In a staff editorial on Oct. 15, you write that we “should avoid celebrating the life of Christopher Columbus.” Your arguments are that Columbus killed and enslaved Native Americans and that there were already large numbers of Native Americans on this land. While both of these statements are true, this does not mean that we should stop celebrating Columbus day. Although there were Native Americans on this land prior to Columbus, I have a hard time believing that you can seriously claim that Columbus did not play an important role in our nation’s (and our world’s) history. He kicked off the Age of Exploration and even though he was a bit confused about his actual location, he showed the rest of Europe that it was possible to get east by sailing west. Yes, I’m sure Europeans would have come to America even without Columbus, but there is something to being first, is there not? So if you accept that Columbus is an important historical figure, your argument against recognizing his importance is that his behavior toward the Native Americans was bad enough that we should disregard his accomplishments (the Bart Giamatti-Pete Rose rationale). Certainly Columbus had faults but who in history did not? Many of our nation’s founders owned slaves but I do not believe (nor, I suspect, does the Free Press Editorial Board) that Thomas Jefferson’s contributions to the development of this country should be ignored. While I agree that our nation must come to terms with the history of our nation, including the treatment of Native Americans, I absolutely do not agree that Columbus made no real contribution and deserves to be disregarded.

Andrew Wamsley CAS ’01