“Observations”
by: Donald S. Conkey
Date: 11 October 2007 - # 541 - Columbus Day (806)
Have you ever wondered why Columbus Day is a national
holiday? I did. And because of my love for history, especially history involving the discovery of America, I looked it up again.
Tomorrow, October 12, will be the 515th anniversary of that day in 1492 that day Columbus landed on Watling’s Island in the Bahamas and “discovered”
America.
Others explored America prior to 1492 but Columbus’ famous voyage would identify America and set the stage for the Europeans to colonize America beginning
in 1607, immortalizing Columbus as the great discoverer of America.
History records many stories about Columbus. Some are true, many are myth, but all are interesting.
In 1792 New York City celebrated the 300th anniversary of Columbus’ landing. In 1892 President
Benjamin Harrison called upon the people of the United States to celebrate
Columbus Day on the 400th anniversary of his landing. Columbus Day has been celebrated annually since 1920 in some
form or fashion and in 1971 Congress declared the second Monday of October a legal holiday to honor Columbus’ discovery of America. Columbus Day has become a part of America’s historical culture, a culture strongly supporting the belief God had reserved America for a special purpose – to restore liberty and freedom to an enslaved world..
One of the myths circulated
about Columbus is that he believed the world was flat. Dr. Samuel Elliott Morison, a Harvard
professor, in his book “Admiral of the Ocean Sea,” clarified this myth with these words: “... of all the
vulgar errors connected with Columbus, the most persistent and the most absurd is that he had to convince people ‘the
world was round.’ Every educated man in his day believed the world to be a sphere...” Morison further states that around 200 B.C. Eratosthenes, a Greek, had guessed, rather accurately, the
distance around the earth. Columbus, however, felt his distance was over-estimated.
Few historians doubt
Columbus felt his mission was divine and that he could not fail. Jacob
Wasserman, in his ‘Don Quixote of the Seas,’ quotes from Columbus’ letter to
Spain’s King Ferdinand these words: “I came to your Majesty as the Emissary
of the Holy Ghost.” Later he wrote: “The Lord was well disposed to my desire, and he bestowed upon me courage
and understanding. ... Our Lord with provident hand unlocked my mind, sent me upon the sea, and gave me fire for the deed.
Those who heard of my emprise called it foolish, mocked me, and laughed, but who can doubt but that the Holy Ghost inspired
me?” His feat was seen as his ‘faith in action,’ sustained by the Holy Ghost.
Ancient American writings
support Columbus’ statements that his mission was divinely inspired with these words: “And
it came to pass that I looked and beheld many waters; and they divided the Gentiles (Europeans) from the seed of my brethren
(Native Americans). And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethren.
And I looked and beheld a man (suggesting Columbus) among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by
the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many
waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.”
Note the timing of Columbus’ discovery — Europe’s Renaissance was about to end and Europe’s Reformation period
was about to begin. And in 1607, 115 years later, the first European colony landed at Jamestown. Thirteen
years later the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The flood gates to America
for Europe’s religiously persecuted people had been opened. By 1776, with three million feisty God fearing
and freedom loving Scots, Welsh, and English in the colonies, the Lord raised up 56 free spirited men, men endowed with a
strong spirit of freedom, to declare their independence from a tyrannical king.
