Christopher Columbus Still Worthy of Celebration

There has been a push of political correctness for the past three decades to stop observing Columbus Day. And, by “observe," I mean “go to work anyway but you can’t send any mail”. Columbus Day is already such a bench-warmer holiday already, is there any need to get all worked up about whether we should “celebrate” it. What kind of “celebration” is really going on Oct. 12?  Mattress sales?

Look, there was a guy named Christopher Columbus. He did stumble upon a theretofore unknown continent.  Was he a hero or a villain? The truth is a little more complicated than that. Columbus was probably very much a man of his time. That time being the 15th century when slavery was a globally accepted condition and the rules of conquest  were universally brutal.  Columbus took slaves and  killed his opponents. So did Genghis Kahn. So did the African Moors during their conquest of Spain. SO DID THE AZTECS.

In fact, if you were taken as a prisoner by the Aztecs of ancient Mexico, being a slave was the absolute best that you could hope for.  The worst was that you would be used as one of thousands of human sacrifices to a whole pantheon of pagan gods.  Seriously, Aztec months were broken down into roughly two week periods and each month had its own gods who had to be appeased by such charming rituals as, and I quote, “extraction of heart while still living, sacrifice by drowning, wearing the skin of the flayed victims by priests, sacrifice by starvation in a cave and, the PC crowd’s favorite atrocity to never mention, sacrifice of children by decapitation.

Was Columbus a bastion of political correctness by today’s standards? No! But, the point is, neither was anyone back in those days. I’m all for having an Indigenous Peoples Day or whatever. But let’s just not pretend that Mesoamerica was all peace pipes and powwows back in those days either.