Reasons to celebrate Christopher Columbus

In PJ Media, Tyler O'Neill writes about why Americans should support the Columbus Day holiday today.

This month, Washington, D.C. — which is literally named after Christopher Columbus — voted to abolish the celebration of Columbus Day. Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Vermont do not celebrate Columbus Day, either. These states struck down the holiday in favor of Indigenous Peoples' Day, which the U.N. celebrates on August 9.

The attack on Columbus Day is a major facet of the cultural onslaught against the Western heritage behind the freedom and success of the United States of America. As the Daily Signal's Jarrett Stepman noted, far-left historian Howard Zinn pushed the crusade against Columbus as part of an attack on America's broader heritage.

...“Behind the English invasion of North America,” Zinn wrote, “behind their massacre of Indians, their deception, their brutality, was that special powerful drive born in civilizations based on private profit.”

I was astonished to learn that my three children were required to use Zinn's book as their textbook in middle school history classes.

Yet the free market system of "private profit" Zinn so maligns has created wealth at a scale unimaginable to most humans throughout history. Inventions like the microwave, the refrigerator, the television, the automobile, aircraft, and the iPhone have enabled the easy preservation and cooking of food, the speedy transportation of all kinds of goods across the world, and the dissemination of information and entertainment at a scale our ancestors would never have dreamed of.

The American system of limited government is far from perfect, but it has fostered entrepreneurship and individual freedom. The values in the Declaration of Independence were in direct conflict with the horrific institution of slavery, and those values helped spark movements to eradicate slavery. The Founders sought to restrain slavery from expanding into the territories, and the South precipitated the Civil War by pushing the expansion of slavery against the Founders' intent.

Americans should appreciate their rich heritage, rather than demonizing their history. Liberal historians and publications like The New York Times are wrong to reinterpret American history by placing the evils of slavery at the center. Americans must understand the evils of the past, but they should also be grateful for the values that inspired the ultimate rejection of slavery and the expansion of voting rights to minorities and women.

...In addition to expanding human knowledge, Columbus connected two worlds. In the "Columbian Exchange," crops that only grew in the Americas became available in Europe and Asia, while the Europeans introduced livestock, writing systems, and new crops like coffee and sugar to the Americas.

It is true that the Columbian Exchange also involved the enslavement of native Americans and the introduction of Old World diseases that decimated native populations. These evils must be acknowledged, and historians should also acknowledge that the Americas introduced new diseases to Europeans, as well. Even so, the Columbian Exchange also introduced long-term benefits to both the Americas and Eurasia.

In addition to expanding human knowledge, Columbus connected two worlds. In the "Columbian Exchange," crops that only grew in the Americas became available in Europe and Asia, while the Europeans introduced livestock, writing systems, and new crops like coffee and sugar to the Americas.

It is true that that Columbian Exchange also involved the enslavement of native Americans and the introduction of Old World diseases that decimated native populations. These evils must be acknowledged, and historians should also acknowledge that the Americas introduced new diseases to Europeans, as well. Even so, the Columbian Exchange also introduced long-term benefits to both the Americas and Eurasia.

...Columbus aimed to introduce the value system that eradicated human sacrifice in Europe — Christianity. In fact, according to sociologist Robert Woodberry, the missionary spread of Christianity has promoted democratic values across the world.

"Columbus has been a target of white supremacists since the 1920s, when a resurgent Ku Klux Klan attacked monuments and celebrations of Columbus from coast to coast," Patrick Korten, a member of the National Christopher Columbus Association (NCCA) board of directors, said in 2017.

"They hated that he was Mediterranean not Anglo, that he sailed for Spain, not England, that he was popular in the immigrant community, and most of all, that he was Catholic," Korten added, noting that "Catholics, along with African Americans and Jews, were regular targets of the Klan."

...Columbus Day is not a symbol of oppression, but a symbol of American pluralism, the acceptance of a new influx of Americans from Columbus' native Italy. Just as the 13th Amendment corrected a historic American evil by abolishing slavery, so this holiday helped combat the anti-Italian prejudice behind a horrific lynching.

Read more here.