The blessing (and curse?) of Christopher Columbus

“Christopher Columbus’ arrival in North America in 1492 undoubtedly changed the world and lives of the Indigenous people he met,” the History Channel states in a 2024 article for Columbus Day. “But was it for the better?”

Frankly, I cannot believe the History Channel would actually ask that question. The answer, of course, at least to the first question, is Yes.

An empathic and unequivocal Yes.

Really, though, they’re asking two separate questions. Did Columbus change the world for the better? And did he change the lives of the Indigenous people for the better?

Those two distinct questions are frequently conflated, resulting in confusion about why we celebrate Columbus Day.

On October 12, 1492, the master navigator, future legend of transatlantic voyages, and sometimes misguided Christian proselytizer, arrived in the Americas, establishing contact between the Old World and the New. His fabled fleet, including the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María (likely not the ships’ real names), set sail from Spain on August 3, 1492; his voyage (the first of four) was funded by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who hoped to boost their standing among European monarchs and finance a crusade to conquer the Holy Land. The Age of Exploration met the Book of Revelation: Columbus aimed to discover “such quantities that the Sovereigns would, in three years, be able to undertake and fit out an expedition to go and conquer the Holy Sepulchre.” “I protest [declare] to your Highnesses,” he wrote, “that all the profits of this my enterprise may be spent in the conquest of Jerusalem.”

But, of course, Spain had more than just Crusade finances in mind. More specifically, Columbus sought to discover new direct sea routes to the gold- and spice-laden Far East so that he would not have to “go by land to the eastward, by which way it was the custom to go, but by way of the west.” Moreover, anyone he encountered along the way he vowed to convert “to our holy faith.”

Arriving in the New World, Columbus christened the island of his discovery “San Salvador,” noting that the natives called it “Guanaham.” He also noted, somewhat casually, that the natives, which he mistakenly called Indians, “should be good servants” and that “I… will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses….” Later, he wooed Ferdinand and Isabella with visions of gold, spices, cotton, and “as many slaves as they choose to send for.”

It was the beginning of a long and complicated record, the most enduring blight on the history-making globetrotter’s record. Columbus’s legacy of abuse and cruel subjugation against the Indians is inescapable. It begs the question, “Did the esteemed navigator change the lives of the Indigenous people for the better?”

No.

But that is not the final word about Columbus.

I do not mean to whitewash the litany of abuses the Spanish committed against the natives they encountered, but this Columbus Day, you will hear more than enough about that from other sources. Instead, I mean to show why we still celebrate Columbus Day despite the man’s many faults.  

We honor Christopher Columbus for the same reason we honor George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or any other imperfect hero of history — not for their outdated views about race or because they were slaveowners, but because they helped create the world in which we live. Christopher Columbus may have committed grave sins, but he also played an invaluable role in forming the freest, most prosperous nation in history.

“One of the signs of a great society is the diligence with which it passes culture from one generation to the next,” Winston Churchill reportedly wrote. America can only achieve greatness when we stop fixating on the wounds of our past, the pockmarks and scars on the national heritage we have inherited. We have been blessed with an extraordinary legacy. From time to time, we ought to hold it in front of us and remind ourselves and our children exactly what it cost to obtain.

If you are at all grateful to live in America (which you should be), you owe at least an ounce of that gratitude to Columbus.

That is why the answer to the first question — “Did Columbus change the world for the better?” — is, undoubtedly, Yes.

He may not have been a saint. But his ultimate contribution to history was one of good, not evil — setting the stage for the eventual promise of liberty and justice for all — natives and Europeans — born afresh in a New World.