Still a big fail. TriPolar’s claim was
. He never hit North America, and he never made it to the mainland.
Well, it was just a joke, but yeah, technically you are right. Generally, I always thought of ‘North America’ as Canada, the US mainland and Mexico, and the countries you are referring to being in Central America while the countries to the south are South America, but I think these days it’s just North and South America (though obviously it’s all connected so it’s still semantics)…
But, yeah, I suppose he did get to North America, technically (though ‘mainland’?). Still wasn’t the first. I suppose the real distinction is that his was the discovery that really opened it up to European eyes, and the discovery that started Europe on the road to colonization of the region and the build up of wealth that allowed them to dominate the world. Really, you’d think the Europeans would be the ones celebrating his voyages of discovery. 
On the larger issue, from time to time there are stories about groups wishing to tear down a statue, or rename a street or monument or what have you because the historical person was, by contemporary standards, a racist imperialist misogynist jerk and the argument is made they shouldn’t be revered because it’s offensive to their victims and we want to disavow their wicked ways. Which is all well and good, but wouldn’t this apply to the vast majority of historical figures before, I don’t know, somewhere in the 20th century? For example, the American founders were slave holders and rapists, but Americans put them on their money. Abraham Lincoln was more racist than anybody you’ll meet outside of the most virulent white supremacist communities.
You could apply this argument to most modern American presidents, too. Why should LBJ or GWB have their name on anything? Wouldn’t honoring Jimmy Carter be offensive to those from East Timor?
Why should they? That’s why we invented calendars.
Note the total lack of women in senior management positions aboard the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria. His failure to take a strong stance on chlorofluorocarbon damage to the ozone layer speaks for itself. He did nothing to protect the manatee from becoming an endangered species.
On the other hand, as a famous advocate for wind power, he did help the environment. So let’s take the good along with the bad.
Is there a nicer 15-16th century explorer we could embrace, preferably one not quite so rapey?
I get the snark, but his pro-child-rape-slave stance (or actions, whatever his stance was) is a bit different, I think.
XT:
Well, as opposed to the islands of the Caribbean, which he unquestionably got to and are currently considered, in geo-political terms, to be part of North America. The mainland would be the continental land mass. The ithsmus of Panama makes sort of a natural dividing line between the land north of it (North/Central America) and the land south of it (South America) (though it’s really all connected - not unlike Africa and Asia. If Panama hadn’t seceded from Colombia in 1903, I wonder if we’d consider the continents to be separate today.) but there’s really no natural formation that makes any logical dividing line between Mexico and Guatemala/Belize, which would be the political demarcation that we moderns might think of as Central America.
cite?
Note the sexist naming of the ships, too!
Bartolome de las Casas is suggested in my link upthread (repeated here).
Yet we observe Labor Day without tying it to some specific human figurehead, so this touches on what I mentioned earlier about the “personalization” of the commemoration in the US – MLK day at least coincides with the man’s birthday, and it’s one of only two National Holidays based on historical figures’ birthdays; there could have been a Civil Rights Day, period, on the anniversary of any of various major events, but King WAS the most visible leader directly involved at the critical junction of the 50s and 60s
Colombus opened the floodgates for the colonization of the Americas, the outward expansion of the West Europeans as dominant powers, and the age of conquest-and-settlement colonial empires (as opposed to trading-post garrison colonies) by establishing a roundtrip could be made succesfully. The Age of Exploration had already been going on for most of the XV Century courtesy of Portugal, but at a slow/steady incremental pace. After it was figured out there was a New World then things just exploded. But is a man’s seamanship career what should be remembered, or should it be rather the whole world-upending global socioeconomic upheaval that ensued, considering HE ostensibly never really understood what he had done?
My usual response to these kinds of things is to say we should celebrate the achievement by itself, rather than the person or organisation, given the unfortunate extras that become indirectly or directly celebrated too, and the message that sends. Here, though, I don’t know that it’s worth celebrating the discovery on its own given that it was already discovered.
The first crossing of the Atlantic to reach the Americas might well be worth celebrating, but I bow to others on whether that was Columbus & Crew or not.
Here. A letter from one of Columbus’s lieutenants and childhood friends (bolding mine):
“The admiral” is Columbus. The age isn’t mentioned, so my “ten year old” specification might be inaccurate (the “ten year old” comes from some of his slave trading notes, in which Columbus did highlight the age of the girls most in demand).
There was a thread once polling the moral character of Columbus by 15th century standards. Many arguments, but he did not fare that well. Nor should he have - I argued that even by the appallingly low standards of his time, Columbus did not measure up that well.
By modern standards he is of course total scum. As a convenient symbol of a new historical era he, or rather his first voyage, works quite well. As an individual he was important only to the fortunes and history of Spain and the carry on impact of their colonial empire. If he had not existed the course of history might have been changed - but only likely to the extent that it probably would have been the Portuguese who arrived first on the scene. Even that may not have been such a profound difference, depending on how the Spanish takeover of Portugal c.1580 went in that alternate timeline.
Significant? Sure. Hero? In the United States at least it seems to me pretty hard to justify the label.
ETA: Oh and I DON"T get that day off. My union traded it away decades ago for a floating holiday.
Soldiers raping their foe’s women is a tradition that goes back to the Pleistocene, and wasnt even frowned upon until a century or so ago.
So, all you got is that one of Columbus’s men raped a woman after a battle- hardly unusual for that time period. Due to the fact she torn him apart with her nails, 10 yo is not likely.
Slave trading wasnt considered evil during that period also. In fact if you only captured heathens, it was considered a moral act.
Yes, those acts are reprehensible today, but we cant judge men of the past by the standards of today.
You gonn replace that divot from where you moved those goalposts?
You asked me for a cite as to Columbus giving girls to his men to be rape slaves – I gave you a cite. The only mistake I made was the age of the girl, but in other letters about his slave trading Columbus personally specifies that 9 and 10 year old girls are in high demand.
Why did you ask for evidence that it happened if you’re just going to excuse it any way?
We can judge people today for celebrating a person who does things like that, though.