Few today know much about the real Christopher Columbus, an exemplary figure worthy of celebrating for many reasons. He was born in 1451 in the port city of Genoa, now part of Italy, named Cristofor Colombo. It has been said he chose to call himself Christopher Columbus because he liked what this name meant. In Latin, Columbus means dove, while Christopher means Christ-bearer.
Some modern-day revisionist historians have taken cheap shots at Columbus, taking a chapter out of Lenin in charging him with being an imperialist. Others blame Columbus for unfair treatment of indigenous people without taking into consideration the mix of his Spanish machismo crew encountering ruthless tribes that included cannibals and the brutal Aztecs. These contributed to the force needed to survive.
In fact, Columbus never set foot on or even saw any territory that later became part of the continental United States. Columbus’s four expeditions to the New World between 1492 and 1504 were focused exclusively on Caribbean islands and territories that are now Latin America—Central America and South America. In discovering the New World, he opened the door to exploration and colonization of those new territories by Europeans who followed. This is his prime legacy.
Columbus left voluminous writings that reveal what motivated him. He was the consummate self-made man, at an early age going to sea crewing on various ships. As an inspired Christian, Columbus was deeply affected by the militant face of Islam at the eastern end of the Mediterranean that blockaded Europe’s important
