As a sailor who took a 45 foot sailboat from Florida to many places South including Venezuela with a totally untrained crew, I appreciate the skill, daring and determination of Columbus. Note that my trips were before GPS was delivered to the public and I used celestial navigation to travel.
You should probably consider the fact that Columbus was Italian and the Colombo Crime family was named after its mid-20th-century boss, Joseph Colombo who famously founded the Italian-American Civil Rights League in 1970 to combat what he claimed was ethnic profiling of Italians by the FBI, often using Christopher Columbus as a symbol of Italian pride.
Clearly then, the scourge of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola was the first mafiosi to reach the new world.
Disagree (already!). We've been groomed to believe moral standards have changed from even the last century or preceding. We'll accept all the more readily, the sanitised versions of history as presented. Yet the intentions, methods, nature of power-brokers remains the same - in fact degenerated as there are fewer variations permitted within the inner rings, let alone the core of corruption. We flatter ourselves that today's 'society' is superior to that of our forebears. Depends where you are on the map and at what stage. Slavery hasn't decreased but increased exponentially, obsured. Digging into the atrocities of the past, educates as to the same today. Depends how broad, how deep and how far examined. The sadistic psychopathic insasity is driven by precisely the same motivation by the same 'classes' of the same cult-clubs and ethnicities.
Take christobel, Genoan mulatto jew: the lie that 'Europeans'(white) invaded Hispaniola and the Caribbean, making their ransackiing way through South America from Spain. Spain (formerly Iberia) was invaded by Moors, Muslims and North African Corsairs, Privateers, Adventurers and Pyrates. Occupied for 700 years. When most were finally expelled, to seek Roman Church-Spains fortunes to build its Empire, it's doubtful much of the indigenous Iberians remained in tact.
The question of Columbus’s ancestry—Jewish, Genoan, Iberian, or otherwise—is speculative and ultimately beside the point. My critique isn’t ethnic or civilizational; it’s historical. Columbus wasn’t condemned by modern sensibilities but by his own contemporaries for excess cruelty and misrule. That’s the distinction worth preserving.
I have to vigorously disagree with you here—and I'm fully with SG-M on this one.
You yourself point out in your article that Columbus was condemned not just by modern eyes, but by his own contemporaries for "excess cruelty and misrule"—extreme punishments like mutilations, public executions, and terror tactics that even fellow Spanish colonists found shocking and excessive. He created such chaos and brutality that he was arrested and shipped back to Spain in chains. That hardly sounds like the behavior of a genuine Christian. The teachings of Christ emphasize kindness, mercy, love for one's neighbor, and turning the other cheek—none of which aligns with terrorizing, mutilating, and enslaving indigenous people on a scale so horrific it appalled people in his own era.
And no, his ancestry is absolutely not "beside the point"—that's where you're wrong. This is very important. A number of respected historians, most notably Simon Wiesenthal and Cecil Roth, have presented strong circumstantial evidence that Columbus may have been a converso—a Jew converted to Christianity (voluntarily or under pressure). The timing of his departure in August 1492, just as the Alhambra Decree expelled Jews from Spain; his key financial backers like Luis de Santángel being conversos; his unusual phrasing in letters that echoes Hebraic or Ladino influences; and his vagueness and contradictions about his own origins (common among conversos fearing the Inquisition)—all this suggests he might have been Jewish by birth or heritage.
White Christians should not be wrongly blamed for atrocities committed by someone who may not have been a Christian at all, or whose actions blatantly contradicted Christian teachings. This is reminiscent of the absurd claims that figures like Anthony Weiner, a self-described "hawkish Zionist," Jeffrey Epstein , Harvey Weinstein or Adam Schiff were representative "Christians"—when their backgrounds and behaviors tell a very different story. Dismissing ancestry lets selective narratives pin the blame on "white Christians" or "Europeans" broadly, ignoring the nuances SG-M rightly highlights about power structures, ethnicities, and historical invasions.
SG-M is spot on: digging deeper reveals the same patterns of psychopathic cruelty driven by the same motives, and we can't let sanitized history obscure that. Ancestry matters because truth matters.
I appreciate the fact that this response actually engages the substance of my argument rather than caricaturing it, so let me answer just as directly—and narrowly.
First, on Christianity: I agree entirely that Columbus’s conduct was profoundly un-Christian. That’s precisely why he was criticized by Christians of his own era. But hypocrisy or apostasy doesn’t require an alternate ancestry to explain it. History is full of people who claimed a creed and violated it spectacularly. Pointing out that Columbus acted contrary to Christian teaching strengthens the case that he was condemned by contemporaries—it doesn’t require redefining who “counts” as Christian to preserve anyone else’s moral ledger.
Second, on ancestry: the converso hypothesis exists, yes—but it remains speculative. Even Wiesenthal and Roth framed it as circumstantial, not settled fact. More importantly, ancestry doesn’t do the explanatory work being asked of it here. Columbus’s brutality was documented, protested, and punished because of what he did, not because of who he was descended from. His removal in chains wasn’t an ethnic reckoning; it was an administrative one.
Where I push back is on the move from “Columbus violated Christian ethics” to “therefore white Christians should not be blamed.” My argument isn’t about collective blame at all. It’s about misusing Columbus as a symbol in the present. I’m explicitly rejecting broad civilizational guilt and broad civilizational exoneration. Neither is history; both are ideology.
Finally, the danger in making ancestry “the key” is that it quietly shifts the discussion away from behavior, governance, and contemporaneous judgment—and toward identity sorting. That’s exactly the kind of flattening presentism produces, just running in reverse. You end up defending abstractions (“white Christians,” “Europeans,” “cult-clubs”) instead of analyzing actions.
My position remains simple:
Presentism is a bad tool.
Columbus is a poor test case against it.
His record was condemned in his own time for excess cruelty and misrule.
That conclusion doesn’t require modern morality—or genealogical tribunals.
Truth matters. So does proportion. And history is strongest when it doesn’t need bloodlines to explain why a ruler failed.
No doubt Columbus was a bad individual, but he did manage a great deal putting together his ships to find the new world, he should get credit for that. Imagine, crossing the Atlantic in primitive wooden ships with no modern communication or navigation. He had to be brave.
Fair point—and I don’t deny the seamanship or the nerve it took. Crossing the Atlantic in the 15th century wasn’t a weekend cruise; it required ambition, persistence, and a tolerance for real risk. Credit where it’s due.
But here’s where I part ways a bit: bravery and competence in one domain don’t automatically earn a lifetime achievement award. Columbus didn’t just “discover” land—he governed people. And that’s where the case collapses, even by the standards of his own era. His cruelty and mismanagement were so excessive that his patrons eventually hauled him back to Spain in chains. That wasn’t modern moralizing; that was contemporaneous judgment.
So yes, acknowledge the navigational feat. Just don’t let it become a moral hall pass. History can recognize daring without turning the man into a mascot—or pretending his worst traits were a footnote.
Sounds similar to a current person of note, that is Rob Reiner. A terrible man, committed treason along with Brennan and Clapper, (Obama too) to overthrow a duly elected President, yet was also a talented man who made contributions. What a conundrum.
Thank you for fighting the good fight against presentism.
I no idea Christopher Columbus was a democrat good work, exposing it
I heard he voted for Biden in 2020—by mail, of course. History is wild like that.
As a sailor who took a 45 foot sailboat from Florida to many places South including Venezuela with a totally untrained crew, I appreciate the skill, daring and determination of Columbus. Note that my trips were before GPS was delivered to the public and I used celestial navigation to travel.
You should probably consider the fact that Columbus was Italian and the Colombo Crime family was named after its mid-20th-century boss, Joseph Colombo who famously founded the Italian-American Civil Rights League in 1970 to combat what he claimed was ethnic profiling of Italians by the FBI, often using Christopher Columbus as a symbol of Italian pride.
Clearly then, the scourge of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola was the first mafiosi to reach the new world.
Ha Ha
Disagree (already!). We've been groomed to believe moral standards have changed from even the last century or preceding. We'll accept all the more readily, the sanitised versions of history as presented. Yet the intentions, methods, nature of power-brokers remains the same - in fact degenerated as there are fewer variations permitted within the inner rings, let alone the core of corruption. We flatter ourselves that today's 'society' is superior to that of our forebears. Depends where you are on the map and at what stage. Slavery hasn't decreased but increased exponentially, obsured. Digging into the atrocities of the past, educates as to the same today. Depends how broad, how deep and how far examined. The sadistic psychopathic insasity is driven by precisely the same motivation by the same 'classes' of the same cult-clubs and ethnicities.
Take christobel, Genoan mulatto jew: the lie that 'Europeans'(white) invaded Hispaniola and the Caribbean, making their ransackiing way through South America from Spain. Spain (formerly Iberia) was invaded by Moors, Muslims and North African Corsairs, Privateers, Adventurers and Pyrates. Occupied for 700 years. When most were finally expelled, to seek Roman Church-Spains fortunes to build its Empire, it's doubtful much of the indigenous Iberians remained in tact.
The question of Columbus’s ancestry—Jewish, Genoan, Iberian, or otherwise—is speculative and ultimately beside the point. My critique isn’t ethnic or civilizational; it’s historical. Columbus wasn’t condemned by modern sensibilities but by his own contemporaries for excess cruelty and misrule. That’s the distinction worth preserving.
Turfseer—
I have to vigorously disagree with you here—and I'm fully with SG-M on this one.
You yourself point out in your article that Columbus was condemned not just by modern eyes, but by his own contemporaries for "excess cruelty and misrule"—extreme punishments like mutilations, public executions, and terror tactics that even fellow Spanish colonists found shocking and excessive. He created such chaos and brutality that he was arrested and shipped back to Spain in chains. That hardly sounds like the behavior of a genuine Christian. The teachings of Christ emphasize kindness, mercy, love for one's neighbor, and turning the other cheek—none of which aligns with terrorizing, mutilating, and enslaving indigenous people on a scale so horrific it appalled people in his own era.
And no, his ancestry is absolutely not "beside the point"—that's where you're wrong. This is very important. A number of respected historians, most notably Simon Wiesenthal and Cecil Roth, have presented strong circumstantial evidence that Columbus may have been a converso—a Jew converted to Christianity (voluntarily or under pressure). The timing of his departure in August 1492, just as the Alhambra Decree expelled Jews from Spain; his key financial backers like Luis de Santángel being conversos; his unusual phrasing in letters that echoes Hebraic or Ladino influences; and his vagueness and contradictions about his own origins (common among conversos fearing the Inquisition)—all this suggests he might have been Jewish by birth or heritage.
White Christians should not be wrongly blamed for atrocities committed by someone who may not have been a Christian at all, or whose actions blatantly contradicted Christian teachings. This is reminiscent of the absurd claims that figures like Anthony Weiner, a self-described "hawkish Zionist," Jeffrey Epstein , Harvey Weinstein or Adam Schiff were representative "Christians"—when their backgrounds and behaviors tell a very different story. Dismissing ancestry lets selective narratives pin the blame on "white Christians" or "Europeans" broadly, ignoring the nuances SG-M rightly highlights about power structures, ethnicities, and historical invasions.
SG-M is spot on: digging deeper reveals the same patterns of psychopathic cruelty driven by the same motives, and we can't let sanitized history obscure that. Ancestry matters because truth matters.
I appreciate the fact that this response actually engages the substance of my argument rather than caricaturing it, so let me answer just as directly—and narrowly.
First, on Christianity: I agree entirely that Columbus’s conduct was profoundly un-Christian. That’s precisely why he was criticized by Christians of his own era. But hypocrisy or apostasy doesn’t require an alternate ancestry to explain it. History is full of people who claimed a creed and violated it spectacularly. Pointing out that Columbus acted contrary to Christian teaching strengthens the case that he was condemned by contemporaries—it doesn’t require redefining who “counts” as Christian to preserve anyone else’s moral ledger.
Second, on ancestry: the converso hypothesis exists, yes—but it remains speculative. Even Wiesenthal and Roth framed it as circumstantial, not settled fact. More importantly, ancestry doesn’t do the explanatory work being asked of it here. Columbus’s brutality was documented, protested, and punished because of what he did, not because of who he was descended from. His removal in chains wasn’t an ethnic reckoning; it was an administrative one.
Where I push back is on the move from “Columbus violated Christian ethics” to “therefore white Christians should not be blamed.” My argument isn’t about collective blame at all. It’s about misusing Columbus as a symbol in the present. I’m explicitly rejecting broad civilizational guilt and broad civilizational exoneration. Neither is history; both are ideology.
Finally, the danger in making ancestry “the key” is that it quietly shifts the discussion away from behavior, governance, and contemporaneous judgment—and toward identity sorting. That’s exactly the kind of flattening presentism produces, just running in reverse. You end up defending abstractions (“white Christians,” “Europeans,” “cult-clubs”) instead of analyzing actions.
My position remains simple:
Presentism is a bad tool.
Columbus is a poor test case against it.
His record was condemned in his own time for excess cruelty and misrule.
That conclusion doesn’t require modern morality—or genealogical tribunals.
Truth matters. So does proportion. And history is strongest when it doesn’t need bloodlines to explain why a ruler failed.
No doubt Columbus was a bad individual, but he did manage a great deal putting together his ships to find the new world, he should get credit for that. Imagine, crossing the Atlantic in primitive wooden ships with no modern communication or navigation. He had to be brave.
He might have been desperate. He departed Spain in August 1492, just as the Alhambra Decree expelled Jews from Spain.
Fair point—and I don’t deny the seamanship or the nerve it took. Crossing the Atlantic in the 15th century wasn’t a weekend cruise; it required ambition, persistence, and a tolerance for real risk. Credit where it’s due.
But here’s where I part ways a bit: bravery and competence in one domain don’t automatically earn a lifetime achievement award. Columbus didn’t just “discover” land—he governed people. And that’s where the case collapses, even by the standards of his own era. His cruelty and mismanagement were so excessive that his patrons eventually hauled him back to Spain in chains. That wasn’t modern moralizing; that was contemporaneous judgment.
So yes, acknowledge the navigational feat. Just don’t let it become a moral hall pass. History can recognize daring without turning the man into a mascot—or pretending his worst traits were a footnote.
Sounds similar to a current person of note, that is Rob Reiner. A terrible man, committed treason along with Brennan and Clapper, (Obama too) to overthrow a duly elected President, yet was also a talented man who made contributions. What a conundrum.
Another contrasting example would be Benedict Arnold who was a Revolutionary War hero before he was a traitor.