Columbus Set the Oars in Motion

       Why has modern America chosen to attack Columbus Day?  Many schools no longer celebrate it; many states have dropped it in ignominy… or worse, they use it as a negative teaching opportunity: to trash the explorers who brought European civilization to these shores.

       Of course, it’s still celebrated as a capitalist holiday, with Columbus Day markdowns in the retail world, as it should be.  And Columbus Day is still proudly celebrated as the national holiday of Italian Americans, proud of our Ligurian hero who discovered a whole new world, so long ago — even though he was actually working on behalf of Spain, not his native Genoa.

       Never mind that these continents had been discovered before… by Asians millennia earlier, who settled and stayed, and again by Vikings five centuries prior, who settled, then left (and perhaps, if the Mormons are right, by an ancient tribe of Israelites as well, who settled, then vanished).

       What’s important is that Christopher Columbus is responsible for bringing Europeans to the New World in modern times.  Maybe someone else would have done it eventually… but they hadn’t yet.  Most Europeans were happy to go to Asia by sailing around Africa; the westward journey around the world was too daunting (and rightly so; if these continents hadn’t been in the way, that westward path would have been long indeed).

       There were other explorers who followed him, once Columbus blazed the trail — Cortez, Coronado, de Leon, Magellan — not to mention the audacious mapmaker who managed the greatest Intellectual Property crime in history, by naming these continents after himself rather than their discoverer.

       But it was Columbus who brought together the old world and the new, so the day is appropriately named for him.

       Who knows how history might have turned out, had Portugal or England been quick enough to accept his proposal before Ferdinand and Isabella (Henry VII did in fact accept, but only after Columbus was fully committed to Spain’s sponsorship).  The Italian Columbus believed in the possibility of a westbound ocean route to Asia, and he was willing to work for any country that would put its faith in his plan and bankroll the voyage.

       You’d think that this willingness to put science before country would be popular in this modern era of “moving beyond nationalism.”  We’ve (twice now) had Presidents who think of themselves more as “citizens of the world” than as citizens of the United States, people who place the opinion of foreign elites above our own national security, economic well-being, and basic public safety.  But their crowd – strangely enough – doesn’t give Columbus such respect.

       No, the elites overlook Columbus’ liberal credentials — as an adventurer without borders — because of his greater “crimes:”  he was a tough taskmaster… some people got sick and even died on his ships… he didn’t design a perfect territorial government when he, a sailor without a Masters of Public Administration degree, was appointed governor of Hispaniola.

       Newsflash:  all historical figures (save One) were flawed.  Everyone we study and honor today — from Plato to Adam Smith, from Augustus to Reagan — has been human, and has been guilty of at least some of the errors common to their time and their environment.  That doesn’t mean we can’t honor them; their imperfections don’t diminish their achievements, for their time, all things considered.

       We celebrate Presidents’ Day because of the greatness of Washington and Lincoln; the shortcomings of LBJ and Carter aren’t sufficient to smother the memories of the greater ones who preceded them.  That holiday still stands.

       We celebrate Independence Day because so many honorable men risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor that this nation might serve as a shining city on a hill, for all others on this generally misguided globe to learn from.  Even the fact that these United States have spent the past century straying from the original path does nothing to diminish the glories and commitment of the Founding Fathers.  Their holiday still stands.

       And so we should celebrate Columbus Day too, because Christopher Columbus brought Western Civilization to the Americas.  No human foible, no other shortcoming, can undo that magnificent contribution to mankind.

       Before 1492, the world was essentially feudal.  The mercantilist phase had begun, but all countries and their governments still operated as they always had:  Take what you can from your own land, and then, if you want more, invade your neighbor and seek his land.  So much of human history was war.

       But the Crusades had awakened a rudimentary understanding of international trade — with the development of sea and land trade routes — and this great discovery in 1492 was the major turning point in the transformation of the world, into a new world in which a ship laden with silks from foreign shores would no longer be an exotic novelty, but the very fiber of commercial activity, and the springboard to peaceful economic growth.

       1492 was supposed to be about easing existing trade with known partners; it turned out to be about creating new trade with new partners.  Building colonies, trading and settling, teaching and developing — all this was possible only because of Columbus’ discovery.

       All who read this publication do so because of Columbus:

       The majority of us, of European and other non-American descent, would not exist, as our ancestors would never have met without Columbus (my maternal Irish grandparents, for example, being from Ulster and Cork, might have met in the old country; my paternal southern Italian and Austrian grandparents most certainly would never have met in Europe!).  And the remainder of us, those of pure pre-Columbian American descent, would have been unable to read it.

       Columbus brought the possibility of an end to famine; his voyage gave the world the opportunity of international inter-dependency.  The USA can supply corn to the whole world (if we don’t divert it all to fuel our cars).  We can ship food and construction equipment to Asia, and import clothing and computers from them in exchange.  We can ship cars to Europe, then bring back wine and shoes.  No longer do we need to invade our neighbors to get their valuables; fair Customs regulations and dependable international banking provide the means to barter to mutual advantage.  All because of Columbus’ discovery.

       Certainly, with hindsight, it could have gone better.  We all know the downside of the 16th century.  If Europe had had modern medicine, they wouldn’t have brought fatal diseases to these shores without vaccines to protect those already here and susceptible.  If they had had modern philosophy, they would have ended the slavery already present, rather than replacing it with another kind.  And of course they should have welcomed native American assimilation more, rather than keeping them separate and often treating them as inferior.

       But they didn’t have hindsight then.

       All they had was the knowledge and environment of the time.  They saw land ready for cultivation… natural resources to be mined and developed… in the possession of cultures that didn’t appreciate what they had, and even such death cults as Western civilization had eradicated centuries before (the last major death cult in the mediterranean world was Carthage, and the Aztecs were even more gruesome sixteen centuries later, though both were eventually to be outdone by the socialists of the 20th century).

       The Europeans brought the principles of western education, religion, and democracy to the Americas.  Had Spain not begun the process in Central and South America, England might never have settled North America.  What would the world be like today without the United States — this greatest nation on God’s green earth?

       We’ll never know what would have happened if Columbus had served England, or Holland, or France.  We only know what did happen, that he blazed a trail as few men have in history.

       Columbus set the wheels in motion — and the sails and oars as well — in many ways unknowingly, to bring Western Civilization to this land, and in the process, to improve the lot of the entire world beyond all reckoning.

       Whatever its side effects, that’s something worth celebrating.

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance trainer and consultant.  President of the Ethnic American Council in the 1980s and Chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party in the 1990s, his book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his political satires on the Biden-Harris administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his first nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” are all available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.     

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