Monday, October 9th is Columbus Day. It is also Indigenous Peoples Day here in Nebraska. Christopher Columbus was a man of incredible integrity, but revisionists have targeted him in their attempts to rewrite the history of Western civilization with false narratives. Too many people today erroneously believe that Christopher Columbus was a bad person. So, today I would like to expose the revisionism and help restore the good name of Christopher Columbus.
On October 9, 2017 Vincent Schilling published a revisionist article in Indian Country entitled, “Eight Myths and Atrocities about Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day.” Not only was Schilling wrong in each of his eight attempts to correct the historical record about Columbus, but he was downright deceitful in how he went about it. For example, Schilling cited as one of his eight myths the idea that Columbus discovered America. According to Schilling, Columbus never discovered America. However, what Schilling meant by “America” was the upper 48 states of the USA, not Central or South America. The fact of the matter is that Christopher Columbus explored much of what today is considered Central and South America during his third and fourth voyages. Nobody teaches that Columbus ever explored the “upper 48” of the USA, so to suggest that this is somehow a myth in need of correction is deceitful.
Schilling claimed in his article that Columbus enslaved some of the native peoples of the land for gold. Schilling suggests that after Columbus failed to find gold, he intended to deport hundreds of natives to Spain in order to sell them as slaves. Schilling’s claim is unsubstantiated and ignores evidence to the contrary.
