I was just discussing this with a friend the other day. Unfortunately, modern historical trends tend to favor the
vilification of European expansion into the New World, and as the movement's poster child and the true forerunner to all who would follow him, Columbus gets a lot of heat these days for his actions both in the Americas and back in Europe. He's more often than not portrayed as a loot-seeking opportunist, directly or indirectly responsible for almost every ill wrought on the Americas during the colonization periods. He's considered by some to be a racist, a slaver, a charlatan, a scoundrel - the list goes on and on. Sadly, this has led to the decline in his holiday's observance, and more generally to a pessimistic approach to his role in classrooms - he's one of the "bad guys" in many history courses these days. A crying shame I say, and a sad commentary on where modern historical approaches are taking us. Lately it seems that everybody has to have had a dark side.
Now I do recognize that Columbus wasn't exactly a saint either, and that his perception both of himself and of his "conquest" were at times amusing and at times
shocking in their warped and self-inflated magnitude. And he really didn't seem to have any clue as to what he was doing, other than claiming lands from people "who did not at all object" (to use a translation of his own words) from his taking of them. Nonetheless, I think that, knowing what we do about the role inspiration played in his efforts and his remarkable willingness to follow promptings that he did not even understand, I think the man earns more credit than we realize. I can't help but think that, while severely misguided and blinded by the perceptions of his age, he was in fact a good man, and I respect him for what he did.
His personal journals are replete with the recognition of divine providence; he was often adamant about the fact that his quest was in fact one to which God had called him, and that every success he enjoyed was in fact a gift from Heaven. He was looked at as fanatical in his own times, and his obsessed devotion to his personal system of belief was at times too much for others to handle; his last years were spent either in exile or incarcerated. Yet to have clung to his purpose for so long under such duress is a feat hardly equalled by other Europeans of the era, and regardless of the light in which history may view him, he was a man of stupendous action and will.
I love Cristobal Colon (that's the name he took upon himself upon his arrival in Spain, as Ferdinand and Isabela would have called him)!