By Allan Wall, October 12, 2021
Christopher Columbus, who discovered America on October 12th, 1492, is one of the most honored individuals in the United States.
This goes all the way back to colonial times, before U.S. independence, when the term Columbia (named for Columbus) was already used to represent the Thirteen English Colonies which later became the U.S.A.
In the post-independence period this continued.
In 1792, the tricentennial of Columbus’ arrival was celebrated in New York City and other cities.
The republic’s new, specially-constructed capital was named after George Washington and Christopher Columbus (Washington, District of Columbia.)
There are over 6,000 place names honoring Columbus in the United States, including cities called Columbus and Columbia, the Columbia River, and Columbia University.
As for statues and monuments, there are 149 honoring Columbus, putting him in third place after Lincoln and Washington.
Columbus Day, which falls on October 12th but is officially observed on the second Monday of October, is a federal holiday.
In recent years, Columbus and his legacy have been under attack. This has been going on for decades, and is now really building up steam.
Our education system has a lot to do with this, I have to say.
In the recent George Floyd riots, many statues of the great Genoese navigator were toppled, removed, or set to be removed.
Two of these were in the city of Columbus, Ohio, which has also removed Columbus Day as a municipal holiday. From where do they think their city’s name was derived?
Now there’s also “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” a sort of anti-Columbus Day set on the second Monday of October, the same day as official Columbus Day.
If the goal of Indigenous Peoples’ Day was to honor American Indians, there are already other days for that.
“Native American Heritage Day,” the day after Thanksgiving, is a federally-designated date to pay tribute to American Indians.
In September, California and Nevada celebrate “Native American Day,” while Tennessee celebrates “American Indian Day.”
It’s obvious the purpose of Indigenous Peoples’ Day is to replace Columbus Day.
“Conservative” Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma angered many of his constituents in 2020 by joining another senator in proposing to eliminate Columbus Day.
Lankford claimed it was for fiscal reasons, but it wasn’t the first time he’d worked to eliminate American heritage.
In Latin America, Columbus Day is celebrated as Día de la Raza — “Day of the Race” — meaning the mestizo race.
The mestizo race is the race created by the fusion of Spaniards and Indians, which now forms the majority of the population of Mexico and some other Latin American countries.
Mestizo people wouldn’t even exist had it not been for Columbus and the Spanish colonizers.
In Latin America, too, Columbus has been under attack in recent years, and Columbus statues have been taken down.
In 2002, Venezuelan neo-communist dictator Hugo Chavez renamed Día de la Raza as “Día de la Resistencia Indígena” (Day of Indigenous Resistance). That fit right in with the race-baiting, anti-white strategy of Chavez. Look at Venezuela now.
What’s really going on here?
It’s not just about Columbus. It’s about Western Civilization. Columbus brought Western Civilization to the Western Hemisphere, initiating the process of colonization which eventually led to the establishment of the United States of America and all the other nation-states of the Western Hemisphere.
So if it weren’t for Columbus, the U.S.A. wouldn’t exist.
Maybe that’s the real issue. Are the Columbus bashers really concerned about the real or imaginary crimes of Columbus?
Or do they simply hate the U.S.A. and Western Civilization?
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump’s Columbus Day proclamation contained these words:
“More than 500 years ago, Christopher Columbus’s intrepid voyage to the New World ushered in a new era of exploration and discovery. His travels led to European contact with the Americas and, a century later, the first settlements on the shores of the modern day United States. Today, we celebrate Columbus Day to commemorate the great Italian who opened a new chapter in world history and to appreciate his enduring significance to the Western Hemisphere.”
Happy Columbus Day!
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