October 11, 2025 • 15 mins
A generation believes Christopher Columbus was a villain. But that story didn’t emerge organically — it was written by one man, and it spread like gospel through classrooms across America.
In this full-length episode, we dismantle the Howard Zinn narrative, expose the myths (like the infamous “smallpox blankets”), and tell the real story of what happened when Europe and America collided — a clash of civilizations that shaped the modern world.
We’ll cover:
• 📚 How Howard Zinn’s A People’s History rewrote Columbus’s legacy
• 🧠 Mary Grabar’s takedown of Zinn’s distortions
• 🧭 What Columbus actually accomplished — and why it mattered
• 🦠 Disease myths, including the smallpox blanket story and the two-way spread of illness
• ⚔️ Why the clash between Europe and the Americas was inevitable — and what would’ve happened if someone else (like the Arabs or Chinese) had arrived first
• ✝️ The role of Christianity in shaping the civilization that emerged
Columbus didn’t just carry ships across the Atlantic. He carried a civilization — with all its virtues and flaws. And the values that came with him — law above power, human worth, forgiveness, the dignity of the individual — are still the ones people want to live under today.
This is the story Howard Zinn didn’t tell. And it’s one worth reclaiming.
🎧 Subscribe to The Tenth Man Podcast for more deep dives that challenge the narratives and break the echo chamber.
Commentary on trending issues brought to you with a moderate perspective.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
The modern story of ChristopherColumbus involves a villain, but
the villain is not who you thinkit is.
How one man turned ChristopherColumbus into the face of evil,
today on The Tenth Man One man,one book, one ideology.
(00:37):
That's all it took to turnChristopher Columbus from one of
history's greatest navigatorsinto the ultimate villain of
Western civilization.
Not centuries of scholarship,not a wave of newly unearthed
evidence.
Just one activist historian in1980, a catchy narrative and a
(00:57):
captive audience of millions ofstudents.
From that moment on, Columbuswas no longer the daring
explorer who connected twohemispheres.
He was the arch villain in themorality play of Western
Imperialism.
But here's the thing, if youwere taught that story, that
(01:19):
story isn't history.
It's propaganda.
And if we're going to talkhonestly about Columbus, we need
to talk first about the man whorewrote him, Howard Zinn.
And then about what actuallyhappened when Europe and America
collided.
Because they did collide, Europewon, and thank goodness it did.
(01:46):
Had that not happened, the mapof the world might look very
different and not in theromantic way some imagine today.
Howard Zinn published a People'sHistory of the United States in
1980.
The book quickly became asensation in academia, then in
high schools.
By the 1990s, it was practicallyrequired reading in AP US
(02:11):
history courses.
For many students, this wastheir first and only exposure to
Christopher Columbus.
Zinn wasn't a neutral historian,which is the only kind of
historian we're supposed tostudy, and he admitted as much
in his introduction.
(02:33):
His goal, he wrote, was to tellhistory from the perspective of
the oppressed, not to beobjective.
Of course, he decided who theoppressed were, and that's not
my editorializing.
That's Zinn's own framing.
To construct his Columbuschapter, Zinn leaned heavily on
(02:56):
one source, Bartolome de LasCasas a Spanish priest writing
decades after Columbus'svoyages.
Las Casas wrote vividly aboutatrocities committed by the
Spanish, some of which hewitnessed.
Others he heard secondhand.
His writings are valuable, buthardly neutral.
(03:20):
Moreover, Zinn cherry picked themost inflammatory passages,
ripping them from context, andpresented them as if they were
pages from Columbus personaldiary.
Professional historians acrossthe spectrum shredded Zinn's
methods.
Samuel Elliot Morrison, aPulitzer Prize winner and naval
(03:42):
officer, wrote the definitiveColumbus biography.
Zinn selectively quoted him tomake Columbus look worse,
ignoring entire sections thatpraise Columbus navigational
genius, or clarified thehistorical context.
And even many left-leaningscholars called Zinn's book,
"unsophisticated" called it"ideological", and"a piece of
(04:06):
activism pretending to behistory".
Zinn's impact on historicalmemory, however, was enormous,
on par with cultural figures whoreshaped public perception in
other fields.
Think of Rachel Carson whoseSilent Spring ignited the modern
environmental movement byexposing real dangers in
(04:27):
pesticide use.
We may disagree with some of herconclusions, but her work was
meticulously researched andgenuinely transformative.
Then think of the man who gaveus global warming.
James Hansen, the NASA scientistwhose 1988 congressional
testimony essentially inventedthe modern climate change
(04:50):
narrative.
Hansen had data, yes, but also aflare for drama that turned a
technical debate into a moralcrusade overnight.
Howard Zinn did somethingsimilar for American history.
He didn't just reinterpret thepast.
He rewrote the moral script,casting Columbus as the villain
(05:12):
in a grand morality play.
The difference is Carson triedto inform Hansen, tried to
persuade Zinn, tried toindoctrinate.
Over time, the narrativehardened.
Statues came down.
Columbus Day becamecontroversial.
(05:34):
Generations grew up knowing themyth of Zinn's Columbus, not the
man himself.
Zinn's version didn't gounchallenged.
Historian Mary Grabar in herbook, Debunking Howard Zinn
meticulously dismantled hisdistortions, showing how he
cherry picked sources, misquotedkey historians, and turned moral
(05:57):
arguments into history.
Her work exposed the ideologicalsleight of hand that transformed
Columbus from explorer into archvillain.
To understand Columbus, we haveto go back to the late 15th
century a time when the edges ofthe map were filled with dragons
and sea monsters.
(06:19):
Reaching Asia by sailing Westwas revolutionary.
Nobody in Europe had done it.
Nobody knew if it could even bedone.
Columbus was not a conquistadorwith an army at his back.
He was a sailor- and a good one-with a bold theory trying to
(06:39):
reach Asia by a shorter route.
He convinced Ferdinand andIsabella of Spain to fund his
voyage in 1492, he crossed theAtlantic in wooden ships barely
larger than modern fishingboats.
He completed four transatlanticvoyages opening the Americas to
(06:59):
Europe and launching whathistorians call the Colombian
Exchange, the massive transferof people, plants, animals,
technologies, and ideas betweenhemispheres.
This exchange reshaped humanhistory.
Potatoes and corn maizetransformed European diets.
(07:23):
Horses revolutionized life inthe Americas.
Diseases crossed oceans too,with devastating consequences.
But that was not planned,biological warfare.
The popular myth of smallpoxblankets Europeans deliberately
infecting Native Americans isjust that a myth.
(07:45):
There's no credible evidenceColumbus or his contemporaries
ever engaged in such a scheme.
The story was popularized byHoward Zinn and repeated so
often that it hardened into factin classrooms and activist
rhetoric.
But just as COVID didn't need aconspiracy to spread across the
world, smallpox didn't needblankets.
(08:08):
Two isolated populations met,disease did the rest.
And here's the part you almostnever hear.
Disease traveled both ways.
While smallpox and measlesspread, west syphilis and other
pathogens spread east, killingfar more Europeans than the
reverse over the followingcenturies.
(08:28):
The Colombian exchange was atwo-way biological highway, not
a one directional tale ofEuropean villainy.
Columbus himself was a man ofhis time, ambitious, pious,
occasionally harsh, occasionallycompassionate.
He had authority but notabsolute power.
(08:50):
He dealt with mutinous crews,rival factions, and native
groups who were hardly passivevictims.
Many indigenous societiespracticed their own forms of
conquest and slavery long beforeEuropeans arrived.
Was Columbus perfect?
No.
(09:11):
Did he participate in practiceswe condemn today like slavery?
Yes, so what?
So did every other society onEarth at the time.
The transatlantic slave tradeexisted because slavery itself
was already widespread, notbecause Columbus invented it.
What Columbus did do was connecttwo halves of the world, setting
(09:36):
the stage for globalcivilization as we know it.
When Europe and America finallymet, it was a clash of
civilizations.
Europe won and that's a goodthing.
Let's be honest.
pre-Columbian civilizations inthe Americas were not idyllic
gardens of peace.
(09:56):
In some of the most advancedcultures, human sacrifice was
institutional.
The Aztecs performed ritualkillings on a staggering scale,
cutting out hearts to feed theirgods.
The Maya practiced bloodlettingand sacrifice.
Slavery existed in many tribes.
(10:18):
Wars were frequent.
These were civilizations, yes,but they were not morally
superior to Europe.
They were simply differentoperating under pagan religious
systems where human life wasexpendable.
European civilization for allits flaws brought with it
(10:39):
Christianity, literacy, the ruleof law.
And a moral framework that wouldover centuries lead to the
abolition of practices likeslavery.
Was European conquest brutal?
Of course, but conquest was theglobal norm.
What's unique is that Europeeventually turned its moral
(11:01):
scrutiny on itself, abolishingthe slave trade, elevating human
rights, and spreading literacyand scientific progress on a
global scale.
The collision between Europe andAmerica was inevitable.
The question wasn't if, it waswhen and under whose values.
(11:24):
People sometimes say, what ifColumbus had never sailed?
As if the two hemispheres couldhave remained isolated forever.
That's a fantasy.
If Columbus hadn't crossed fromthe East, someone would've
crossed from the west.
The Chinese were alreadyexploring the Indian Ocean with
(11:44):
massive treasure fleets.
Japan was a rising power.
Russia was pushing acrossSiberia.
Someone was coming, and historyis complex.
Think back to 732 AD the Battleof Tours.
Charles Martel and hisoutnumbered Frankish forces
(12:04):
stopped the Arab invasion ofEurope in its tracks.
If Martel had lost, Europe couldeasily have fallen under Islamic
rule.
How different would the worldhave been if it had been the
Arabs who discovered.
the Americas centuries later?
If the Arabs had come, the slavetrade may have gone in the
(12:25):
opposite direction.
Not Europeans, enslavingAfricans, but Arabs,
transporting Europeans or NativeAmericans eastward, with a very
different set of culturalvalues, different economic
systems, and a completelydifferent moral trajectory that
would've shaped the hemisphere.
Would today's activists preferthat?
(12:48):
If the Ming Dynasty, theShogunate, or the Caliphate had
first contact, the values thatdefine the new World would not
have been European, Christian,or Western.
They would've been somethingelse entirely.
Modern critics love toselectively apply 21st century
moral standards backward to 15thcentury people.
(13:11):
They treat Columbus as if hewere a modern politician
standing trial on cable news.
But history doesn't work thatway.
Conquest was universal.
Slavery was universal.
Cruelty was universal.
What made the European projectdistinct was that over time it
(13:33):
generated the tools to questionitself.
Theology, philosophy, law, andeventually democratic
institutions.
Zinn's narrative, flattens allthis complexity into a simple
fable.
Columbus evil.
Native's good.
Europe, bad.
It is easy to teach.
(13:53):
It fits neatly into activisttalking points, but it's not
honest history.
Columbus isn't just a figure tobe understood.
He's a figure to be rememberedand celebrated.
Not because he was perfect, noone is, but because what he
accomplished changed the courseof history.
(14:16):
One daring sailor opened theAtlantic and set in motion the
creation of a new world.
He brought not just ships andsailors, but a civilization with
all its virtues and flaws, andhe carried Christianity across
the ocean.
For all his faults.
Columbus brought the faith thatbuilt hospitals, schools,
(14:37):
cathedrals, and ultimatelynations.
He planted a flag.
But he also planted a cross.
People love to mockChristianity, but everyone wants
to live where Christian valuesprevail, where human life has
worth forgiveness is a virtue,law stands above power and the
(15:01):
individual matters.
Those were the values Europecarried across the ocean.
They're the values that shapedthe civilization we live in
today.
Howard Zinn's myth reduced allthis to a morality play.
History tells a richer story,and Columbus stands at its
(15:21):
center.
The modern story of ChristopherColumbus involves a villain, but
the villain is not who you thinkit is.
How one man turned ChristopherColumbus into the face of evil,
today on The Tenth Man One man,one book, one ideology.
(00:37):
That's all it took to turnChristopher Columbus from one of
history's greatest navigatorsinto the ultimate villain of
Western civilization.
Not centuries of scholarship,not a wave of newly unearthed
evidence.
Just one activist historian in1980, a catchy narrative and a
(00:57):
captive audience of millions ofstudents.
From that moment on, Columbuswas no longer the daring
explorer who connected twohemispheres.
He was the arch villain in themorality play of Western
Imperialism.
But here's the thing, if youwere taught that story, that
(01:19):
story isn't history.
It's propaganda.
And if we're going to talkhonestly about Columbus, we need
to talk first about the man whorewrote him, Howard Zinn.
And then about what actuallyhappened when Europe and America
collided.
Because they did collide, Europewon, and thank goodness it did.
(01:46):
Had that not happened, the mapof the world might look very
different and not in theromantic way some imagine today.
Howard Zinn published a People'sHistory of the United States in
1980.
The book quickly became asensation in academia, then in
high schools.
By the 1990s, it was practicallyrequired reading in AP US
(02:11):
history courses.
For many students, this wastheir first and only exposure to
Christopher Columbus.
Zinn wasn't a neutral historian,which is the only kind of
historian we're supposed tostudy, and he admitted as much
in his introduction.
(02:33):
His goal, he wrote, was to tellhistory from the perspective of
the oppressed, not to beobjective.
Of course, he decided who theoppressed were, and that's not
my editorializing.
That's Zinn's own framing.
To construct his Columbuschapter, Zinn leaned heavily on
(02:56):
one source, Bartolome de LasCasas a Spanish priest writing
decades after Columbus'svoyages.
Las Casas wrote vividly aboutatrocities committed by the
Spanish, some of which hewitnessed.
Others he heard secondhand.
His writings are valuable, buthardly neutral.
(03:20):
Moreover, Zinn cherry picked themost inflammatory passages,
ripping them from context, andpresented them as if they were
pages from Columbus personaldiary.
Professional historians acrossthe spectrum shredded Zinn's
methods.
Samuel Elliot Morrison, aPulitzer Prize winner and naval
(03:42):
officer, wrote the definitiveColumbus biography.
Zinn selectively quoted him tomake Columbus look worse,
ignoring entire sections thatpraise Columbus navigational
genius, or clarified thehistorical context.
And even many left-leaningscholars called Zinn's book,
"unsophisticated" called it"ideological", and"a piece of
(04:06):
activism pretending to behistory".
Zinn's impact on historicalmemory, however, was enormous,
on par with cultural figures whoreshaped public perception in
other fields.
Think of Rachel Carson whoseSilent Spring ignited the modern
environmental movement byexposing real dangers in
(04:27):
pesticide use.
We may disagree with some of herconclusions, but her work was
meticulously researched andgenuinely transformative.
Then think of the man who gaveus global warming.
James Hansen, the NASA scientistwhose 1988 congressional
testimony essentially inventedthe modern climate change
(04:50):
narrative.
Hansen had data, yes, but also aflare for drama that turned a
technical debate into a moralcrusade overnight.
Howard Zinn did somethingsimilar for American history.
He didn't just reinterpret thepast.
He rewrote the moral script,casting Columbus as the villain
(05:12):
in a grand morality play.
The difference is Carson triedto inform Hansen, tried to
persuade Zinn, tried toindoctrinate.
Over time, the narrativehardened.
Statues came down.
Columbus Day becamecontroversial.
(05:34):
Generations grew up knowing themyth of Zinn's Columbus, not the
man himself.
Zinn's version didn't gounchallenged.
Historian Mary Grabar in herbook, Debunking Howard Zinn
meticulously dismantled hisdistortions, showing how he
cherry picked sources, misquotedkey historians, and turned moral
(05:57):
arguments into history.
Her work exposed the ideologicalsleight of hand that transformed
Columbus from explorer into archvillain.
To understand Columbus, we haveto go back to the late 15th
century a time when the edges ofthe map were filled with dragons
and sea monsters.
(06:19):
Reaching Asia by sailing Westwas revolutionary.
Nobody in Europe had done it.
Nobody knew if it could even bedone.
Columbus was not a conquistadorwith an army at his back.
He was a sailor- and a good one-with a bold theory trying to
(06:39):
reach Asia by a shorter route.
He convinced Ferdinand andIsabella of Spain to fund his
voyage in 1492, he crossed theAtlantic in wooden ships barely
larger than modern fishingboats.
He completed four transatlanticvoyages opening the Americas to
(06:59):
Europe and launching whathistorians call the Colombian
Exchange, the massive transferof people, plants, animals,
technologies, and ideas betweenhemispheres.
This exchange reshaped humanhistory.
Potatoes and corn maizetransformed European diets.
(07:23):
Horses revolutionized life inthe Americas.
Diseases crossed oceans too,with devastating consequences.
But that was not planned,biological warfare.
The popular myth of smallpoxblankets Europeans deliberately
infecting Native Americans isjust that a myth.
(07:45):
There's no credible evidenceColumbus or his contemporaries
ever engaged in such a scheme.
The story was popularized byHoward Zinn and repeated so
often that it hardened into factin classrooms and activist
rhetoric.
But just as COVID didn't need aconspiracy to spread across the
world, smallpox didn't needblankets.
(08:08):
Two isolated populations met,disease did the rest.
And here's the part you almostnever hear.
Disease traveled both ways.
While smallpox and measlesspread, west syphilis and other
pathogens spread east, killingfar more Europeans than the
reverse over the followingcenturies.
(08:28):
The Colombian exchange was atwo-way biological highway, not
a one directional tale ofEuropean villainy.
Columbus himself was a man ofhis time, ambitious, pious,
occasionally harsh, occasionallycompassionate.
He had authority but notabsolute power.
(08:50):
He dealt with mutinous crews,rival factions, and native
groups who were hardly passivevictims.
Many indigenous societiespracticed their own forms of
conquest and slavery long beforeEuropeans arrived.
Was Columbus perfect?
No.
(09:11):
Did he participate in practiceswe condemn today like slavery?
Yes, so what?
So did every other society onEarth at the time.
The transatlantic slave tradeexisted because slavery itself
was already widespread, notbecause Columbus invented it.
What Columbus did do was connecttwo halves of the world, setting
(09:36):
the stage for globalcivilization as we know it.
When Europe and America finallymet, it was a clash of
civilizations.
Europe won and that's a goodthing.
Let's be honest.
pre-Columbian civilizations inthe Americas were not idyllic
gardens of peace.
(09:56):
In some of the most advancedcultures, human sacrifice was
institutional.
The Aztecs performed ritualkillings on a staggering scale,
cutting out hearts to feed theirgods.
The Maya practiced bloodlettingand sacrifice.
Slavery existed in many tribes.
(10:18):
Wars were frequent.
These were civilizations, yes,but they were not morally
superior to Europe.
They were simply differentoperating under pagan religious
systems where human life wasexpendable.
European civilization for allits flaws brought with it
(10:39):
Christianity, literacy, the ruleof law.
And a moral framework that wouldover centuries lead to the
abolition of practices likeslavery.
Was European conquest brutal?
Of course, but conquest was theglobal norm.
What's unique is that Europeeventually turned its moral
(11:01):
scrutiny on itself, abolishingthe slave trade, elevating human
rights, and spreading literacyand scientific progress on a
global scale.
The collision between Europe andAmerica was inevitable.
The question wasn't if, it waswhen and under whose values.
(11:24):
People sometimes say, what ifColumbus had never sailed?
As if the two hemispheres couldhave remained isolated forever.
That's a fantasy.
If Columbus hadn't crossed fromthe East, someone would've
crossed from the west.
The Chinese were alreadyexploring the Indian Ocean with
(11:44):
massive treasure fleets.
Japan was a rising power.
Russia was pushing acrossSiberia.
Someone was coming, and historyis complex.
Think back to 732 AD the Battleof Tours.
Charles Martel and hisoutnumbered Frankish forces
(12:04):
stopped the Arab invasion ofEurope in its tracks.
If Martel had lost, Europe couldeasily have fallen under Islamic
rule.
How different would the worldhave been if it had been the
Arabs who discovered.
the Americas centuries later?
If the Arabs had come, the slavetrade may have gone in the
(12:25):
opposite direction.
Not Europeans, enslavingAfricans, but Arabs,
transporting Europeans or NativeAmericans eastward, with a very
different set of culturalvalues, different economic
systems, and a completelydifferent moral trajectory that
would've shaped the hemisphere.
Would today's activists preferthat?
(12:48):
If the Ming Dynasty, theShogunate, or the Caliphate had
first contact, the values thatdefine the new World would not
have been European, Christian,or Western.
They would've been somethingelse entirely.
Modern critics love toselectively apply 21st century
moral standards backward to 15thcentury people.
(13:11):
They treat Columbus as if hewere a modern politician
standing trial on cable news.
But history doesn't work thatway.
Conquest was universal.
Slavery was universal.
Cruelty was universal.
What made the European projectdistinct was that over time it
(13:33):
generated the tools to questionitself.
Theology, philosophy, law, andeventually democratic
institutions.
Zinn's narrative, flattens allthis complexity into a simple
fable.
Columbus evil.
Native's good.
Europe, bad.
It is easy to teach.
(13:53):
It fits neatly into activisttalking points, but it's not
honest history.
Columbus isn't just a figure tobe understood.
He's a figure to be rememberedand celebrated.
Not because he was perfect, noone is, but because what he
accomplished changed the courseof history.
(14:16):
One daring sailor opened theAtlantic and set in motion the
creation of a new world.
He brought not just ships andsailors, but a civilization with
all its virtues and flaws, andhe carried Christianity across
the ocean.
For all his faults.
Columbus brought the faith thatbuilt hospitals, schools,
(14:37):
cathedrals, and ultimatelynations.
He planted a flag.
But he also planted a cross.
People love to mockChristianity, but everyone wants
to live where Christian valuesprevail, where human life has
worth forgiveness is a virtue,law stands above power and the
(15:01):
individual matters.
Those were the values Europecarried across the ocean.
They're the values that shapedthe civilization we live in
today.
Howard Zinn's myth reduced allthis to a morality play.
History tells a richer story,and Columbus stands at its
(15:21):
center.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!