In our current social turmoil, it is distressing but not surprising that large numbers of citizens, mostly young white people, have been tearing down statues of some of the most prominent figures in American history. In a way, it’s not their fault. Almost all they have been taught to remember, from kindergarten to graduate school, about great men such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson is not that they created one of the most astonishing nations in the history of the world but that they owned slaves. Even Abraham Lincoln is not beyond reproach for the pure ideologues.

But it’s been puzzling that, for decades, Christopher Columbus has been tarred with the same brush. He died over a century before 1619 — the year that the New York Times and other progressive voices are now telling us was the “true” beginning of the United States with the arrival in Virginia of the first African slaves. His only real connection to the nation was the opening up of the Americas to the rest of the world, a monumental achievement that changed history. But why the venom directed toward him?