Today’s a new day! As we start this new week, America is celebrating Columbus Day. It’s a National Holiday. Many state and federal buildings will be closed. No school for many students. Columbus Day was designated a National Holiday on October 12, 1972. But who was this man named Christopher Columbus that so many celebrate? If you do not know the truth about this man, here is some history you probably never learned in school.

Did you know we celebrate a man who never actually set foot on modern-day American soil? Christopher Columbus never stepped foot anywhere on North American soil.

Until his dying day this supposed great explorer maintained that the land he had “discovered” was Asia and not a new continent. Columbus was wrong of course, and needless to say, he didn’t actually discover anything — “America” had already been inhabited for thousands of years.

For a long time, Columbus’ discovery of America was an universally celebrated event, both in Europe and America. I remember studying about Columbus in elementary school. Wasn’t there a song about him? But as awareness has grown about the catastrophic effect his supposed discovery had on America’s indigenous populations, it has increasingly been viewed as a disaster rather than triumph, and rightly so. As a direct result of Columbus “discovery”, indigenous Americans were enslaved, killed and oppressed to such a degree that a population of around 60 million in 1492, fell by 80–90% in less than 150 years. Facts! Not made up stories.

So if in 2024, you still think Columbus Day is something worth celebrating, here are five other reasons why it really isn’t:

He wasn’t a particularly good Navigator:

After studying a handful of his favorite books, including the journals of Marco Polo, Columbus became convinced that it was possible to sail directly west to reach the “Indies”, as China, Japan and India were then known as in Europe. He completely miscalculated the distance between Europe and Japan however, estimating it to be around 2,000 nautical miles when the real distance is closer to 11,000. Columbus was definitely a lucky captain, but his navigational skills left a lot to be desired.

He was selfish and dishonest:

On his first voyage, Columbus promised the crew on his three ships (Santa Maria, Pinta and Santa Clara) that the first person who spotted land would receive a lifetime pension. Land was first spotted by Rodrigo de Triana, a lookout on the Pinta, and thereafter by its captain Martin Alonso Pinzo, who notified Columbus. What Columbus did next was nothing less than shameful. He falsely claimed that he had spotted land a few hours before Triana and Pinzo, but that he hadn’t said anything in case it was a false alarm. He thereby claimed the lifetime pension for himself, cheating the rightful claimant out of both glory and a significant amount of money.

He was personally responsible for Brutality:

Upon arriving in the New World, one of the first observations Columbus made with regards to the indigenous people was the following:

“They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. They would make fine servants. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

This was a sign of things to come. After Columbus established the first Spanish colony at La Isabela, on the north coast of Hispaniola (modern-day Dominican Republic), relations between the Spanish and the indigenous population quickly deteriorated. The natives were removed from their villages to work in gold mines and colonial plantations. This kept them from planting crops, leading to widespread starvation. Some committed suicide to avoid subjugation, others fled, but many rebelled. In response to the rebellion, Columbus ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed, and their dismembered bodies paraded through the streets. Within a few decades, only a few hundred of an original native population of 300,000 remained.

He was Stubborn:

Even after spending his whole career exploring the Caribbean, Columbus never at any point thought he had landed anywhere other than his intended destination, Asia. When confronted with evidence to the contrary, he simply could not conceive of the the idea that he might be wrong. Despite not finding any of the places that his favorite books described (places in China, India and Japan), he convinced himself that they were just around the corner. He even made his crew swear an oath that Cuba was not an island but indeed the mainland of Asia, and that China could be reached overland from there.

He wasn’t the first to travel from

Europe to America:

The Vikings sailed to, and colonized parts of Newfoundland, Canada, around AD 1000. Many believe that they sailed even further south, maybe as far as New Brunswick. In any case, we know for a fact that Europeans traveled to America almost 500 years before Columbus. There are also theories that the Irish arrived far before the Vikings, and that the Chinese and Polynesians may also have visited the Americas before Columbus.

So, there you have it; five reasons not to celebrate Columbus Day this year (or any other year).

Instead of celebrating the falsehoods of Christopher Columbus today, take time to remember the Native Americans who have been brutalized by “Conquering Heroes” over the decades. They are the only true Americans. The rest of us are immigrants from around the world. ~OC