Ripping Down The Columbus Myth

If there is a more superfluous or insensitive holiday than Columbus Day, I have not heard of it. As children, we were instructed Columbus Day celebrates Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America. In fact, in the Bahamas, where Christopher Columbus first landed, it is called Discovery Day. But here is the rub: the continent of America had already been discovered and populated by massive tribes of people who lived, for the most part, in harmony with nature and each other.

An argument could be made (though you won’t see it from me) indigenous population collapse was an unfortunate byproduct of European colonization of the American land Columbus happened upon while seeking a direct route to the Indies but Christopher Columbus didn’t stop there. Not the least bit phased by legions of Native Americans dying from exposure to smallpox, influenza, bubonic plague and other diseases against which they had no natural physical resistance, Columbus gathered the living and transported them back to Spain for use as servants. Observing the native population Columbus wrote,

“They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.... They would make fine servants.... With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

During his second voyage in 1495 Columbus wrote of the Indigenous people,

"Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold"

and he did, with many of them dying before they reached Spain. While it is impossible to know for sure, due to incomplete and, at times, biased record keeping, some historians estimate colonization of the American continent resulted in up to an eighty percent decrease in the Indigenous population. This was a convenient boon to Europeans since the decrease in indigenous population made it all that much easier to take over and repurpose Native American land and other resources.

Roman Catholic Bishop Bartolome de las Casas, who emigrated to Hispaniola in 1502, left some of the most complete diaries of Spanish conquest of the Americas. After witnessing the unprovoked slaughter of thousands of Tiano men, women and children, de las Casas wrote,

“I saw here cruelty on a scale no living being has ever seen or expects to see."

As early as 1511 Dominican Father Antonio de Montesinos termed the wholesale butchery of Indigenous Americans as genocide and asked,

"Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dealt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? Wars in which you have destroyed such an infinite number of them by homicides and slaughters never heard of before. Why do you keep them so oppressed and exhausted, without giving them enough to eat or curing them of the sicknesses they incur from the excessive labor you give them, and they die, or rather you kill them, in order to extract and acquire gold every day."

In his biography of Adolph Hitler author and historian John Toland wrote,

“Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination - by starvation and uneven combat - of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity."

UCLA Professor and Historian Geoffrey Symcox, general editor of a volume of Columbus era documents entitled, “Repertorium Columbian” said of Christopher Columbus’ legacy:

"Many of the unflattering documents have been known for the last century or more, but nobody paid much attention to them until recently. The fact that Columbus brought slavery, enormous exploitation or devastating diseases to the Americas used to be seen as a minor detail - if it was recognized at all - in light of his role as the great bringer of white man's civilization to the benighted idolatrous American continent. But to historians today this information is very important. It changes our whole view of the enterprise." 

So why, if clergy, dictators and historians have known for centuries the true nature of Christopher Columbus, do we still celebrate a day in his memory? Over the past several years, when this holiday has rolled around and I have pointed out the true nature of the individual to whom this holiday is dedicated many people have grown defensive and said, “You can’t take my three day weekend from me!” While it would be barbaric of me to try to pry away from United States citizens a federal Monday holiday dedicated to the attempted mass extermination of an entire race, this is not my intent at all. I propose we instead do what South Dakota already does and declare the second Monday in October National Indigenous People’s Day. I’m not pretending this is my idea. It has been celebrated in Berkeley, California and several other municipalities since 1992, the five hundredth anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage to America. After more than half a millennia of perpetuating a false myth of a very flawed man isn’t it time we became honest about American history and give the remaining Indigenous population their due?  

(Image courtesy of emersonkent.com)