- If we as a nation want to celebrate exploration and exploitation of new things, Columbus is a great person to celebrate.
- If we as a nation would rather celebrate humane progress towards agreed upon goals, we should celebrate something else.
Here are some things I found.
Enjoy!
Why celebrate Columbus?
- After he found the Bahamas, other people followed his path
- Arguably this is the "event" that triggered western movement
- You could argue that someone else around the same time could have had the same impact, but there are no other historical figures mentioned in the articles I read.
- Followers of previous explorers stopped following before 1400
- Many vikings including Leif Ericson came over before 1400 but their cities died off and the next migration was not until 1721 - see this on Greenland
Why not celebrate Columbus?
- He killed many people to serve his needs - now considered genocide
- He started the slave trade - a substantial blemish on north american history
Why not celebrate Leif Ericson instead of Columbus?
- Marketting - not enough people made a fuss about the Viking discoveries, many people made a fuss about the Italian discoveries
- Columbus' lasts through today - Ericson's impact ended in the early 1400s
Wikipedia says this:
Though Columbus may not have been the first European explorer to reach the Americas (having probably been preceded by the Norse expedition led by Leif Ericson in the 11th century[3][4]), his voyages led to the first lasting European contact with the Americas, inaugurating a period of European exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for several centuries. These voyages had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. Columbus spearheaded the transatlantic slave trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating thegenocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light ofspreading the Christian religion.[5]
See this
And this
Even though Columbus was completely ignorant of the new continent he had encountered, his voyage changed the course of human history - fast. Within two years, the Pope had divided the so-called 'uncivilized world' between Portugal and Spain in a deal known as the Treaty of Tordesillas. The islands Columbus explored became known for all posterity as the West Indies, and the native inhabitants of the entire hemisphere became collectively known as Indians. Columbus was followed by wave upon wave of European explorers and conquerors motivated by God, gold, and glory.
Stolen from here:
