Happy Columbus Day!

As someone with a now provable and significant percentage of mesoamerican heritage, I say indigenous people's day can go screw itself, because it's Columbus Day!  The indigenous people of this land, despite having some aspects to their culture that were admirable, have not, and likely never would have brought us the things we love about our world and culture today. 

In Columbus' time, Europeans were exploring the world, establishing free trade around it, advancing in technology, developing concepts that would evolve into modern medicine, and attempting to reform their culture to be more civilized. On the other hand, at the same time, the indigenous people in the Americas were making human sacrifices, raping young children, had little concept of personal property, hunted more species to extinction than the 'white man', and had an insane amount of tribal warfare that killed far more of them than all the incursions from the 'white man' ever did. Heck, some that consider themselves "educated" on them would also have you believe they didn't even have the wheel (which I think is a crock of crap, but I digress). 

Back to the original subject: on this day, we celebrate a man who may not have been an exceedingly righteous man, but he certainly did not commit anything close to what the uneducated masses seem to think he did. No, he did not commit genocide, no he did not enslave natives, or intentionally bring them disease (germ theory, let alone warfare, was not developed until the 1800s). 

In fact, here's a great site with an exhaustive list of sources.

That, and many seem to be under the mistaken impression that he didn't accomplish much. He was vastly influential in how we see our world today.  What he did do was prove what mathematicians and others had been saying for years: that the earth was not only round, but that the oceans would be a viable way to open new trade routes, discovered the difference between magnetic north and true north, was the first to effect true global trade, and he did discover America to the benefit of the world. He was an incredibly good tradesman, negotiator, diplomat, an accomplished and experienced navigator.  Ships even to this day still use the courses he plotted and sailed in his time. 

No, he was not a saint, but we don't celebrate him for being one in the first place. For example, many US presidents hailed by many in a higher regard than Columbus, have knowingly done far more insidious things if people were to actually look into their dealings. 

Columbus went out of his way to deal as fairly and justly with the natives he encountered as he knew at the time (and was really a progressive mind for his age).  He also harshly punished those under his command that did not treat the natives in what he thought was fair or just. 

So far all that, yeah, I think he deserves a day and maybe a few statues that should stay up. Just a pity that nobody but bankers really get to enjoy it.