The Twilight of Columbus

The urgent necessity behind the movement to end Columbus as a public symbol

The beheaded statue of Christopher Columbus on Boston’s waterfront. (Digital illustration based on an AP photo)

Columbus is a fist.

Columbus shatters; he does not create. He has been blunt force since he landed on Hispaniola, and even dead, he is used just like this — cruelly, violently — more than 500 years later.

Too many Italian Americans claim and praise Columbus, and none of us should. Fewer and fewer do, but enough persist such that we provide cover for others who adulate him because of what he stands for. This has been a piece of the bargain for whiteness in America for us. It is untenable.

A digital interpretation of “Columbus in Chains,” Lorenzo Delleani, 1865. (Museo Civico, Turin)

The claims that are made for Columbus connect him to an ostensible American tradition, a spirit of exploration and discovery. The connection to an American tradition is there, but it is more sinister. The truth of Columbus is a naked will to power, a bloodthirstiness so extreme in its fervor that it got him swiftly sent back to Spain after his arrival to be tried for his savagery. Columbus’ reign in Hispaniola ended with him in chains, dragged home to answer for his infamous crimes against the people, word of which had reached the court of Spain and…