Growing up in South Dakota, I never celebrated Columbus Day. That’s because, in 1990, then Governor George Mickelson asked the legislature to declare it a “Year of Reconciliation” with the Native Americans. As part of this declaration, South Dakota officially replaced Columbus Day with Native American Day. Other places in this country have followed suit. Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C. have all decided they will no longer recognize Columbus Day, many of them instead replacing it with an Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

But why is that? Why have so many places decided it would be best if we just did away with Columbus Day altogether? If you ask this question, you’ll be told that Christopher Columbus was a murderous tyrant, who sold children into sex slavery and massacred the Natives in the search for personal wealth. Many of the people reading this article probably believe this. I’m here to tell you that you’ve been lied to. Christopher Columbus is not the monstrous villain he’s been made out to be. On the contrary, Columbus is one of the Americas’ great heroes. Maybe our first great hero. Don’t believe me? Let me dispel the lies that your liberal history teachers tried to feed you and tell you the real story of Christopher Columbus.

The biggest lie that you’ve probably been told is that Columbus committed genocide against the peaceful Natives. This is entirely misleading. Throughout Columbus’ four voyages, he primarily dealt with two native tribes, the Taino and the Caribs. During his first voyage, Columbus befriended the Taino tribe. He traded with them and even called them “the best people in the world.” The Taino tribe warned Columbus of the evils of the Caribs, but Columbus did not look into the issue at the time. When Columbus went to return to Spain he left some of his men with the Taino, because one of the three ships had been damaged. When they later returned, he found that the Tainos had been raided by the Caribs. The men had been killed and eaten and the women had been captured. Columbus went to the Carib lands and found a village where the Taino women were being held. These women were being sexually abused by their captures and the children they bore from this abuse were being eaten. He freed the enslaved Taino women and would engage in fighting with the Caribs if the Caribs attacked. Columbus did not, as many claim, mercilessly kill natives for their land. He fought and killed many in one tribe because they were engaging in unspeakable acts of evil against a friendly tribe and his men. While it's true that many of the European explorers that came later did mistreat the Natives, Columbus was not one of them.

But that's not the only act of evil leftists accuse Columbus of doing. Another prevalent claim against Columbus is that he enslaved many of the Natives, including selling off young girls into sex slavery. This is simply not true. Columbus did bring some natives back with him to Spain, but many of these people were Taino who volunteered to travel with Columbus. This even included a powerful chief, who brought his entire family. However, some might say that not all of the natives who came back with Columbus to Spain came willingly. But again, this is purposefully misleading. Of the natives who were brought in chains, almost all of them were Caribs who had been captured in battle. They were not slaves, they were prisoners. But the most egregious accusation is that Columbus approved of and participated in selling young girls into sex slavery. This is a baldfaced lie! The claim comes from a letter that Columbus wrote, in which he says, “For one woman they give a hundred castellanos, as for a farm; and this sort of trading is very common, and there are already a great number of merchants who go in search of girls; there are at this moment from nine or ten on sale; they fetch a good price, let their age be what it will.” Which sounds bad, until you read the next sentence, which is always conveniently left out. Columbus writes, “I declare solemnly that a great number of men have been to the Indies, who did not deserve baptism in the eyes of God or men, and who are now returning thither.” The previous sentence has been taken out of the context in which it was written, where Columbus is listing the many crimes against humanity some of his more rebellious men were committing. He was not advocating for these crimes, as many have so dubiously claimed.

Unfortunately, the accusations against Columbus are not merely a modern phenomenon. You may have heard that Columbus returned to Spain in chains and was put on trial for the crimes he committed against the Natives. And this is true. But of course, it is missing context. Once they landed in what they thought were the East Indies, the Queen of Spain decided to name Columbus the Governor of the territory. Now, Columbus may have been a great explorer, but he was not a good statesman. And to complicate matters, Columbus was Italian. The Spanish crew resented being dictated to by an Italian. Then to top it all off, Columbus began to punish his crew members if they mistreated the Taino. So when Columbus returned to the Americas on his third voyage, the crew revolted. They accused Columbus of the very crimes they were committing. So he returned to Spain in chains and was put on trial. But when all of the evidence was examined, Columbus was fully exonerated. But he was not given his position as Governor back, because of the bad blood between him and the settlers. Many of Columbus’ modern critics will point to a document written in Columbus’ time that was only recently uncovered. The document contains the same accusations leveled at him today. “It's proof that Columbus was a monster!” they’ll say. But they’re missing one key detail. The document in question was written by Francisco de Bobadilla, Columbus’ political rival and the man who took the governorship from him. Not exactly an unbiased source.

“Okay,” you may be saying, “that's all well and good, but Columbus still only made the journey for his glory and fortune.” And while yes, the main purpose of finding a quicker trade route to Asia was to make money, Columbus wasn’t in it for himself. Columbus was a very religious man, and he believed that Christ’s second coming was to arrive very soon. But he wanted the Holy Land to be in Catholic hands when this happened. So the entire purpose of gaining money on this expedition was to help fund another crusade. And don’t get me started on the Crusades. That's an article for another day. He wanted “all the profits of this my enterprise may be sent in the conquest of Jerusalem.” And, despite the many claims otherwise, he did not steal gold from the Natives. The Natives did not place the same value on gold as the Europeans did, so they offered Columbus and his crew gold and other valuable things as a gift. Even still, Columbus required anyone who took gold from the Natives to give them something valuable in return.

So now that we’ve dispelled the vile lies we have been told about Columbus, you may be thinking to yourself, so what? So he wasn’t a monster, big whoop. That still doesn’t make him a hero in need of his holiday. And I wholeheartedly disagree. Beyond just the fact that he freed the captive Taino women and held back the more savage settlers among his ranks, there’s something more to Columbus. It took him years to convince a monarch that this expedition was worth funding. He believed in it so strongly that he got what he wanted through sheer willpower. And he did it all to bring glory to God. When he arrived in the New World for the first time, he didn’t name the new Island Columbia or Colubusland. He named it San Salvador, which translates to “Holy Savior”. He brought forth the creation of civilization to the other side of the world. And he may not have been the one to build up nations and empires in this new world, but he laid the pathway down for us. We, as Americans, owe a debt of gratitude to Christopher Columbus. He followed the will of God to a new world, risking his life in the process, because God had a plan for this land. That’s why I’m proud to celebrate Columbus Day!