"The Great Explorer" or "The Great Oppressor"?

In school, I was always taught about the greatness of Christopher Columbus, “the great explorer” who discovered America. But this not true! Textbooks tell a different version of the truth in order to humanize him and make him look like a hero. Similarly, the U.S. government portrays Columbus in only a positive light, sharing the basic story about him that we’ve all heard before. However, in Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen presents a different account of Columbus. He provides all the details, including all the previous explorers before Columbus and even tells of Columbus’s flaws and brutal treatment of natives. I believe Loewan’s account to be closer to the truth because he did a lot of research and his purpose is to inform and relate what really happened in history. The government’s purpose, on the other hand, is to give an account of Columbus in light of the fact that we have a national holiday named after him. Obviously, if our country has a national holiday named after him, they are going to want to show why and they are going to portray him in an optimistic and biased way. I don’t think that Columbus actually deserves to have a holiday named after him at all. Out of the few people who are recognized by name in a national holiday, we shouldn’t be celebrating a man who was simply luckily enough to travel to the right place at the right time and got a big reaction and who oppressed native people.