Was Christopher Columbus really a hero?

[gusdmh]

Recently I became a member of the Knights of Columbus. Columbus was chosen as the namesake of the KofC because he was popular at the time with Protestants and other people who disliked Catholics and immigrants. He was an American icon. Today, I’m having a hard time defending Columbus because of the recent discoveries of him being unjust to the indigenous people, along with other scandals about him. It seems that today most Americans don’t hold him in as high esteem as I did when growing up. How can I defend this Catholic man? Was he really that bad?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

In recent years – I can’t even say decades because Columbus was generally considered an American hero when I was growing up in the seventies and eighties – a number of the prominent figures of Western history in general and American history in particular have been re-evaluated and found lacking according to modern sensitivities and scruples. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To the extent that we re-examine our past, learn from our mistakes, and work to build a more socially just world based on this critical re-evaluation of history, it can be a good thing.

But such re-evaluation and deeper understanding of our past should not tempt us to radical iconoclasm. It is one thing to acknowledge the mistakes and faults of our ancestors, but quite another to strip them of any honor or esteem whatsoever based solely upon the discovery that they were sinful human beings like the rest of us. Perhaps the best way to defend men such as Christopher Columbus is to honestly acknowledge the wrongs committed, but to insist that their accomplishments continue to deserve honor and respect.