Today, an emotionally skewed country celebrates the day in 1492, when Christopher Columbus discovered America. Most banks are closed in remembrance of his greatness. Closing banks is an irony to a “financial guy” like me because Chris kind of sucked as a CEO.

He made huge business blunders and did it all on borrowed money. In two earlier voyages, he bought ships that leaked so badly he had to rush back to port so they could be replaced. He also did some “Bernie Madoff Prison Time” for various schemes and moral lapses.

Yet his PR ability exceeded his other skills. Going from palace to palace across Europe, he pitched his “new world” concept. The idea itself wasn’t bad, it was his greed! He demanded ten percent of whatever he found, an Admirals title, and a piece of all naval profits thereafter.  

When he got to Queen Isabella, she didn’t think Columbus would sail off the edge of the earth. She thought he had underestimated the size of the globe and would run out of fresh water before reaching China. So, she signed the contract, thinking he would die anyway.

Then in August of 1492, Chris set sail from “Palos de Frontera” on the west coast of Spain. After a long journey he landed in the Bahamas, believing it was Japan and for hundreds of years, Americans have been celebrating a man who didn’t know where the hell he was going.

But boy, could Chris control the narrative. He eventually got out of jail to become rich and famous—even though, Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer actually discover America a half century earlier. Of course, Leif didn’t have the same social media savvy and became only a historical footnote. But Leif’s dad, Erik the Red, was different story.

“Red” as in Erik the Red, discovered a land so barren he named it Green-land to make it sound beautiful—like putting a bow around the neck of an ugly dog for some attention. It worked handsomely. People built huts all over Greenland and “Red” much like Chis, became a celebrated man.

However, no matter who had the better public relations team, it was the Indigenous Peoples who got here first! Fourteen thousand years ago, during an ice age no less, Indigenous Peoples crossed the Bering Strait, beating both discoverers. That is where the American discovery story truly began.

From Christopher Columbus’s arrival in 1492 to the Mayflower in 1620, some ninety percent of all Native Americans died from white man diseases in what is called the “great dying”. A genocide not only of Indigenous Peoples, but one on the moral conscious of all mankind.

 Kevin J Palmer

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