Tom McLaughlin: Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day

What struck me most about the Santa Maria was how tiny she is. A replica sailed into Portland Harbor last month, and I paid $10 to go aboard and look around. More astonishing still was remembering that the Nina and the Pinta — the two caravels sailing with the Santa Maria — were even smaller. There’s only one enclosed space on the biggest ship, and that was where the captain slept. Its 52 crew members slept on the open deck of the 117-foot ship, only going below with the cargo when the weather was bad.

Americans my age were taught to revere Christopher Columbus for his intrepid maritime leadership sailing across uncharted waters, holding a mutinous crew together and discovering what we call America. Now, schoolchildren are taught that Columbus was a money-grubbing, European, white guy who slaughtered and enslaved innocent Native Americans who only wanted to help him and his men. When Democrats took over Maine government in 2018, they abolished Columbus Day and ordered Maine citizens to celebrate “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” instead.