christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus was a monster.

He saw people as commodities to be bought and sold. He destroyed lives for personal gain. His crimes include rape, murder, torture and genocide.

And today, many of us get to enjoy a beautiful Autumn day in celebration of the man who didn’t actually discover America.

Across the country people are also celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day, with Seattle Mayor Ed Murray signing the holiday into law Monday. The predictable cries of “going too far in terms of political correctness” are being heard, especially from the Italian-American community in Seattle. They are upset not because Columbus Day is being cancelled, (it isn’t) they are upset because Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Columbus Day are happening on the same date.

Mayor Murray says the new holiday “will add new significance to the date without replacing the Columbus Day tradition.” People will be free to celebrate either holiday, both, or neither, but many don’t want this new holiday to encroach on what they see as an ethnic, Italian-American celebration.

But let’s face facts: Columbus was a monster, and he doesn’t deserve to have a day of celebration in his honor. Really, this day off should celebrate any of the many great and positive things we enjoy about this world… but not historical monsters. We can certainly do better.

I know that this post will fall on many deaf ears. People will defend Columbus and Columbus Day the same way people defend the Confederate Flag and the antebellum South. Reality is inconvenient and history is fungible. Realistically confronting the legacy of Columbus opens up all sorts of questions about the exploitative nature of commerce and the erasure of indigenous cultures. It pries open the wound of first-world guilt: our wealth is built on the backs of slaves working stolen land.

For me, Monday is a day of contemplation, not celebration.

I’m going to take this day off to go apple picking with my family, catch the Pronk Parade, and be with friends. Along the way I’ll reflect a bit on the horrors people are willing to inflict on others in the name of profits, with a hope that we can work together to advance the fight to see inherent rather than economic value in others.

And I’m going to reread this awesome comic.

Ah, Columbus Day.

It’s a national holiday, and another paid day off for many folk, so we tend not to question it too closely. It’s not a deeply serious holiday like Memorial Day, where we (optimally) pause to reflect on those who have died while serving in the military, it’s Columbus Day, celebrating the guy who discovered America and tussled with Bugs Bunny in that one cartoon. The day seems pretty innocuous, until you realize it isn’t.

Columbus Day became a national holiday in 1934 as a result of lobbying on the part of the Knights of Columbus. Like other things the Knights of Columbus lobbied for, such as the addition of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance in 1951, Columbus Day wasn’t such a great idea, (because Columbus wasn’t such a great guy.)

When Columbus first met the Native Americans, he marveled that they had never seen a sword, and 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.” Putting his words into action, Columbus proceeded to do just that.

Columbus enslaved, murdered, raped and mutilated the Native Americans he met in his quest for gold. Bartolomé de las Casas wrote, upon visiting the region while Columbus was governor, that the Spaniards under Columbus “…”thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades. My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write.”

Other witnesses corroborate the brutality of Columbus. He was a monster.

To help counter the myth around Columbus and the quell the celebration of a murderous slave trader, a new holiday to “promote Native American culture and commemorate the history of Native American peoples” was organized to also occur on the second Monday of October, Indigenous People’s Day. In Rhode Island, the main celebration of this counter-Columbus day is PRONK!, The Providence Honk Festival held at India Point Park from 3-10 pm.

PRONK! is a free, family-friendly, all volunteer-run, outdoor music festival, featuring brass and drum-based street bands playing alongside local performance groups. For the past five years the festival has brought internationally performing bands to Providence while highlighting local talent, neighborhood flavor and community accomplishments. This day-long celebration of music and community activism, in the spirit of the Boston-based HONK!, is held on Indigenous Peoples Day (aka “Columbus Day”) each October.

PRONK! is awesome fun, and should not be missed.

Oatmeal cartoonist Michael Inman also has a suggestion regarding Columbus Day. He suggests calling it Bartolomé Day in honor of Bartolomé de las Casas, who I mention above as an eyewitness to the atrocities of Columbus. I don’t want to give away the comic, which should be required reading, but suffice it to say that Bartolomé de las Casas was a guy whose life is worth celebrating. He was a heroic priest that Catholics can be proud to call their own. He had his faults, like all men, but casual genocide wasn’t one of them. Click the first panel below to read the rest of this great comic.

Tag: christopher columbus

Let’s face it: Christopher Columbus was a monster

Instead of Columbus, celebrate Bartolomé Day with PRONK