As much as I like the general topic (and agree with your thesis of the unifying power of myths), I’m afraid you’re terribly behind in your understanding of how Columbus is being taught. My 12-year-old daughter came home asking me why we celebrated Columbus Day when he was clearly such an evil guy. She proceeded to lay out all of the crimes of Columbus that she had learned in school. By the way, we live in Texas, so if she’s learning this about Columbus, everyone is.

Which, in the context of your topic, raises the question of what unifying story is now being promulgated? The story now seems that America was founded on the Original Sin of Columbus, from which we now need salvation. Who will be bringing that salvation? What will it look like? Who, exactly, is being saved?

Either way, we are replacing one myth with another. The historical Columbus was a complex man with complex motivations in a complex society. Many of his actions were considered perfectly moral during that time. How do we deal with that, historically? Or do we mythologize that, too, and simply judge it harshly with a moral code completely foreign to the people we’re now judging?

I happen to believe that we need myth. I also happen to believe, as I think you do, that history is no place for it. To the extent possible, history ought to be more akin to science in its attempt to uncover the facts of how things are/were — the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly. I love the mythologizing of Hamilton in the musical, but when I turn to history, I had better not find those mythological elements.