TL;DR. Needs more pictures.

It’s a matter of luck, and truth be told, Europeans got lucky. Superb geographical position, great access to natural resources, more contact with the rest of the world than anyone at the time due to said geographical position, more technological advancement than anyone else partly because of said contact. Native…

That was a long response, but the message is correct: Our views of “racism” and “Columbusing” didn’t exist back then, and I’m not sure it’s fair to hold 1600’s Spain up to the same standards as 2015 America. I’m pro-Columbus Day in that it spawns some great discussions. If there wasn’t a Columbus Day holiday, we…

Your comments are far more interesting than the article itself. Thanks.

I’m guessing at what “counterfactuals” means. Anyway, thanks for the conversation.

Nice writeup. I doubt it will change any minds as to the “evilness” of Columbus and the holiday in question but it’s helpful to see things in a broader context.

And for the record, I do understand your larger points, which are that Columbus did in fact have a tremendous impact on life in North America as we know it today, and his brutality was not especially egregious in comparison with what indigenous peoples were doing to each other (or what Europeans were probably doing to…

The famously progressive city of Berkeley California “celebrated” the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the New World by changing Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day. That was back in 1992. Today America itself is undergoing an ideological transformation that will soon turn it into a country-sized…