Happy Ignorant People's Day!

Columbus was not this great hero that he has made out to be in American history, but he also was not this vicious vile genocidal maniac that the far left wants to make him out to be. Both narratives are wrong. Columbus sailed west to get to India only because the trade routes from Europe to India had been completely shut down by the Muslims, who had conquered all of that land in the proceeding 500 years. At that point, if somebody from Europe wanted to bring trade goods to India, there was an extremely good chance that all of their goods would have been stolen, and all of the people who were bringing the goods would either have been slaughtered or enslaved by the Muslims. That was the reason why Columbus decided to find an alternate trade route to India. That piece of information is always left out when they say Columbus was looking for a new trade route to India. Columbus wasn’t being clever; Columbus was being practical. We can’t bring our goods east to India because the Muslims are slaughtering everybody, because that’s what Muslims do. So, he had to find a way to bring the trade goods from Europe to India and bypass the Muslims.

Columbus didn’t know there was another continent between Europe and India when he sailed west. He didn’t have Google Earth at the time. So, when he stumbled upon the Americas, he assumed that he was in India. That’s why he referred to them as Indians. He was mistaken. Does that make him evil? No. But here is where the modern narrative changes. Columbus is seen as this evil vicious person who committed a genocide against the peace-loving and nature-loving Native American tribes, who were all living in North America and South America, in wonderful unison, joining hands and singing Kumbaya. That is just as much of a lie as Columbus being this great hero.  The fact of the matter is, North and South America prior to the Europeans landing there in 1492, was a bloodbath. It was thousands of years of warfare. Tribes slaughtering other tribes to control the land.

Most of the Native American tribes were extremely warring people. Not only that, many of the tribes were cannibals – they would eat the people that they slaughtered. Many of the other tribes committed human sacrifice and child sacrifice. The Native Americans were not the people that are presented in the Disney movie Pocahantas. So, Columbus was not this wonderful hero that he’s made out to be, and the Native Americans, were not these peace-loving and nature-loving tribes that many people pretend they were. They were all human beings living in the brutal world of the 15^th century, trying to survive in a violent world.

The only reason why the Europeans were able to conquer this land was because the Europeans were more technically advanced than the Native Americans. That’s the only reason. If the shoe was on the other foot, if the Europeans landed in the Americas, and the Native Americans were more technically advanced than the Europeans, all the Europeans would have been slaughtered. That was the way of the world 600 years ago. That is what happened.

Most of us living in the United States of America who have never been in the military, who have never even been in a fist fight in their life, cannot comprehend that world that existed 600 years ago or 1000 years ago. We can’t understand it. But yet we believe that we can stand here in the 21st-century, and look back at the people who lived in the 15th century and pass judgment on them. That’s very easy to do. I’m not trying to rationalize or justify anybody’s actions back then whether they were Europeans or Native Americans. I am neither in the position to condemn what they did or justify what they did. I was not there. I did not understand the world that they lived. If you drive a car, if you have a computer, if you have an iPhone, if you have a video security system which protects your home 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you have absolutely no clue what life was like in 1492. None whatsoever. And because you have no clue about that about that life, your opinion about people back then means absolutely nothing. There’s absolutely no insight that you can bring to that situation.

What happened 500 years ago is what happened 500 years ago. Is the world a better place because there’s the United States of America or is it a worst place because of the United States of America? That’s for each individual person to decide for themselves. But we throw out terms like “genocide” so casually. We accuse people of genocide without a thought. And most people do that in the same way that some people throw around terms like the N-word or white privilege. It’s an attempt to completely delegitimize somebody.

We are allowed to make judgments on what people do or what people have done, even what people have done 500 years ago. But unless we know all the facts and all the evidence or at least most of them, unless we have a more granular understanding of exactly what happened, your opinion means nothing. So just randomly throwing out that Columbus committed genocide, only reveals your ignorance.

The fact of the matter is that Columbus was a very smart man. He believed the world was round when most people believed it was flat. He was a very courageous man. He sailed west when everyone, even his crew, believed he would fall off the end of the Earth. Was he the first to “discover” America? No. But you would be hard pressed to argue that his voyage is 1492 was not a watershed moment in human history. If not for Columbus, the modern world would look completely different. Was he a hero? Probable not. Was he a genocidal maniac? Most likely not. But he was a man who made an enormous contribution to human history – some of it was really good and some really bad. But he never foresaw nor pursued the good or the bad that followed from his voyage. The people who want to turn Columbus into this vile evil person are just as small-minded as though who want to elevate him to hero status.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.