by Dallas Spires

Created on: October 12, 2009

Over the years, there has been a lot of talk about who may or may not have "discovered" the New World. It has been argued that "discovery" may be the wrong term for Christopher Columbus' arrival, since there were people already living on the land that was new to Columbus and his crew. We called them Indians because Columbus named them after the land he thought he'd found. Today we know them as Native Americans because they were native to this as yet unnamed land. And lately it has been widely televised that the Vikings may have been here long before Columbus.

It has become trendy and fashionable to deny Columbus Day and deny Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World because there's just no way he could have discovered the land that was already populated by a native people and had already been visited by other foreign peoples like Vikings. To understand why the discovery of America is important even in today's enlightened society, we must first put the idea of discovery in context. Then, we will see that Columbus' discovery is what made it possible for the New World to grow and prosper.

Christopher Columbus found a land unknown to Europe, thus "discovering" it for the civilized world. That discovery led to Europe's fascination with the New World and its people, as well as the spices and other products available to be traded back home. Europe's fascination with the New World led to the settlement of the New World by European nations. European settlers brought European ideas, culture, and technology to an otherwise "savage" land. In other words, our world would be completely different today if not for the European settlers who, in turn, probably wouldn't have settled here if not for Columbus' discovery of this new, fascinating world. Our society and culture would be traceable back to its Native roots, in the least. At most, we would probably still live much like the native people of America who were here before the Europeans.

It is rather unfortunate that progress always seems to carry tragedy in tow. The Western world idolizes ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures, all of which were supported by slavery and war. We are fascinated by ancient Native American cultures who, we believe, performed human sacrifices to their gods in order to preserve their existence. Though their existence may not have been preserved, their presence certainly was, a fact that may or may not have anything to do with sacrifices.

The New World has definitely seen its share of atrocities, from racism and slavery to the murder of untold numbers of Natives. However, we enjoy a privileged life here, a few hundred years after the European discovery of America. It was promised that this land was the land of plenty, and it has become the land of excess, the land of luxury. In the United States, our culture and governmnent grew out of Western European ideals: democracy, personal liberties, inalienable rights, equality. Okay, we haven't perfected any of those, but we're working on it, sort of.

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