10 Questions Christopher Columbus Needs To Answer

1. Where exactly are you from? I mean according to history you were born in the Republic of Genoa, which is now a part of Italy but during your time was under the Spanish monarch. But some historians swear up and down that you’re really Portuguese. And other theories suggest that you’re really the son of a Polish king! I’ve also even heard one theory that you might actually be Greek. So really, where are you from so we know which unfortunate nation-state gets to claim you?

2. How do you feel you compare to people who committed terrible genocides throughout history? Hitler? Stalin? Franco? Genghis Khan? Pol Pot? Idi Amin? The Akazu leaders of the Rwandan genocide? Granted these were all leaders of nation-states but do you think your name belongs with the best of ‘em? Do you have a favorite leader whose tactics you would have employed had you lived in a different technological age?

3. So when you cut off the hands of natives who refused to bring you gold or fed their bodies to dogs, did you get a particular twisted inhuman sensation out of doing it? Did you ever have nightmares? And exactly when did you realize you didn’t have a conscience anymore?

4. So when the natives helped you for hours on end to rescue your ship and crewmen on that first trip to modern-day Bahamas, at what point did you think,“You know what would be a good way to pay these guys back for saving my life? Enslavement, rape, and genocide. Yes. that’s it.”

5. How do you feel about the fact that what came to be known as the United States, where you never actually set one foot on, has a federal holiday dedicated to you? I mean don’t get me wrong, some of us are happy that we can take this day off. But do you think it’s a little weird? Or do you think it perfectly sums up how the natives of the Americas have basically been treated like complete shit since colonization?

6. Do you think you are the true originator of Manifest Destiny? Or do you think being bad at geography, math, and life in general, essentially led you to the wrong place by sheer dumb luck?

7. Do you think you’re just a misunderstood guy? You know, kind of like when the media does this thing when certain people who commit crimes and unlike condemning them to Hades like others, they talk about their childhood, whether their mother didn’t hug them enough, etc.- that kind of misunderstood guy?

8. How would you have done things differently if you had Google Maps? Do you think it would have made your genocide more efficient? You would have gone to more places?

9. Some people say that your legacy is “complicated.” How do you feel about this? Others argue that there’s nothing complicated about a man who sets sail for one place, lands on a different place, is credited with “discovering” said place, undergoes one ethnic cleansing after another, and is arguably one of the godfathers of the transatlantic slave trade. Do you consider yourself a complicated person?

10. And finally, all things considered, was it worth it? Or do you kind of wish you had just stayed in Genoa rather than being that guy who has centuries of entire peoples’ blood on his hands?