Christopher Columbus would be dismayed, confused, embarrassed and angry watching Americans, particularly the young, turn against him for reasons that would make no sense to him. Columbus viewed himself as the discoverer of a New World who suffered years of ridicule seeking to finance a watery path westward to Japan and China.

He saw himself as sailor, explorer, merchant and missionary — to him, all noble pursuits and honorable attributes. But not only today, he also suffered defeat in his own time. He had no political skill and even his own young priest, wanting his governor’s job, turned against him, forcing the admiral’s return to Spain in chains in 1500. Despite his sailing also to South America and Central America, the new continents were named for another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, not Columbus.