As the grandson of indentured servants, one-time privateers, accidental revolutionaries, and seekers of religious freedom, may I be the first in the Locker Room to wish a Happy Columbus Day to all our recent immigrants?
I asked my wife, who is of fairly recent native American descent, what she thought of the 17th century invasion of North America by Europeans; she told me promptly, “It is the unmitigated blessing of God in bringing the Gospel to his Indian people.” That may be a predictable response from the mother of a son we named after a missionary to the Massachusetts Indians, David Brainerd, but I think it’s instructive to remember that not everyone who might have an ancestral grievance over the matter shares that negative perspective.
