On October 9th, 2025, Donald Trump unleashed his Columbus Day proclamation on the world. I know, I’m a little behind the times but what the hell, there’s always time to address idiocy. I’ve given his statements some thought. Some of them, anyway; his screeches about radical liberals isn’t worth the effort to dismiss them. My focus here is on one particular section, mainly the suggestion that Christopher Columbus brought civilization to America. He (or more likely Stephen Miller wrote FOR him):
“Guided by steadfast prayer and unwavering fortitude and resolve, Columbus’s journey carried thousands of years of wisdom, philosophy, reason, and culture across the Atlantic into the Americas — paving the way for the ultimate triumph of Western civilization less than three centuries later on July 4, 1776.”
Uh-huh. Let’s examine that claim, shall we?
The year 1453 is generally considered the date that the Middle Ages ended in Europe with the fall of Constantinople and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. Europe had been under the dark thumb of the Catholic Church since the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. Columbus was two years old in 1453. In those centuries, between the years 1096 AD to 1270 AD there were eight Crusades. The prevailing economic system was a state of feudalism where the peasants worked the land and their lords reaped the benefits. Oh, and in 1346 the Black Death began, claiming up to 50 million lives by 1353—only 102 years before Columbus was born.
‘Civilization’ only began to flourish in Europe again with the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy, from 1350 to 1600. This was the beginning of the end of feudalism and a new era of prosperity and the flourishing of artistic works. Europe DID NOT HAVE thousands of years of civilization behind it when Columbus bumped into the Bahamas and mistook it for China. ‘Civilization’ had barely begun to be revived.
Need more scintillating facts? You’re gonna love this. Everybody ‘knows’ about the Spanish Inquisition. At least we know it was a religious fraternity that terrorized peasants for hundreds of years. Want to guess when it started?
November 1, 1478. Only fourteen years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Ironically it was established by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the same royal couple who sponsored Christopher’s abortive voyages to America—I mean Asia. The first Inquisition had actually been established by Pope Lucius III in 1184. The Spanish version would officially last until it was abolished in 1834 by a decree from queen regent Maria Cristina de Borbon.
Now, does anyone remember when Galileo Galilei was forced to recant his true observations about the solar system?
1633.AD—141 YEARS AFTER Columbus ‘discovered’ America. He was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615 for espousing beliefs contradicting Biblical interpretations. He was found to be “vehemently suspect of heresy” for supporting the Copernican theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun. He would be sentenced to house arrest for the final nine years of his life, and forced to recant.
I’m not here to argue the merits of Columbus or the destruction that resulted from the colonization of America. That’s established. What we have established is that Donald Trump’s claim that Europe was a beacon of civilization for the Americas is a load of hog slop. But what can you expect from a mind like Trump’s?
Papablues Scrapbook 