My ancestor Chris was one heckuva guy

ITALIANS CURSE MAYOR

ONE OF Christopher Columbus’s descendants is sailing the ocean blue because of what people are saying about his ancestor.

In an Op-Ed for USA Today, Christopher Columbus XX went to bat for the now-controversial explorer, saying criticism of his legacy is “political” and not based on history.

“History has some truly evil people. Columbus is certainly not one of them,” Columbus wrote in a piece published Monday — Columbus Day. “Most often, history is not made up of perfect people and evil ones, but of complex people who must be understood in context.”

Columbus XX (photo inset) said it was not easy for two cultures to come together, and the blame should not be placed on his ancestor.

“Blaming Columbus for everything that went wrong hides the truth about him and about those who followed him. It also obscures the great things that the countries of the American hemisphere have accomplished,” he wrote.

“The fleet’s caravels were not warships but explorer vessels. He brought together two continents that didn’t know of one another’s existence. For the first time in history, the world acquired a truly global perspective.”

Columbus argued that his ancestor was not the source of all ills in the Americas.

“Those who now question Columbus conveniently ignore the fact that slavery, cannibalism, warfare and even human sacrifice all existed in the Americas before he even sailed,” he wrote.

“Few schoolchildren in this country will ever learn that Spain’s kings quickly gave Spanish citizenship to Native Americans and began restricting enslavement of Native Americans,” he wrote.

According to Columbus, taking on an “all-or-nothing view of history polarizes everything.”

“And ironically, those who oppose Columbus in the name of progressive ideas end up following the propaganda campaigns of the Ku Klux Klan and also of (Venezuela’s) Hugo Chavez, who suppressed the celebration and replaced it with the Day of Indigenous Resistance,” he wrote.