On Columbus Day, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump should honor America and uphold the ideals of Western civilization by celebrating the epochal voyage of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

Ours is a proud multicultural society. But scuttling a storied national holiday and replacing it with a performative homage to Native Americans dishonors this great republic. Moreover, it hardly advances the cause of the indigenous peoples whose ancestors were ethnically cleansed at the hands of Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese and English colonial overlords.
According to Robert H. Fuson, who penned an English-language translation of “The Log of Christopher Columbus“: “Those who see Columbus as the founder of slavery in the New World are grossly in error.”

Fuson explained that such a mistaken belief grew out of a misinterpretation of an earlier observation by the Admiral of the Ocean Sea regarding the docility of the Tainos. Indeed, Fuson lauded Columbus: “His affection for the young chief in Haiti, and vice versa, is one of the most touching stories of love, trust, and understanding between men of different races and cultures to come out of this period in history.”

But Kamala Harris’ running mate — the self-described “knucklehead” Tim Walz — allowed rioters to run amok and topple a statue of Christopher Columbus in Minneapolis during the George Floyd protests. The Minnesota governor even called the 93-year-old statue a “genocidal monument.” Perhaps former schoolteacher Walz is in need of a remedial history lesson. The scions of Italy have endured many hardships in the land named for Amerigo Vespucci.

In 1879, while striking for better wages, five Italian-immigrant charcoal burners in Eureka, Nev., were savagely gunned down by a sheriff’s posse in the infamous Fish Creek Massacre. In 1891 — one year prior to the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage — 11 Italians in New Orleans were slaughtered in the largest mass lynching in U.S. history. In 1941, FDR issued Presidential Executive Order 9066 that branded 600,000 Americans of Italian descent as “enemy aliens.”

Today, vile anti-Italian imagery remains a staple of Hollywood and the mainstream media. And both the intelligentsia and the hoi polloi ritually stereotype a people whose ancestors hailed from the land John Milton called “the seat of civilization.” Tony Soprano is a loathsome fictional capo. Corey Comperatore was a bona fide superhero who died while shielding his wife and daughter from an assassin’s bullets at the Trump rally in Butler, Pa. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro exalted Comperatore: “Corey died a hero.” Shapiro also noted “Corey was the very best of us.”

And in similarly lauding Comperatore’s bravery and heroism, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni cited the former fire chief’s Italian origins in Calabria — the birthplace of Anton Calabres, a mariner who accompanied Columbus to the New World.
Though he served the Spanish Crown, Genoa’s favorite son never shed his Italian roots. While writing from Spain, Cristoforo Colombo declared that “Though my body may be here, my heart is always there.” The Great Navigator’s voyages of discovery joined two worlds. It’s called the Columbian Exchange, which sparked a globalization wherein two branches of humanity melded for the first time in 10,000 years.

A Spanish TV program claiming that Columbus was a Sephardic Jew is erroneous. According to geneticist Antonio Alonso: “My conclusion is that the documentary never shows Columbus’ DNA and, as scientists, we don’t know what analysis was undertaken.” Cristoforo Colombo’s epic feat sparked the bold treks of his fellow Italian navigators: Giovanni da Verrazzano, Giovanni Caboto and Amerigo Vespucci.

This year marks the 500th anniversary of da Verrazzano’s journey to North America. The Italian explorer was the first European to sight New York and Narragansett bays. Columbus’ journey across the wide Atlantic ushered in the foundational gifts of the Italians: capitalism, modern science, accounting, the rule of law, the arts, and humanism. Vice President Harris, a staunch advocate of women’s rights, would be wise to read The Emancipation of Women in Ancient Rome by Roger Vigneron and Jean-Francois Gerkens — a book detailing how the Italians of antiquity forged a polity where “the rule of juridical equality was the duty to be pursued.” According to these historians, the Romans believed men and women to be inherently equal.

America’s Founders forged a republic of laws based on the ancient Roman model. Absent Christopher Columbus, our more perfect union — with its tripartite government, Constitution and Bill of Rights — might never have come into existence. All the more reason for today’s presidential candidates to cherish Columbus Day. -RAI

[ This op-ed was published in the NY Daily News on October 14, 2024]