaging friends in the Mafia would need all day in which to celebrate the feat of their compatriot.”[11] At the same time, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant donors poured money into the building of statues, architecture, and artifacts that celebrated Leif Erikson and the Vikings — a more “racially acceptable” discoverer of America. Then, as today, revisionists sought to tear down the legacy of a unifying symbol in favor of their bigoted views.
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Columbus was, and remains, a hero to millions of Americans, both for his achievements and for what his identity means. In Columbus — an Italian Catholic who sailed under the Spanish flag — marginalized racial and religious minorities claimed a piece of the American identity for themselves. As the United States continues to cope with protests and racial strife, it is hard to imagine a better time for the unifying spirit of Columbus Day. Although both the mass immigration and subsequent marginalization of Catholics, Italians, and Irish faded away over the 20th Century, the United States is still a nation of immigrants, and still grapples with the tension over integration and identity. The 21st century’s immigration controversy will be over Hispanic and Latino immigration. In looking at Columbus, immigrants from Latin America can see someone like themselves — a Catholic Spanish-speaker — around whom to rally, and as a symbol that, from the beginning, the land that would become America was stamped by a glorious diversity. And that is something worth celebrating.
The Postmodern Hero: Heroism in the Age of Cultural Relativism
What is perhaps most tragic in the whole saga of Columbus’ postmortem fall-from-grace is what it says about the decline of Western civilization. Columbus was an imperfect figure. A morally and spiritually healthy society would be able to accept that, embracing the past in all its beautiful ambiguity and complexity by celebrating his triumphs and learning from his shortcomings. Self-confidence breeds reason and moderation. Our decayed society, on the other hand, is entirely without moral center, and is spastic, hypocritical, and destructive because of it. The present age has become one not of immorality, but amorality. To be immoral is to accept that there is such a thing as truth, justice, and greater purpose, and then voluntarily neglect their logical dictates. Amorality denies their existence at all. It is one of the great ironies that our postmodern society, which smugly prides itself on evolving beyond the need for such primitive anachronisms as objective truth, accountability, and personal responsibility, has become so deeply intolerant of ambiguity. Every “problematic” historical figure, every “un-woke” individual, every dissent from the ruling orthodoxy (and it changes by the hour, if not by the minute), warrants nothing less than a complete and total purging. No punishment but damnatio memoriae is fit for the free thinker. Columbus is merely the latest victim.
“The contemporary West is in an age not of builders but dismantlers,” Victor Davis Hanson wrote. “Our legacy is not spires or stained glass, but the nocturnal ropes around the necks of bronze statues of dead people and the defacement and removal of names.” Our society has become so self-loathing, so spiritually vacuous, that even the mere thought that a great figure may have done something that today’s “activists” find distasteful negates all of their positive contributions. The “Twitter postmodernist” cannot appreciate the complexity of the past, because to do so would imply that, in some sense, we are connected to the past, that those “dead white men” whom they’re so quick to condemn actually created the conditions from which we now enjoy the freest, most economically prosperous, and most comfortable age in human history.
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An aimless, vacuous society cannot succeed, and it cannot survive. “A culture based on such vague principles and values will scarcely stand up to those who are deeply convinced that they are in the right and will espouse unrelativized values.”[12] As our civilization has turned away from God, away from eternal truth, away from objective knowledge and a conception of right and wrong, we have become polarized, embittered, and dogmatic. The character assassination of Columbus is merely one symptom. Popularity has replaced virtue, mob rule has replaced considered deliberation, and totalitarian adherence to the whims of the self-proclaimed “woke-est” among us has replaced acceptance of the fact that you can admire someone without totally agreeing with every single action they have ever taken. The mediocre has replaced the exceptional, and the whims of the moment have replaced eternal truth. As Hanson wrote, “most silently acknowledge that few of us could have endured the physical hardship, pain, or danger of guiding three tiny 15th century caravels across the Atlantic . . . Discovering the New World was difficult, but a dunce can topple Columbus’ statue.”
Yet, all hope is not lost. It may be the twilight of Western Civilization, but even the darkest night gives way to a new dawn. As Edmund Burke did, we must embrace and celebrate the fact that “Society is indeed a contract . . . a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born . . . a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world.”[1] The antidote to societal decay has always been faith — faith in God, faith in heroes, and faith in each other, as social beings and as members of a society greater than ourselves alone. Let us start our rebirth right here, with a celebration of one of our civilization’s greatest heroes — Christopher Columbus.
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Header featured image (edited) credit: Org. post tease.
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