On April 27, U.S. President Donald Trump posted the following:
“I'm bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes. The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much. They tore down his Statues, and put up nothing but "WOKE,” or even worse, nothing at all! Well, you'll be happy to know, Christopher is going to make a major comeback. I am hereby reinstating Columbus Day under the same rules, dates, and locations, as it has had for all of the many decades before!”
Trump is referencing the fact that Columbus Day – or as it is increasingly called, Indigenous Peoples’ Day – has for years been condemned as a day when Americans celebrate the "genocide" committed by a deranged Italian man against the poor, peaceful native peoples.
Trump’s remark that “the Democrats did everything they could to destroy Christopher Columbus” particularly echoes statements by former Vice President Kamala Harris. Not only did she clearly express her desire to formally abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, but in 2021 she condemned America’s “shameful past” in the context of Columbus, saying:
“Since 1934, every October, the United States has recognised the voyage of European explorers who first landed on the shores of the Americas… These explorers ushered in a wave of devastation for Indigenous Nations — through violence, the theft of land, and the spread of disease. We must not shy away from this shameful past. We must shed light on it and do everything in our power to address the impact of the past on Native communities today.”
It is commendable that Trump is showing interest in reviving Columbus Day. But it would be even better if we could use this occasion to remember the real reason Columbus sailed west in the first place.
For while the “fake history” we were taught in school claims he was seeking "spices", the truth is that his goal was to bypass and fight the Muslims.
Ancient Atrocities and Ongoing Crimes
When Columbus was born, the Christian kingdoms of Europe had already been defending themselves against Islamic jihad for over 800 years – and the battles were at their peak.
In 1453, when Columbus was just two years old, the Turks finally seized Constantinople – an event filled with horrors that shook the Christian world to its core.
In the years that followed, Muslims continued to push deeper into the Balkans, spreading death and destruction, and millions of Slavs were enslaved.
(Hence the linguistic link between the words Slavs and slaves in English.)
In 1480, when Columbus was 29, the Turks invaded Italy, his homeland. In the city of Otranto, they ritually beheaded 800 Italians and sawed the local bishop in half, because they refused to renounce Christianity and embrace Islam.
In this context, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain – both known for their crusading zeal, especially the Queen who completed the long Spanish Reconquista by liberating Granada from Islamic rule in 1492 – sponsored Columbus’ voyage.
A Special Mission
The monarchs funded his ambitious westward journey with the goal of launching what historian Louis Bertrand described as a
“final and decisive crusade against Islam through India”
(which inadvertently led to the discovery of the New World).
Many Europeans believed that if they could reach the peoples beyond the eastern boundaries of the Islamic world – who, if not Christian, at least had not yet been "infected by the Muhammadan plague", in the words of Pope Nicholas V (d. 1455) – they could join forces with them to crush Islam from both sides.
This idea was rooted in an old legend about Prester John, a mythical Christian king believed to rule in the East, whom many hoped would one day march west to avenge Christianity by destroying Islam.
This agenda appears clearly in Columbus’ own letters. In one of them, he refers to Ferdinand and Isabella as
“the enemies of the wretched sect of Muhammad”,
who had
“resolved to send me to the regions of India to discover how those peoples might be recruited to assist in the war effort.”
In another letter to the monarchs after reaching the New World, Columbus offers to raise an army
“to wage war and recapture Jerusalem”.
(His focus on liberating Jerusalem is even reflected in the title of a 2011 book: Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem.)
Spain and Columbus were not the first to adopt this approach. When Muslims were expelled from Portugal in 1249, Portuguese armies began pushing into Muslim Africa.
Historian George Grant writes:
“The overriding motivation that fired the imagination and energies of Prince Henry the Navigator (b. 1394) was an explicit desire to bear the Cross — to carry the crusading sword into Africa and open a new chapter in Christianity’s holy war against Islam.”
He launched all those expeditions because he was “searching for Christian princes in those regions”
who could
“assist him in fighting the enemies of the faith,” as a contemporary of his described it.
Islamophobia?
So does this mean that Columbus, and by extension Ferdinand and Isabella – and even the whole Christian world – were "Islamophobic"? As some modern critics claim when they highlight the real motive behind Columbus’ voyages?
For instance, historian Alan Mikhail wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed:
“The primary driving force behind Columbus’ Atlantic crossings was fear and hatred of Islam…
This shaped how white Europeans treated the 'New World' and its native peoples for centuries, and how Americans today view the world…
Columbus was born in a Europe steeped in anti-Islam sentiment in 1451…”
Although much of that is true, Mikhail fails to explain why there was such “fear and hatred of Islam” in the first place – or why Europe had an “anti-Islam mindset” to begin with.
He merely assumes that “white Europeans” were fanatics and ignorant (or “racists”, in today’s terms).
But here's the irony: Yes, Columbus and the Europeans were ‘Islamophobic’ – but not in the modern sense of the word. While the Greek word phobos means “fear,” the way it’s used today implies an irrational fear.
However, when we consider that Islam, for a thousand years before Columbus, had been violently attacking Christianity, and had seized three-quarters of its original territory, including Spain itself;
That Ottoman Islam, during Columbus’ lifetime, was devastating the Balkans and Mediterranean, slaughtering and enslaving any European who dared cross its path;
That even centuries after Columbus, Islam still terrified the West – as when 200,000 Ottoman jihadists marched on Vienna in 1683, or when America had to fight its first-ever war against Muslims;
Then the claim that the West’s fear of Islam was “irrational” becomes, in itself, utterly illogical.
In short, this year let us not only return to celebrating Columbus Day — but let us also remember, and learn from, the events that originally gave rise to it.
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