Althouse: "President Trump has put Columbus on a list of statues he wants included in his proposed National Garden of American Heroes. This week he said 'We’re back, Italians'..."

October 11, 2025

"President Trump has put Columbus on a list of statues he wants included in his proposed National Garden of American Heroes. This week he said 'We’re back, Italians'..."

"... after he signed a proclamation for Columbus Day, a federal holiday he has called for celebrating after some cities and states have either replaced it or supplemented it with celebrations of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. 'Before our very eyes, left-wing radicals toppled his statues, vandalized his monuments, tarnished his character, and sought to exile him from our public spaces,' the proclamation reads...."

From "Beheaded and Sent to Watery Graves, Columbus Statues Get New Life/More than 30 monuments to Christopher Columbus were toppled or taken down in 2020. Now some are being restored, and finding new, usually less-public homes" (NYT).

35 comments:

Jaq said...: Did they take a vote before destroying the statues, or was it a tiny group of activists trying to impose rightthink on people?; 10/11/25, 8:16 AM
Political Junkie said...: I watched all the Sopranos , for the first time, recently. Thought it was solid, but I much preferrerd Mad Men. After watching the Sopranos, I appreciate Columbus Day more.
Related - A beautiful Italian woman is tops!; 10/11/25, 8:18 AM
Caroline said...: I just got back from Spain. Really enjoyed the naval museum in Madrid— all about the rise and fall of the Spanish Armada. History is a fascinating teacher, if you listen. There is a stunning, giant mural of Columbus setting foot on the beach, bearing treasure for the Indians. Circumnavigating the globe, exploring new trade routes, reading about the battle of Lepanto pushing back Ottoman invaders, these are heart racing stories of derring do and often heroic virtue that every American should learn.; 10/11/25, 8:24 AM
cf said...: It's Weird that Indigenous folk would make Columbus' October landing date their own holiday. I suggested a few years ago, it should be on the opposite side of the year, April 12! Indigenous Day! Celebrate and Celebrate in wonderful Spring! And leave October 12 to silence or acknowledgement, whatever.; 10/11/25, 8:26 AM
narciso said...: No native americans asked for this,; 10/11/25, 8:31 AM
Steve said...: I'm with cf. Put Indigenous Peoples Day somewhere else on the calendar.; 10/11/25, 8:31 AM
Dude1394 said...: Indigenous day was always cover for canceling Columbus.; 10/11/25, 8:33 AM
narciso said...: They want to destroy the foundations of america; 10/11/25, 8:34 AM
Jamie said...: In frankest terms, first contact with (relatively) modern Europe was surely the most consequential thing to happen to the indigenous people of this hemisphere since they crossed TO this hemisphere. Some of those consequences were devastating, just as the Black Death was in Europe; some were - or should or could be viewed as - liberating.

I'm reminded of Camille Paglia's oft-quoted statement about how we'd all still be living in grass huts if women had been in charge all along. Thanks to accidents of geography, at least*, there's not a lot of evidence to suggest that the Western hemisphere peoples, especially the northwestern quadrisphere (I'm coining that term), would be much advanced from the 1600s if they hadn't come into contact with Europeans.

* See for instance Guns, Germs, and Steel, which is the opposite of triumphalist.; 10/11/25, 8:37 AM
john mosby said...: Caroline - related to Colombus/Colon as a Spanish and not just Italian hero, I will repeat what I have said here before: Why didn't Latinos ever adopt him and the holiday? I mean, I get that most Latinos are descendants of the indigenous peoples he "oppressed," and a lot are descendants of the slaves he is at least but-for responsible for bringing here, but nearly all of them are Spanish-speakers, lots are descended from Spaniards, and most are at least culturally Spanish in some way. And Colon is but-for responsible for making this hemisphere majority Spanish-speaking. So adopting him and the holiday would be kind of pro-Latino subversive.

As an Italian Chicagoan, I was very disappointed when the Columbus statues (some funded by Outfit money) there got taken down without much of a peep from the paisans. I also was disappointed that the Latinos didn't say anything, as it was kind of a blow against them in the ongoing black v brown war. CC, JSM; 10/11/25, 8:41 AM
Crimso said...: "It's Weird that Indigenous folk would make Columbus' October landing date their own holiday."

Colonization.; 10/11/25, 8:41 AM
Eva Marie said...: This actually happened in our country?; 10/11/25, 8:46 AM
Bob Boyd said...: It's Weird that Indigenous folk would make Columbus' October landing date their own holiday.
It's not about Indigenous people. It's not about history. It's about the future.
It's about destroying the pride and confidence of Americans in their country and culture so they won't defend it and will even attack it.; 10/11/25, 8:50 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Indigenous people didn't pick the date, Marxists did.
They were very successful at destroying national and cultural pride in Britain and now look. They're working on the same project here. Young people are their primary targets, of course. Young people and mouth breathers.; 10/11/25, 8:55 AM
Achilles said...: cf said...

It's Weird that Indigenous folk would make Columbus' October landing date their own holiday.

Indigenous people didn't make that holiday. Evil corporate globalist goons who want to destroy the country installed that holiday.

Rewriting history to destroy cultural heritage is a very consistent way to destroy a country.; 10/11/25, 8:56 AM
tommyesq said...: Some of those consequences were devastating, just as the Black Death was in Europe;

I find it interesting that whites are treated as monsters because they inadvertently brought disease to the Americas, but Asians are not similarly faulted for bringing the plague to Europe (which they did intentionally - Mongols catapulted infected corpses into a Genoese trading port in Crimea to deliberately infect the Genoese, and infected Genoese fleeing the city brought it back to Europe by sea).; 10/11/25, 9:00 AM
Wince said...: Were the seven castaways on Gilligan’s Island “indigenous people”? Discuss.; 10/11/25, 9:04 AM
Jersey Fled said...: Fun fact of the day.

Those of Italian descent, i.e. have some Italian ancestry, account for 4.8% of the U.S. population.

Jews account for 2.4%

Muslims account for 1.34%; 10/11/25, 9:40 AM
buwaya said...: October 12 is a holiday all over Spanish America. In Spain it is the "Fiesta Nacional", like July 4th, or Bastille Day in France. It is also called "Día de la Hispanidad", or Spanish day, celebrating the old empire, and, well, being Spanish. We also have a big military parade, and so do various South American countries.; 10/11/25, 9:54 AM
buwaya said...: I should be able to post the Youtube of the parade on Monday, from the RTVE broadcast.; 10/11/25, 10:00 AM
buwaya said...: The US situation is, I think, derived from 1970s Chicano activists trying to copycat black activism. So it was not about celebrating being Mexican or whatever, it was an attempt to push greivances in the white Americans faces. An ugly thing.; 10/11/25, 10:04 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: It just shows that the Left cares and is active. And the Right really isn't. Trump cares about Columbus, do any of the other DC Republicans? Ever notice how you never see the R Senate leadership attack the Democrats unless its about Budget or some DC insider issue? They're completely useless.; 10/11/25, 10:08 AM
Amexpat said...: Culture war considerations aside, Columbus Day as a Federal holiday was wrong to begin with. It was instituted by FDR and Dems to shore up the Italian vote. I understand that it's important to a lot of Italian-Americans, but there are larger ethnic groups in the US that don't have a Federal holiday and scores of better Italians to view as an ethnic hero.
Other reasons against Columbus Day:
- Columbus wasn't the first European to make it to North America - the Vikings were there about 500 years before and Columbus may have has knowledge of that through the Vatican (Greenland had a Bishop during the Viking era)
- There's nothing particulary heroic about Columbus' life. He was a scoundral by the standards of the time , not the best mariner nor the best at establishing or running a colony.; 10/11/25, 10:09 AM
buwaya said...: Columbus was a bold man, his career as a mariner in the Atlantic was inherently perilous, and its absurd to say he wasnt courageous setting off into the unexplored blue.
His expedition is also a convenient marker for the start of the "European explosion" of expansion into the greater world and its conquest. This and its consequences has been the single theme of world history for the last 500 years.; 10/11/25, 10:20 AM
buwaya said...: The United States is a byproduct of the European explosion Columbus set off. He made you, as he made all of us.; 10/11/25, 10:22 AM
DINKY DAU 45 said...: If history is correct and can be validated ,this is not the type of fella I would celebrate a holiday for. Age old story, strong kill the weak(just like nature) and mankind celebrates their own ideals.
Based on historical accounts, including those from his contemporaries, Christopher Columbus and his men committed brutal acts against the indigenous peoples of the Americas, particularly the Taíno of Hispaniola. His legacy with these people is one of violence, slavery, and genocide.
Evidence of brutality
Slavery and exploitation: Columbus immediately perceived the Taíno as potential servants upon his arrival in 1492. He initiated the mass enslavement of indigenous people, forcing them to mine for gold and labor on plantations under harsh conditions.
System of tribute: On Hispaniola, Columbus instituted a cruel tribute system. Any Taíno aged 14 or older was required to collect a certain amount of gold every three months. Those who failed to meet the quota had their hands cut off and were left to bleed to death.
Murder and torture: Accounts from observers, such as the Spanish priest Bartolomé de las Casas, describe horrific violence. Las Casas wrote that the Spanish showed no consideration for the natives, treating them like "piles of dung" and engaging in mass slaughter. The Spanish tested the sharpness of their swords by slicing off body parts or cutting people in half with one blow.
Sexual violence: Columbus and his men kidnapped and sold indigenous girls into sexual slavery. A letter written by Columbus himself in 1500 confirms that young girls aged 9 and 10 were in high demand and fetched a good price.
Suppression of revolts: When natives resisted, Columbus responded with brutal force. In attempts to deter further rebellion, he ordered the dismembered bodies of natives to be paraded through the streets.
Driving force behind atrocities: Many historians argue that Columbus's immense greed for gold drove his policies of exploitation. As one account states, "his cruel rampage began" after he saw the gold worn by the Taíno.
Sounds more like an evil dude than a guy who we want to have a holiday to honor his "adventures" :(; 10/11/25, 10:52 AM
Political Junkie said...: Dinky - You and Kak need to disappear. Please.; 10/11/25, 11:43 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Columbus was a man of his time. "Indigenous peoples" did similar things to one another before the Europeans came.
Not that I take what you have written here as necessarily established fact. You probably believe in the small pox blankets and the mass graves of "indigenous" children in Canada too.
We don't put up statues because we admire the bad things great men have done, but to aspire to and inspire more of the great things they accomplished. History is non-binary.; 10/11/25, 12:12 PM
Bob Boyd said...: PS - Don't disappear.; 10/11/25, 12:14 PM
Michael McNeil said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/11/25, 1:01 PM
Michael McNeil said...: Other reasons against Columbus Day:
• Columbus wasn't the first European to make it to North America – the Vikings were there about 500 years before and Columbus may have has knowledge of that through the Vatican (Greenland had a Bishop during the Viking era).
• There's nothing particulary heroic about Columbus' life. He was a scoundral by the standards of the time , not the best mariner nor the best at establishing or running a colony.

The Vikings' achievement had largely been forgotten (not quite: Greenland appears on European world maps of the era), but what Columbus fundamentally did was open up the road across the ocean(s)—so thoroughly that it could never be forgotten and allowed to close up again.

Beyond that, you're wrong—Columbus was the best mariner of his age.

Historian Samuel Eliot Morison's intriguing, 2-volume European Discovery of America (1971-74) discusses Columbus at considerable length; the author has also previously written a whole 2-volume history on the topic of Christopher Columbus himself—titled Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942)—not to speak of The Caribbean as Columbus Saw It (1964). A powerful sailor in his own right, Morison followed Columbus' route(s) in his own sailing ship! It must have been a grueling experience. (/snark)

Here though is a small excerpt from Samuel Eliot Morison's The European Discovery of America concerning Columbus and his voyage(s) of discovery: {quoting…}

A glance at a map of the Caribbean may remind you of what he {Columbus} accomplished: discovery of the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola on the First Voyage; discovery of the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the south coast of Cuba on the Second, as well as founding a permanent European colony; discovery of Trinidad and the Spanish Main, on his Third; and on the Fourth Voyage, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia.

No navigator in history, not even Magellan, discovered so much territory hitherto unknown to Europeans. None other so effectively translated his north-south experience under the Portuguese flag to the first east-west voyage, across the Atlantic. None other started so many things from which stem the history of the United States, of Canada, and of a score of American republics.

And do not forget that sailing west to the Orient {the “East”} was his idea, pursued relentlessly for six years before he had the means to try it. As a popular jingle of the 400th anniversary put it:

‘What if wise men as far back as Ptolemy
Judged that the earth like an orange was round,
None of them ever said, “Come along, follow me,
Sail to the West and the East will be found.”’

Columbus had his faults, but they were largely the defects of the qualities that made him great. These were an unbreakable faith in God and his own destiny as the bearer of the Word to lands beyond the seas; an indomitable will and stubborn persistence despite neglect, poverty, and ridicule.

But there was no flaw, no dark side to the most outstanding and essential of all his qualities—seamanship. As a master mariner and navigator, no one in the generation prior to Magellan could touch Columbus. Never was a title more justly bestowed than the one which he most jealously guarded—Almirante del Mar Oceano—Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

{/unQuote}

(Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America, Volume 2: The Southern Voyages: A.D. 1492-1616, Oxford University Press, 1974; [quote] p. 267, [more generally] pp. 3-161); 10/11/25, 1:04 PM
hanuman_prodigious_leaper said...: the Vikings were there about 500 years before and Columbus may have has knowledge of that through the Vatican (Greenland had a Bishop during the Viking era)
.....
why may have?
is this not better substantiated ?
is Vatican not forthcoming?
is it better game for them to be Columbo?; 10/11/25, 1:09 PM
buwaya said...: No its not better substantiated. We depend on what people have written and what has survived. The Vatican would not know of what some person wrote that may have reached Columbus. Welcome to the twilight world of historical sources.; 10/11/25, 1:37 PM
Michael McNeil said...: One person whose writings who know influenced Columbus was Aristotle. Recall the foregoing old jingle which observes that “… wise men as far back as Ptolemy, Judged that the earth like an orange was round.” They're right about that, but it goes much farther back than (famous astronomer and geographer) Claudius Ptolemy [2nd century A.D.].

Because the first empirical, scientific demonstration (as opposed to vaporous philosophical-speculation) that the Earth is (roughly) spherical in shape was composed by perhaps the most famous scholar in history, Aristotle [4th century B.C.]—living half a millennium before Ptolemy, not to speak of a century before Eratosthenes (who's commonly credited with the first demonstration of the earth's sphericity). Read what Aristotle wrote on the empirical question of earth's spherical shape here.

But what we want to specially refer to, however, is this: the philosophical basis—that is: the reason why it makes any sense to even contemplate such a voyage, to wit: sailing west to get east—for Columbus' voyage(s) of discovery, was first laid down in Aristotle's text, as part of his first scientific demonstration of the earth's spherical shape.

As Aristoteles (to use his correct name) writes in his book On the Heavens [Book II, Chapter 14]—empirical observations and reasoning omitted: {quoting…}

{…} All of which goes to show not only that the earth is circular in shape, but also that it is a sphere of no great size: for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of place would not be so quickly apparent. Hence one should not be too sure of the incredibility of the view of those who conceive that there is continuity between the parts about the pillars of Hercules {that is, the Strait of Gibraltar} and the parts about India, and that in this way the ocean is one.

{/unQuote}

Thus was laid the philosophical basis for Columbus' voyage(s) of discovery. But there was no known effort inspired to actually try mounting such an expedition for nearly 2,000 years—until Columbus.; 10/11/25, 2:01 PM
Rocco said...: Jersey Fled said...
“Those of Italian descent, i.e. have some Italian ancestry, account for 4.8% of the U.S. population.”

And a very important 4.8% it is.; 10/11/25, 6:07 PM