How should we remember Columbus?

It's become fashionable to tear down the leading figures of our history. Jefferson and Washington, we are taught, were slave owners. Lincoln didn't care about slavery. Now a student group, "Native Americans at Princeton" has scattered leaflets proclaiming today, Columbus Day, to be "Indigenous People's Day 2003" and bearing the slogan "Fighting Terrorism Since 1492." The students behind this leaflet are in good company. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez recently proclaimed, in Spanish of course, that "we Venezuelans, we Latin Americans, have no reason to honor Columbus."

Let's clear the historical air a bit.

The big question on Columbus Day is whether or not we should honor Columbus.

Yes! (and Si!)

Christopher Columbus was a courageous visionary. In a time when most people thought the world was flat, he staked his reputation and his life on the proposition that the world was round. His determination carried him through storms, mutiny, and, above all, the stark fear of the unknown, and made one world out of two. To put it simply, Columbus was the greatest explorer who ever lived. Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong at least had some idea of what to expect in outer space. Columbus' contemporaries thought he risked falling off the edge of the Earth into the gaping maw of a sea serpent. If our society honors courage, vision, and a spirit of enterprising inquiry, Columbus is a better example than most.

Our civilization and our society wouldn't exist without the discovery (yes! discovery) of the Americas and their colonization by Europeans. Some may insist that the Indians discovered America. But merely being there is no discovery. Discovery entails knowing where you are. The earlier Viking "discovery" of North America, while a nice subject for History Channel specials, doesn't matter very much, because the Vikings didn't realize what they'd found and didn't really care. Columbus discovered America, and all that has arisen since in the western hemisphere is a direct result. Assuming we are glad America exists — and maybe the pamphleteers aren't — we should be glad Columbus took the time to discover it.

Columbus detractors charge that his voyages ushered in an era of genocide, slavery, disease and plunder. And so they did. But the argument against Columbus lacks historical context.

If the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria had all sunk in mid-ocean, someone else would have discovered America. Maybe Vespucci, Magellan, or Drake or Cabot would have gotten lucky. That technologically advanced and economically dynamic Europe would eventually bump into the Americas was a historical inevitability. That epidemics would decimate the native populations was another tragic inevitability. Later colonizers deliberately magnified the devastating effect of European diseases in the new world. These early bioweaponeers acted inexcusably, and we would do wrong to let them off the hook by blaming Columbus.

With regard to the other charges against Columbus, it's important to remember that moral standards progress over the centuries. If Suleiman the Magnificent were living today, we would probably launch an air strike against him. He could appear "magnificent" only in the nastier, earlier world he actually inhabited.

Columbus took slaves in the Americas, and his successors did far worse in pursuit of gold and religious conversions. The Spanish Empire was awful, but so were some of the indigenous civilizations of the Americas — the Aztecs and Incas. On both sides of the Atlantic, these were feudal, theocratic, and bloodily oppressive societies rooted in coerced labor. Burning heretics at the stake was a horrible practice, but so was human sacrifice. Over time the influence of European civilization in the western hemisphere led to the development of law, commerce, Christianity, science and modernity generally. It is hard to imagine the Aztecs drafting the Declaration of Independence. What does it say about our hyper-sensitized culture that we're afraid to bash a civilization that believed in human sacrifice and painting idols with virgin blood?

We should not excuse or praise the misdeeds of Spanish and European explorers. But history happens in a context. Columbus' failings were not exceptional in his day and age, and reproaching him with unique alacrity is unfair. Columbus' exceptional actions — his bold, courageous exploration and willingness to buck the accepted orthodoxies of the time — are what make him an impressive figure. After all, not everyone discovers America.