Columbus Day is for Celebrating the Greatest Discovery that Re-United the Two Hemispheres; Thanksgiving is for Celebrating Indigenous People

The federal and state holiday of Columbus Day is for celebrating the greatest discovery of all time, when the two Hemispheres of the world were re-united after thousands of years of separation, because of the great observational and navigational skills of Christopher Columbus in October 12, 1492. It is not the time to honor the culture and accomplishments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, for which Thanksgiving is a more appropriate time The Indigenous Peoples are credited for walking across a land bridge from Asia to North America that temporarily formed during the Ice Age when sea levels were much lower. Columbus and his crew had to sail thousands of miles in uncharted waters across the ocean in small wooden ships, relying only on the clock, the compass and the skill of dead reckoning as navigational aids. And he had to be able to find his way back to his home port and back again for the discovery to have meant anything more than previous legendary discoveries by Europeans of the Americas. The point of celebrating Columbus Day is not to celebrate those who were already in the New World, but America as established by the European explorers, colonists and missionaries who made it into the land of opportunity, prosperity, equality, freedom and representative government that it has become. Furthermore, because Columbus was Italian and Catholic and was working for the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, for whom evangelization was a priority in funding the Genoese sailor’s exploration mission, the purpose of honoring Columbus is to acknowledge the contributions of immigrants beyond those of the Northern European and Protestant plurality. When Columbus Day was first celebrated as a federal holiday, it was in direct opposition to nativists who were bigoted against Southern and Eastern Europeans and Jews who were immigrating in large numbers at the time. But now, despite a resurgence of nativism on the Far Rright, it is the Far Left that opposes honoring Columbus because of their anti-Western Civilization and anti-Christian hatred, in addition to ignorance about the meaning of the word discovery, which means to “uncover,” which does not require one to be the first to be credited with a discovery, but allows for independent discoveries. Leftists therefore deny the proper credit for Columbus’ independent discovery of the Western Hemisphere, which represented a discovery from the European perspective, and even his first discoveries of a western and oceanic route to the Americas, among other major scientific discoveries, because leftists falsely think it minimizes the Indigenous People and their culture and contributions to America. A more appropriate time to honor Indigenous Peoples is on Thanksgiving, when Americans give thanks to God for the blessings of liberty and their bounty, in the tradition of the first English colonists who gave thanks to God and for their friendship with the Native Americans who taught them how to farm native crops in the New World. By giving each their own holiday, instead of only to one group, then one does not compete with or diminish the other and the contributions to America of everyone are appreciated.