Celebrating Death & Destruction:

If you celebrate Columbus Day, you celebrate death and destruction.

I've been saying this for years, but some people still don't get it.

My argument isn't so much that he paved the way for killing millions of people, or began the transatlantic slave trade; rather, I'm more upset that we celebrate some guy who didn't really do anything.

Along 5th Ave in New York City, the Italian Americans will be holding their annual Heritage fest. I don't knot why Italian Americans choose Columbus as their symbol of pride instead of, say, an Italian who did something useful (Amerigo Vespucci anyone? You know, the guy for whom two continents are named?)

How ridiculous is the celebration of Columbus?


Myth 1: Columbus proved the world was round.

Um, people knew that the world was round for quite some time. It casts a circular shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse, and sailors had always recognized that land disappeared over the horizon when sailing away from it. They didn't think that their loved ones and home cities fell off the planet, only to magically reappear again once the sailors came back home.

Myth 2: Columbus discovered the Americas.

Putting aside the fact that the natives here already knew about themselves, Columbus wasn't the first European. He probably wasn't the second. There are dozens of stories of sailors getting blown off course and coming into contact with unfamiliar lands. Not to mention, archaeologists have found proof of Viking settlements in Canada. There's also the book entitled 1421 claiming that the Chinese also "discovered" America, but most historians don't really buy it.

Artifacts from Viking settlement L'Anse aux Meadows. Housed at the UNESCO World Heritage Viking Museum.

Myth 3: Columbus set foot on what would later become the United States.

Not until his 3rd voyage did he reach mainland, and even then it wasn't North America. He did land on Puerto Rico – so perhaps if one stretches it, that could be considered landing on U.S. soil. But I won't give him credit for it.

The guy who actually stepped ashore first (after millions of Amerindians): Ponce de Leon, 1513. His descendants still reside in St. Augustine, FL.

I don't mind that Italian Americans celebrate their heritage. But why choose someone who didn't land in this country, who didn't discover anything, who exterminated an entire people (the Arawaks) and who essentially screwed up the whole point of his mission?

 

Glenn Spagnuolo, an Italian-American, said Columbus' legacy should not be celebrated.

"To honor someone who, by his own writings, was a slave trader, is immoral," he said. "I don't see any of my Italian culture in celebrating the occupation and destruction of native cultures."

The order of people to arrive in the "New World" is the following (and is admittedly ever-changing according to new archaeological evidence):

• First wave of Amerindians.
• Second Wave of Amerindians.
• Possibly the Ainu people of Japan (see Kennewick Man, 9,000 years BP having Caucasoid features) and possibly stone age Europeans, who came across on ice shelves (according to spear point analysis, and DNA analysis of the Ojibwa peoples)
• Inuit peoples.
• Vikings, in several voyages.
• Christopher Columbus in 1492, but he didn't land on any mainlands.
• Ponce de Leon landed in Florida in 1513. Founded no settlement.

So why do we insist upon naming a day after him?

Is Revisionist History Real?

"Revisionist History" is a term I don't like. It means that history has been revised, but many (usually Conservatives) believe that it means history has been changed, by liberals, to denigrate known facts or public figures.

First of all, History is a fact. Something either happened, or it didn't. If someone writes about something that happened, and then someone else writes that it didn't happen, one of the two is wrong.

A good example of this is the common misconception that Columbus discovered the New World, and proved the world was round. Some history books as recently as the 1990s still repeat this.* Columbus did neither of those things. But to say that he didn't could qualify as "revisionist history" to some oddly ignorant and tradition-minded people. Again, something either happens or it doesn't. No revision is necessary because it was a lie, and not actually History.

Map of known world, 1456

Unfortunately, even when all parties agree that an event occurred, there are different ways of interpreting the How and Why of the occurrence. This is where revisionist history comes into play.

I feel that the term is misleading because a Revisionist Historian (such as Howard Zinn) doesn't usually revise any history; rather, he simply adds facts to the story, which leads to broader insight into a historical figure's life or the background of an event. In keeping with the Columbus story, we always knew that in 1492 he sailed the ocean blue from Spain with three ships. With additional information, we now know that not only was he a brave and intrepid explorer, but he was also a greedy man, with little regard for the Arawaks whom he decimated (sailors were encouraged to "take women," and seemed to prefer the 9 and 10 yr olds). This information doesn't negate the fact that he was an explorer, but it serves to remind us that he was far from perfect.

Some Revisionist Historians (just a few) get overzealous, such as when they claim that Thomas Jefferson raped black women. There is no evidence of this; hence, it cannot be considered "fact." What they fail to mention is that Jefferson's nephew could have been the one doing it (they would have shared DNA), or that the sex was consensual, as the prevailing theory says.

Some people were unhappy when the whole Jefferson/Hemings issue came to light, as they felt it tarnished Jefferson's reputation. Why? Would it make him less of a great mind? His wife had died years before - why couldn't he have a lady friend? This new information would merely help to more fully realize Jefferson's character, and view a more complete picture.

If anything could ruin his rep, it would be that God-awful fur he's wearing.

Abraham Lincoln, when debating Douglas, stated he had no intention of bringing about the equality of whites and blacks. Does this make the Emancipation of 1863 less of a step in the right direction?

There are some (Journal of the West, 2001) who believe that the Amerindians would have eventually killed off the bison anyway, particularly after the introduction of the horse. Does this make the deliberate slaughter of the animals in the 19th century by whites any better?

Sometimes there are facts that are unpleasant, or that we don't like to hear. We don't like to think that Helen Keller was a staunch socialist, or that highly educated Woodrow Wilson was racist. That doesn't mean that the facts should be omitted. Doing so results in a 1984 version of history, which can no longer be called history.

The proper term would then be "propaganda."

*For a list of those books, I recommend Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen.