On Columbus Day — “Indigenous People’s Day,” as it is known among revisionists — statues of the great explorer were vandalized in multiple cities. The monuments were doused in red paint and signs were posted accusing Columbus of “genocide.”
It is probably useless to critique the historical analysis of people who make their point by spraying red paint on things, but the “genocide” accusation against Columbus is ludicrous. Genocide is the targeted extermination of a certain ethnic or religious group. It is true that a very large percentage of Native Americans died in the first few centuries of contact with Europeans, but almost all of that was the result of disease. Columbus certainly didn’t intentionally spread disease among the native populations — and couldn’t, as germ theory wasn’t fully formulated for another 270 years or so.
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