Page 12, Columbus should not be deemed a 'bad guy'

Opinions Column by Dan Elbaum, 10/12/95

Last Monday, in an effort to escape my rapidly approaching midterms, I
attempted to find solace under a tree on the Quad. I had just escaped from
my 11:00 class and planned on catching a few hours of sleep before trying
to figure out what to write for this week's column.

My blissful slumber was soon disrupted by the shouting and chanting of
angry anti-Columbus demonstrators. After just waking up, my powers of
perception tend to be shady at best, but I believe their rallying cry
seemed to be Columbus was a bad guy. To elaborate, protesters claimed
Columbus was responsible for the genocide and enslavement of the
indigenous people of the Western hemisphere, and the holiday should be
renamed Native People's Day to honor the victims of Columbus' greed and
cruelty.

As I departed the Quad for a quieter place to sleep, it occurred to me
that until the demonstration had woken me up, I hadn't even known it was
Columbus Day.

When I was younger, I always knew when Columbus Day was approaching. In
grammar school, I memorized inane rhymes about his journey and listened,
enthralled, to stories about his heroic actions while discovering America.
In high school, Columbus Day simply represented a day off from school and
I felt indebted to Columbus for allowing me to sleep late on a Monday
morning.

Now in my college years, the only time I hear about Columbus Day is when
his critics, not content to leave him in peace after being dead for more
than 400 years, attack him for bringing evil to the Western Hemisphere.
Although these attacks have noble intentions, they are both excessive and
misguided.

Before beginning my defense of Columbus Day, I want to establish my
liberal credentials so no one can accuse me of being a conservative. I
voted for Bill Clinton, interned for Ted Kennedy and hate Newt Gingrich as
much as any good liberal. However, as much as I dislike the conservative
cause, they are right on this issue and the liberals are wrong.

The critics of Columbus Day would have you believe that Columbus was an
evil villain who brought pain and suffering to this innocent continent.
There is no refuting the fact that the arrival of Europeans killed many of
the continent's indigenous people. From the blood-thirsty Spanish conquest
to the American execution of Manifest Destiny, the native people of this
hemisphere were enslaved, swindled and systematically murdered. These
abominable crimes should never be forgotten.

Yet to place these crimes squarely on the shoulders of Columbus and to
forget the advancement his journey represented is simply wrong. Columbus
might not have been the god my kindergarten teacher spoke about, but he
was certainly not the Hitler-like, evil figure his critics have painted
him to be.

As most 10-year-olds can tell you, Columbus was an Italian sailor who
thought that by sailing west, he could reach China and India. His
calculations were pretty far off and he never quite picked up the fact
that he was nowhere near the Far East, but that doesn't make him evil. He
obviously was not the first to set eyes on this "new world"-the people
whom he named Indians had been there for quite some time, the Vikings had
probably made several expeditions to the Northeast, and there is
speculation that the Phoenicians somehow found their way to central
America 2,000 years ago.

If Columbus hadn't found the new world, it was probably only a matter of
time before someone else did. But his discovery marked the beginning of
the age of exploration and, in the long run, a step forward.

Contrary to what the protesters would have you believe, Europeans did not
find utopian paradise in the new world. Aztecs and Incas were cruel
conquerors who executed and tortured large populations of subservient
tribes. Ritual human sacrifices were also adopted by these people. This
does not for a second condone the mass death brought about by the Spanish