Today we have a two-fer, celebrating and remembering 2 great historical figures, who helped shape the United States of America. First, we celebrate Christopher Columbus, the great explorer and Admiral of the Seas, who brought Europeans to the New World. Second, we remember Robert E. Lee on the anniversary of his death in 1870. Robert E. Lee, the 2nd greatest Virginian (right behind George Washington), did more to reconcile the wounds of The Late Unpleasantness than any other American.
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“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.”
–Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.”
— George Orwell, 1984
The American Taliban will spend a lot of time today celebrating the crimes of Christopher Columbus, supposedly visited upon the noble “indigenous peoples”. But it is all a pack of lies. If you review primary sources (necessarily, due to the time period, in Spanish), you will find no evidence of any such alleged behavior by either Columbus or the Spanish explorers under his command. Indeed, it was not until more than 300 years after Columbus’s death that you find “historians” criticizing his voyages and explorations. The truth is, Christopher Columbus was a great explorer, whose efforts led to the civilization of the New World. Those who attack him are angry that Europeans came to our shores. Since history does not support their anger, they manufacture a version of “history” that does.
“Today should just be Indigenous Peoples Day. And yet this day is still shared with a genocidal maniac. We need to take this time to reflect on the brutal history of violence against Indigenous peoples in America and recognize that there is still a lot of work to repair this harm.”
–Representative Nydia Velazquez (D. N.Y.)
Today is Columbus Day (observed). But this year, Columbus Day actually falls on October 12, which is Columbus Day. Woo hoo!
Today is NOT “Indigenous Peoples Day”, no matter what officials in D.C., Alexandria, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and San Francisco proclaim. IT. IS. COLUMBUS DAY.
As every child knows, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the Ocean blue”. It was a bold expedition, taken at a time when many believed the Earth to be flat, in an attempt to find a western route to India. Instead of landing in India, Columbus arrived at an island that is now part of the Bahamas. He discovered the “New World”, lands previously unknown to the “Old World”.
The significance of Columbus’s voyages cannot be understated. He opened up the America’s to European exploration and colonization, a process which naturally resulted in the establishment of, first, the Jamestown Colony, and eventually, the 13 English colonies and the United States of America.
By contrast, the “indigenous peoples” (aka Indians), accomplished . . . nothing. The Observations is not being harsh in noting that the Indian tribes were savages. They practiced human sacrifices, practiced slavery, worshipped pagan idols, engaged in endless wars with other tribes, raping women and scalping and murdering enemy prisoners, and figuratively speaking, raped the land, as they had no knowledge of conservation and wise land stewardship. They were uneducated nomads, barely subsisting. They established no societies or countries. They were squatters on unsettled continents.
Now if this edition of The Observations were to leak to the usual suspects, no doubt I would be burned at the stake by the outraged mob. Just like the indigenous peoples would have done all those years ago. But that the American Taliban would inflict such a crime would not change history. Facts are facts. And it is a fact that Columbus was a consequential man who accomplished great things. Today we celebrate Christopher Columbus.
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One hundred fifty six (156) years ago today, Robert Edward Lee died of pneumonia. Over the previous 5 years, General Lee had transitioned into President Lee, leading the struggling Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, and placing it on solid ground. Having spurned the many lucrative offers from businesses all over the United States following the conclusion of The Late Unpleasantness, Robert E. Lee accepted the offer from Washington College’s Board of Trustees to become its president. For the next 5 years, Robert E. Lee worked tirelessly at improving the school devastated by the War, attracting students from the entire country, as well as donors interested in supporting the school. He founded the College’s law and journalism schools, created the Honor System, and built what was known as Lee Chapel (until The American Taliban struck in 2022). Upon his death, President Lee was buried beneath the Chapel, adjacent to his office, which remains today as he left it 156 years ago.
Robert E. Lee is best known for his leadership during The Late Unpleasantness. But his greatest legacy and effect is that which he had on “his boys”, the students that matriculated and attended Washington College, and those who came after to Washington & Lee University. We, “his boys”, all aspire to replicate his example, knowing all the time we shall fall far short.
Robert E. Lee was a great American, a great Virginian, and a great man. We can all take a lesson from the example he set while on this Earth. R. I. P.
GFK
