In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, landing in an area rich in natural resources and diverse and advanced civilizations. He then preceded to launch one of the most violent and devastating campaigns of attempted genocide in history.
According to Catholic priest Bartolome de las Casas who observed European atrocities committed against indigenous peoples,
[The Spaniards] thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades. They forced their way into native settlements, slaughtering everyone they found there, including small children, old men, pregnant women, and even women who had just given birth. They hacked them to pieces, slicing open their bellies with their swords as though they were sheep herded into a pen. They even laid wagers on whether they could manage to slice a man in two at a stroke, or cut an individual’s head from his body, or disembowel him with a single blow of their axes. They grabbed suckling infants by the feet and, ripping them from their mothers’ breasts, dashed them headlong against the rocks. Others, laughing and joking all the while, threw them over their shoulders into a river, shouting: ‘Wriggle, you litle perisher.’ They slaughtered anyone on their path …”
How can we possibly celebrate this? What does it say about our country that we have a federally mandated holiday honoring a man who massacred and brought disease upon the first people on this land?
It is inexcusable for a nation to celebrate the historical tragedies experienced by some of its own people, especially when the nation was founded on these very tragedies, perpetrated by its own military and government, and continued in the form of economic, environmental & cultural exploitation and historical revisionism.
The time to take action is long overdue, and so the time to take action is now.
Visit Reconsider Columbus Day and take action!
Tags: Activism, American Indians, Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, Liberalism, Native Americans
