In 1492 Columbus did what?

Everyone and their mother knows the poem, "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue." But why do we know this? Because he was a great man and adventurer? Because  he discovered the Americas? Because he proved the Earth was round? False, false, and very false.

First of all, Christopher Columbus was a terrible person. He enslaved and killed countless natives who greeted him peacefully and even with gifts. Columbus only cared about the bottom line i.e. gold. He was commissioned by the monarchs of Spain to find a new route to India, his purpose was to make money for Spain. When he found no silk and spices (well there were some spices) but a lot of gold, I figure he thought something along the lines of, 'well that works,' and decided to take the gold. At first he traded, glass beads, and other European goods. However he soon realized that he could keep his stuff and get the gold by enslaving and killing the natives. He wasn't even an amazing adventurer, the "new world" had already been discovered, but not in the main stream.

Christopher Columbus discovered islands, and never made it to mainland America. Not to mention, that till his death, he believed that he had made it to India. He didn't discover anything, he just blundered his way to a new place. Then there are the Vikings, Erik the Red and his son Leif Erikson. Erik the Red's father was banished from Scandinavia for manslaughter, so the family moved to Iceland. Later Erik the Red would be exiled from Iceland for three years because of 'some killings (it must run in the family).' Where he would travel to Greenland and would set up a colony. Later his son Leif Erikson would go adventuring and would discover (for real) the Americas, more specifically Canada. This discovery was about 500 years prior to Columbus'. Even prior to that there were Chinese adventurers that found America.

After Columbus, but with greater intuitive skills, came Amerigo Vespucci, the man who America is named for. Amerigo was the first one to realize that the Americas were not part of Asia or India. Vespucci became the Chief Navigator of Spain and would set up a school for navigation. While Columbus brought the knowledge of a route to Europe, Vespucci truly discovered America.


Finally, by the year 1492 many people had stopped believing that the world was flat. If that was still the mainstream belief, he would not have been able to convince Spain, a country with a fairly weak economy and one almost constantly in war, to finance an expedition with three ocean-ready ships. If that was the case, Spain would not send three ships to fall off the edge of the world. By the time of Columbus that belief was in decline, he was not an outsider in that respect. If he hadn't gone on his expedition, someone else likely would have within the following decade or so.

Columbus was a genocidal, enslaving, gold-hungry, cruel man. Yet in early schooling we call him a hero, or a trailblazer, or a great adventurer. We give a day off of school in honor of him, and therefore his actions, including genocide and slavery. He made no contribution to the world that wouldn't have been made by someone else in the next few years. Why should he get a day, when we honor Lincoln and Washington together, when Pulaski doesn't get a day, when Vespucci doesn't get a day. Plain and simple, he doesn't deserve it. We shouldn't honor this man, yet it is easier to do that than not to.