Columbus Day is soon. And with it comes the unfortunate, familiar and sadly growing attacks on one of the
greatest individuals who has ever lived. The near miraculous discovery of the Americas is overshadowed by the patently false claims that Adm. Christopher Columbus was a slave trader, murderer and rapist.
Those charges against Columbus were first made 500 years ago by his rivals in the New World who sought to exploit the new lands for their own gain. Columbus was cleared of all wrongdoing then and his accusers were condemned.
Hopefully history will eventually repeat itself.
Columbus forbade the mistreatment or exploitation of the natives. Spanish law forbid slavery. Columbus enslaved no one. Enslavement was permitted in only two situations — the enslavement of enemies captured in battle was permitted (as it was worldwide) and you either killed your enemies or kept them enslaved — and the enslavement of cannibals was also permitted.
Columbus has been attacked for sending six “captured” natives to Spain. The six had become close to Columbus and wished to see Spain. One was even the Godson of Columbus. Of the six native visitors to Spain, two were so impressed with the wonders they saw that they chose to stay and became members of the Royal Court.
The other four returned, with one dying on the voyage home. Columbus’s native Godson remained with him throughout his life. There were some others who did enslave natives.
But Columbus fought them often. He had ordered two of his own men hung. Yet there were eventually over 1,000 colonists scattered on the islands he attempted to govern 3,000 miles from civilization.
The purpose of the Columbus voyage was to find a western trade route to Asia so commerce could be continued — and hopefully to find gold. The search for gold was not motivated by greed. Spain had just ended 700 years of fighting and occupation of their lands by the Moors.
The Holy Land was controlled by the Ottoman Turks. Muslims were in firm control and blocked Christian travel. Columbus and the Spanish monarchs wanted gold to finance a crusade to free the Holy Land.
That is what all the documents explain, but of course you will never hear that. Columbus was devoted to Christ and believed his mission was to spread Christianity. Columbus was a Third Order Franciscan monk,
often wearing his brown habit. The name Christopher means “Christ bearer.”
Columbus complained in detail in letters to Queen Isabela about the exploitation of the natives by some Spanish colonists. He made four trips to the Americas, bringing over 1,200 colonists.
Critics of Columbus take the complaints of the man out of context to make it appear he was the one doing things he actually complained about, including unlawful enslavement and sexual exploitation.
Columbus discovered America. Up until that time in all of recorded history, there were only three known
continents — Europe, Asia and Africa. The known world did not know about the Americas and the natives did not know about the rest of the world.
The Vikings stopped by earlier at some point, but left no maps, no settlements, no dates, no records and went home. (P.S. those Vikings were Catholics sent by King Olaf the saint.) Also, the U.S. mainland (Florida) was discovered by Ponce DeLeon, a member of Columbus’s crew.
Twelve years after Columbus died and was buried in Spain, there was a smallpox epidemic in the Americas — and somehow, the breakout is historically blamed on Columbus. No one knows what the population of the Americas was at that time as obviously there was no census.
Warfare, slavery, cannibalism and disease existed in the Americas long before Columbus arrived. Columbus is blamed for all the ills that came to the Americas — but why is he not credited for all the good and blessings that his discovery brought to the world?
For years, every seafaring nation had turned down Columbus’s proposal to sail across the uncharted
Atlantic. Spain was the poorest country in Europe at that time. Columbus’s ships ranged in size from 40 to 65 feet in length.
From a logical view, one would have expected anyone but Spain to discover the Americas. The largest navies in the world at that time were Muslim and Chinese. Both had massive navies with some Chinese ships up to 600 feet long.
All the experts knew Columbus’s calculations of land being 3,000 miles west were wrong. Asia was 7,000 miles away somewhere, and no ship was even large enough to carry enough supplies to make the trip.
Columbus understood their arguments, but he nevertheless insisted he would reach land in 30 days — and he did — guided solely with courage and by faith.
On Oct. 10, 1492, Columbus’s nervous crew, now a month in an uncharted ocean, were about to mutiny.
Columbus asked that they wait until the feast day of Our Lady of the Pillar, the patron saint of Spain. He promised that if land was not sighted by the feast day, they would turn back home.
For the next two days, the wind picked up and the ships picked up surprising speed. Two days later, on Oct.
12, 1492 — the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar — land was sighted. What critics of Columbus fail to comprehend is that if he did not make his voyages when he did, the course of human history would have
been dramatically altered.
The configuration of nations and populations would be completely different and that most likely, they would not ever have been born.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, an organization he has served since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to Kearny to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.