Discovery and Conquest

By Joos van Winghe / Johann Theodor de Bry / Bartolomé de Las Casas - Bibliothèque nationale de France - https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b20000085/f2.item, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1831551

The word "discover" is used in a few different ways in English. I can say I "discovered" a great little restaurant in a nearby neighborhood, or that while cleaning out the garage, I "discovered" a bundle of my grandparents' love letters. In both cases, I have become aware of something previously unknown to ME. I could also use the same word to say a researcher "discovered" a cure for cancer, or a traveler "discovered" a new route through the mountains. In these cases, someone has created or found something previously unknown to everyone.

In the case of Columbus and his alleged discovery of North America, he certainly didn't find something that was unknown to everyone. The people living there knew about it, and a few other Europeans did, too. We can say Columbus discovered the place only in that first sense, of having come across something that was new to him (and, to be fair, new to most Europeans), although it seems he never fully understood where he was. And while he may have been adventurous and brave, he was no hero, as evidenced by his horrible treatment of the indigenous people.

If you're happy to be an American of European ancestry living on this continent, and that makes you want to celebrate this day as a holiday, have fun. But let's not pretend that the simplified child's version of the story that we were taught in school is actual history.