Today is Columbus Day, though you wouldn’t know it here in the United States.

Christopher Columbus, or Christoffa Corombo in his native Genoese (now part of modern-day Italy), is probably one of the most important figures of the last millennium and his accomplishments deserve recognition.

Unfortunately, Americans have been bullied by the left into believing that Columbus was an evil man who does not deserve to be recognized. This sad fact is apparent when we see that Columbus Day is hardly recognized while Martin Luther King Jr. Day is. No one can possibly compare the accomplishments of King to those of Columbus. It is ridiculous.

Several criticisms of Columbus include that he was not the first to arrive here, he didn’t know he discovered a new land, and his actions decimated native populations.

Hogwash.

While it is true he was not the first human to arrive in the New World, he was the first to stay and bring knowledge of the new lands to the rest of the world. He brought the Western World to the forefront of human knowledge. The American Indians living here did not know where they were, did not know there were other lands apart from theirs and their presence here did nothing to advance mankind’s knowledge of the planet.

Columbus knew he had discovered new lands. That much is clear. His writings also show that he knew how large the new lands were that he discovered. His only mistake is one of location. He thought the new lands were nearer to Asia. This thought was based on miscalculations based on the use of different measurements. For example, Arabic miles are longer than Italian miles. His error of the exact location of the new lands, in relation to Asia, does not negate the magnitude of his discovery.

Finally, it is wholly unfair to blame Columbus for what happened to the American Indian population after his arrival.

Yes, Europeans introduced, inadvertently, Western diseases to the New World. However, the reverse is true as well. The American Indians introduced syphilis to the Europeans, which lead to as many as 5 million deaths. Conversely, while European diseases decimated American Indian populations, most notably smallpox, the first pandemic in the New World did not occur until about 20 years after Columbus’ death. It is hardly fair to blame him for that. He did not, himself, introduce smallpox to the New World. Besides, Europeans and American Indians were going to eventually meet and the diseases were going to happen. It was simply the nature of things.

We should not have civil holidays named after people as a general rule. That is the sort of thing that kings and emperors did for each other. It is also something religions do to honor their gods or their saints. For example, instead of Columbus Day, we could have Discovery Day. Instead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we could have Civil Rights Day.

However, if we are going to celebrate a day named after someone, I can think of no better candidate than Christoffa Corombo. After all, his discovery set off a chain of events that led to the American Revolution and the putting into action the idea that people, not kings, are the real sovereigns.

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