Columbus Day

So every time Columbus Day comes around, I've noticed two distinct reactions. First, the "yay, no school/work!" crowd who couldn't care less what Columbus did to earn them their day off. The second crowd—which seems to be increasing by the day—says something like "yes, perfect, let's HONOR a man who raped and killed thousands of natives and committed a bunch of other atrocities." Now I'm not going to cite stats or accounts of what Columbus did, because they're easily verifiable. I agree with this crowd that Columbus was not at all innocent or a saint. But I do want to make a counterargument for all the people who seem immovably wedged within that viewpoint.

It's really easy to say Columbus was an awful man because of the utter destruction he wrought on the native people of the Americas. But Columbus' coming was a major reason Europeans came to America—if Columbus didn't come here, we wouldn't exist at all, or our lives would be drastically different. We might be living in another country or technological age surely behind our current.

So think about it this way: if you could sacrifice your life to change time so that those atrocities never happened...would you? I wouldn't. Maybe that sounds selfish, but I've become accustomed to living and my family and society. Changing history back would literally disrupt everything, including our very existence.

It seems natural to celebrate a person who helped create an entire culture, but does that hold even if another culture was virtually destroyed in the process? Instead of unilaterally demonizing or praising our Italian friend, we should recognize him for the good things he did for our culture while being cognizant of the legitimately horrible things he did for another.