Movement To Change The Name Of Columbus Day Gaining Momentum

[JackRiddler]

55. You have already passed judgement.

First of all, your argument that the day was important is a red herring. We all agree it was very important. It should be taught, studied and commemorated. Some of us think it should not be commemorated in the name of the failed conquistador Colon, however.

Merely in the fact that you primarily wish to identify the would-be conquistador as a mariner means you have already delivered a judgment, one in his favor. I suppose we can also call Alexander and Genghis horsemen. You seem to be attached, not to a credible history, but to the modern-day, nationalist narrative (of Spain and a number of N. and S. American countries) that exonerates a mass murderer.

It is certain that people of his time did condemn him - the only problem is you're not willing to hear their voices, since they are the ones who didn't matter to him, the indigenous peoples he "discovered." He understood what he was doing at the time very bloody well, demanding that his missions deliver more forced labor, slaves, and gold. It was the moral standard of the Spanish empire to which this Italian voluntarily chose to attach himself. Not everyone at the time would have acted as he did. (It's interesting seeing on behalf of which arguments people choose to invoke the objection of anachronism.)

It was Eratosthenes, a mathematician in Ptolemaic Egypt, who first estimated the earth's circumference. No one is judging Colon by the standards of today to point out that more than 1600 years later, he was wrong about the circumference. This is why people at the time thought he was crazy, because he was trying to sell the Spanish crown on the idea that the earth was much smaller than thought by the consensus of those who had an opinion. Quite possibly because he was a con man, since the crown would not have spent on the mission if he had not persuaded them of his smaller earth theory. He got lucky.

So yes, commemorate. October 12 should be an Indigenous Peoples Day, and for their part I can only wish Italian-Americans would choose to celebrate a holiday commemorating Galileo - someone who was far more important in constituting the modern-day civilization than Colon. Someone furthermore who displayed moral courage, not just a desire to make himself famous, rich and powerful.